Average, Good, Very Good, Great, Legendary...

Tooooooooo OFTEN, the Word "Great" is Used when it ISN'T Warranted, so Let's Start CATEGORIZING Fighters...Past AND Present...Here's Some STARTER Examples of How REED would Rate Certain Guys...

AVERAGE - Kendall Holt, Arturo Gatti

GOOD - Tim Bradley, Vernon Forrest, Jose Luis Castillo

VERY GOOD - Shane Mosley, Dela, Miguel Cotto

GREAT - Lennox Lewis, Bernard Hopkins

LEGENDARY - Ali, Ray Robinson, Duran

Start Placing Guys in these Categories &/or Argue AGAINST REED's Logic in Some of his Instances...This is Basely SOLELY on their FIGHTING ABILITY...IMPACT on an Era, Marketability, etc., is IRRELEVANT...



REED:hammert:

 

Mosley & DLH are a level above Cotto.

 

You'd really put Cotto on the same line as Mosley and DLH?

(Like ^ said.)

Too early to be putting Bradley with them, too, IMO.

And with weight-jumpers, I don't know, they're kinda hard to pin down b/c there's a difference between where they stack up in terms of their careers over all and where they rank as a fighter in certain division...that's if they stay at any particular division long enough to take on the kind of opposition that will prove greatness or goodness or averageness.

Mosley as a lightweight, even without great opposition, was pretty special.

 

Good Point...REED Would Rate Cotto BETTER than the "Good" Guys List, but SLIGHTLY Below Dela & Sugar Shane Status...

NOT Much Though...

REED:mj:

 

I'd put Oscar & Shane in the "great" category.

I consider guys like Arturo Gatti and Kendall Holt to be "good" and not "average". Average fighters, well we probably never even talk about them, they're at a lower level than what we talk about on the forums.

Very Good: Jose Luis Castillo, Miguel Angel Gonzalez, Joel Casamayor, Ricky Hatton, Diego Corrales, Fernando Vargas, Miguel Cotto.

Great: Floyd Mayweather, Oscar De La Hoya, Shane Mosley, Roy Jones, Pernell Whitaker


I'm not really sure about "legendary".

 

F.Y.I., these AREN'T Absolute Categorizations, Either...If Tim Bradley NEVER Wins Another Fight, he WOULDN'T Remain on the "Good" List...

REED had Sugar Shane & Dela in Mind when he Devised this Thread...They Fall just SHORT of True GREATness in REED's Opinion...



REED:hammert:

 

Once in a lifetime--RJJ

 

How Bout "Once Every Generation"???...Roy DEFINITELY Fits that Category...



REED:hammert:

 

I think it depends on how nit-picky you really want to get with these lists.

I'd put Jones and Whitaker above DLH and Mosley....and Mayweather, but with a smaller margin.

MAGO wouldn't be with some of those other fighters.

Cotto...he's just really hard to place given the whole Margarito debacle.

 

I'd put Roy in the same class with Floyd, Whitaker, and Leonard as "Special" fighters.

 

To REED, Roy & Sweet Pea R a LEVEL ABOVE Dela & Sugar Shane, @ the Very LEAST...If Roy Jones was Merely "Great", then Shane & Dela WERE NOT "Great", in REED's Opinion...



REED:hammert:

 

agREED...



REED:hammert:

 

We're Talking on a WORLD CLASS Level...Obviously, Gatti & Holt R BETTER than your Run-of-the-Mill Club Show Fighter in Bumfuck, Texas...REED Considers them "Average" by WORLD CLASS Standards...



REED:hammert:

 

the greatest fighter Ive seen was Jones Jr.

 

How Bout ELITE Level Mexican Fighters like Barrera, Morales & the Marquez Brothers???...

Joe Calzaghe???...Donald Curry???...Antonio Tarver???...

REED:mj:

 

marquez>morales>barrera

Calzaghe>tarver>curry

 

Beating a washed up Jones does NOT make Tarver greater then Curry.

 

Pretty much.

Angel Manfredy and Ivan Robinson showed that.

Not the kind of losses a 'good' champion takes in his prime.

The careful match-making he got afterwards can't cover those up.

To be honest, you could almost call Gatti 'below average'.

 

I'd probably put them all in the 'very good to great' category.

I'd put Calzaghe's fighting ability above DLH and Mosley, not sure if that puts him at great, or just 'very good+'

Tarver is below all three of those fighters...probably somewhere around the Forrest range.

 

I think this is an impossible exercise to make work, ultimately. How do you define shades of ability? With a thousand categories, & nothing less, really. It's unworkable. "Legendary," under the outlined system, would incorporate huge margins between fighters --- margins ultimately indefinable. While someone might rightly point out that's no different to the similarly-intangible pound-for-pound institution, the truth is getting down to the nitty-gritty on this level really requires fighters to be judged individually, rather than tiered, since no one can truthfully agree on what the margin for error is per category.

The above, though, ain't much fun, so forget all that ::

Of your list, Reed, I would dispute Mosley & De La Hoya being categorised both with Cotto, & below Hopkins. They were plainly better than the former, & IMO, more talented, but ultimately less-accomplished, than the latter. There is a legitimate reason no one considered Hopkins in the class of De La Hoya & Mosley for more than half of his career. It's only Hopkins' near-ageless career & unique ability to maximise his comparatively-modest talents which elevates him in-&-around the level of Mosley & De La Hoya, IMO. However, if I had to guess, I'd say the majority will agree with you, not I.

 

If you go by just using REED's criteria of "fighting ability", I'd put Hopkins, and Calzaghe, above DLH and Mosley.

 

I don't think he was as gifted as those men, nor did he generally fight as high a level of competition (especially when compared with De La Hoya), but there's little doubt he's in my category of, "Good fighters who turned out to be great."

 

Well, one thing Hopkins always had was conditioning. ::

Smart, adaptable, resourceful...and forever in good enough shape to carry out a gameplan for a full 12 rounds.

 

You can't take that much from him, that's for sure. Especially regarding his conditioning & resourcefulness. All the same size, would he beat Mosley & De La Hoya at their peaks, though? Possible, but not what I would consider likely. Even so, he certainly had the better career, & given I consider him somewhat inferior --- at least on the level of talent --- to those men, so much the better for him.

Hopkins makes the cut for my top-ten all-time Middleweights, which is high praise indeed, considering the division's depth through history.

 

Well, I think the "same" size argument punishes Hopkins, because even at his size, he showed he could maintain that weight (and more, when you think about how light he came in against DLH), whereas DLH started low and outgrew some of his lighter weights quickly...and even at 140 and 147, showed fatigue late in fights.

So, if you're giving DLH similar size against Hopkins, I think you have to take into consideration how he's gonna actually make weight weight for that fight.

Not that DLH always faded, and you can say he showed late-power against Carr and Quartery, but then those weren't exactly even performances by DLH in either of those fights, and I woudn't exactly use those fights as evidence he'd be able to outbox Hopkins.

Whitaker's ring intelligence gave a physically primed DLH hell for 12 rounds...and Hopkins would too, IMO.

 

I wouldn't disagree, either. Nowhere in the Universe will you find someone who thinks, pound-for-pound, De La Hoya would somehow easily defeat a Hopkins of the same size, I don't think. Truth be told, each would present pressing problems for the other. I'd favour De La Hoya, but that's just my take.

 

Will the winner of Pacman/Floyd be ranked up to "Legendary" status? Or is there still more to prove beyond that for each guy?

 

washed up? :: who did curry ever beat who ranked alongside Jones jr.?

 

No one, but going by that logic you could rank Buster Douglas over Larry Holmes. Larry never beat anyone as good as a prime Tyson.

Tarver is the same boat as Forrest. A good/very good fighter who had a great fighters number. Only in the case of Tarver, he had a great over the hill fighter's number.

Curry IMO was a great figher who burnt out quickly. But he managed to unify the division, and beat a good crop of Welters in dominate fashion. Its a crime that Curry's not yet in the HOF, yet guys like Palomino, Brian Mitchell, and McGugian are in there.