Better/Greater: Froch or Benvuneti

?

Typo in Benvenuti name, but you know who im talking about

 

Benvenuti for both and its not close. He's actually one of the more underappreciated greats. Probably because his style was ugly, and he's remembered most for Monzon taking his title. At the time Monzon beat him, Nino was considered one of the P4P best - Froch was never considered a top P4P guy... in a weaker era.

Benvenuti was the same level as McCallum imo. Froch doesn't deserve to be in this conversation, and the fact that he is bringing him back to overrated status.

 

Froch was a fairly regular figure in the Ring p4p lists. I don't think he was ever near the top of it, but he was a top ten p4p guy for a fairly consistent spell. One quick search right at the end of his career: Ring Ratings Update: Carl Froch advances in pound-for-pound rankings - The Ring

I still think you undersell Froch. This kind of shows that IMO.

AgREED with the rest, though.

MTF

 

I can see the argument for Benvuneti, but i disagree that its not close. Besides Rodriguez, Ortega, Griffith (who were all smaller) and Sandro, nino didn't really beat a lot of good fighters. And he has lost against some average guys (kim and bethea (though it guess you could argue he was past it for that one))

 

Also, i don't think that the p4p ranking of a fighter is important when judging how good they are/were. Broner was on a lot of these list at a point of his career, and we all know now that he wasnt anything special

 

These P4P lists are too subjective to have any significant worth tbh. They are an interesting point of discussion, but not much else. I only mentioned them because X did.

MTF

 

How on Earth can I be underselling Froch when yesterday I put on him on a highly respectable tier?

I said I would group him with a guy like Tim Bradley, which is an compliment, not an insult. Both those guys were very good, but not great.

Nino Benvenuti was a great fighter.

 

The problem with putting Froch too high is... a great fighter wouldn't lose to Mikkel Kessler. I say that as a Kessler FAN, I always liked Kessler. But all the truly greats from 160-175 would beat a guy like Kessler clearly. And I thought Kessler legitimately beat Froch in their first fight. You saw what two great fighters did to Kessler.

Moreover, how QUICKLY Froch fans forget, Froch arguably lost to Andre Dirrell. I thought he did.

It's getting out of hand at this point. The problem is, Froch fans can't even accept a response of "he was very good." They want more than that, but they're not getting it, because it isn't valid.

Carl Froch was not a great. Period.

 

I dont really agree. One performance.doesnt make or break a career. Some great fighters lost to worse guys than Kessler.

On the.other hand, I agree with you that Froch is a borderline great. He's a bit below a guy like Ward, who was a bonafide great, while not an atg. But my main objection is your assesment of Nino. I dont think he was a bonafide great, i think he was more in the borderline category

 

Benvenuti is wherever you wanna put McCallum. If Mike was greater, it isn't by an overwhelming margin. H2H I think Benvenuti vs McCallum would be a close fight, as Benvenuti's deceptive quickness and skill would provide problems for McCallum.

 

I think McCallum was better and greater than Nino, not overwhelmingly so, but a few notches above. McCallum never got destroyed like Nino was by Monzon, and i think a draw against Toney at middleweight is more impressive than a close triology with a middleweight Griffith

 

That draw was bullshit. Toney won the first McCallum fight clear as day. Its been sometime since I've seen it, but in the 2000s I watched it many times. I never saw how McCallum got a draw.

 

I scored it for toney by a few rounds, but i dont feel the draw was that farfetched

 

It just doesn't work like that. A great fighter wouldn't lose to Hasim Rahman or Ross Puritty or Buster Douglas or Kirkland Laing or Ken Norton...see how easy that can be done? It is not uncommon for a top fighter to lose to someone he would not expect to have lost to. And Kessler is hardly some scrub. He beat everyone he faced bar Calzaghe and Ward.

And I reiterate that your claim that he was 'never' part of any P4P conversations simply isn't true - he was a top ten mainstay for several years in several sources.

No-one is suggesting that Froch is an ATG. He isn't. But he was better than you are prepared to give him credit for.

MTF

 

Once again, how do I not give Froch enough credit? Saying he was Tim Bradley tier is plenty of credit. You could make a case that he's #5 all time time at 168, behind Roy, Calz, Ward, Toney.

That's giving him plenty of credit.

 

I think he's clearly a top 5 super mw.

 

In greatness, yes.

In H2H - I think Eubank Senior, Watson, and Collins at their peaks would beat Carl, though that won't be a popular stance.

Froch beats Benn though.

 

Froch was a good solid fighter, somewhere between good and very good in terms of his overall achievement imo, though at no point was he really the undisputed man at 168. I never thought he'd get as far as he did tbh as I never rated him in terms of pure ability. His greatest strengths were his toughness, physical and mental discipline coupled with terrific self belief. He had a knack of using his awkwardness and toughness with good stamina and power to become more than the sum of his parts really. Even not bringing up the Ward fight and first Kessler fight, he lost to Dirrell imo who was no great talent, just a quick negative runner. Was a knats knacker away from losing to the past prime Taylor, equally no great shakes and was run very hard by the faded version of Johnson who was himself just a good fighter. It's balanced out by the fine demolition of Bute and shutting out of the dangerous but very one dimensional Abraham, both of which were demonstrative of what was one of the better things about Froch. Post- Ward he could have lost the plot easily and spiralled down after such a thorough spanking but regathered himself and imposed himself upon a fighter rated more highly than himself who was dangerous but lacking mental strength where Froch didn't. In that sense Froch was a very dangerous fighter if you were prone to lapses of concentration, didn't respect him or weren't strong in the face of adversity. He also deserves credit for always taking on the best around and testing himself, though the quality of that field at 168 gets overegged sometimes. It was more that it was a competitive scene to me than stacked with really good fighters other than Ward, so it was hard to separate yourself if you were taking on all comers.

 

I think that's a pretty selective recap of his career. The obvious omissions are his wins over Pascal and Kessler, and I think you display both what Taylor was - 18 months earlier he was the undisputed middleweight title - and how Froch win that fight.

I'm no fan of this 'he was losing and he found a punch to win' business. The entire aim of boxing is to knock your opponent out. Points scored in rounds are the secondary aim - a means by which fights can be won if it is not done by the primary means. Fighters should not be criticised because they didn't amass points prior to knocking out an opponent.

And he didn't lose to Direll. Direll should have been suspended for that disgraceful, negative shitshow he turned out. It was an ugly, ugly affair and Froch struggled as he always did with speed. But he did enough to win.

MTF

 

I'll say this much, if Froch were around today, his only threat is Canelo.

He beats Plant, Callum Stiff, and BJS. And yes, Benavidez too. Benavidez is truthfully, a bit overrated.

 

Yeah, Froch would dog most of this era. Perhaps at best, someone like Saunders could run for his life and perplex Froch, but not beat him. Froch Vs Ryder would be an awesome fight, albeit one-sided.

I don't think there's any case for Benavidez being as great, or good, as McCallum. But IMO, he belongs slightly above Froch.

 

Benavidez?? He hasn't shown anything yet to favor him over prime Froch. He has the talent, but the talent has to be shown on an elite level.

Anthony Dirrell is no elite.

Given that Benavidez was almost stopped once, I can't favor him over Froch until he shows us something. As of right now, I think Froch would take Benavidez into deep water, and drown him.

Boots Ennis is actually more proven than Benavidez right now. Lipinets is better than Dirrell.

David's resume is pathetic.

 

I didn't mean Benavidez.

I meant Nino.

 

Oh, mb

 

I wasn't recapping his career though, just observing how certain fights went and briefly stating how some of his wins went over some of the notable names he faced, I didn't really go into proper detail. I knew someone would throw up that he conclusively beat the likes of Taylor, which obviously he did and in a dramatic way. There's nothing wrong with saying that someone was unconvincing for long stretches of a fight against an opponent that you don't personally rate highly in a historical sense even if they pull it out of the bag one way or another. Froch does deserve credit for snatching victory from the jaws of defeat, no doubt. It's dense though to say that amassing points doesn't matter or isn't one of the primary objectives, of course it does and of course it fecking is. Thousands of top class fighters have built their games around it. Its like saying that a top fighters main goal is to not make a fight easier, have a plan b in place in the event that they can't knock a fighter out or be happy to lose rounds just looking for a few big punches. If Froch had had the ability or option on the night to be in front on the cards when he finally stopped Taylor and not struggle right to the death and win more easily, you don't think he'd take that option? Its daft to even discuss it. Even if it's a secondary aim it's still highly important and not something to be even slightly ignored, because you can't knock everyone out and will need to win fights at one point or another even if you're a Jacksonesque puncher, which Froch wasn't by a mile despite having a good dig nonetheless.

There are a lot of pros, cons and details you can discuss in Froch's career in both the wins and defeats, which I was briefly doing without fully qualifying everything he did for better or worse. Though since you bring the Pascal and second Kessler fight up because you think I omitted them or ignored them.....well, I don't rate Pascal, in a nutshell. Certainly not in the scheme of things. Not at all. And I thought that Kessler was by then far removed from his best, which was very good but not nearly great. Injuries and declining physicality were catching up with him and even then it was a close fight. A good little win for Froch though nonetheless.

You're right to a point about the Dirrell fight, Dirrell was highly negative and a bit embarrassing. I had him winning by point though. However negative he was, he made Froch look ineffective for long stretches. Carl's offensive footwork and punching against an evasive moving target were always a weakness and it showed here imo.

I'm not trying to shit on Froch, I already praised him in my previous post. Top wins against Bute, Abraham, the Groves rematch etc. Coming back from defeats, always fighting the best. I just think that he achieved more than his talent level through hard work mainly and mental strength combined with some good physical attributes. It's better than being more gifted but lazy and flaky, as he showed against Bute. I enjoyed his career overall and was pleased to see him prove me wrong to a point. I was just providing a bit of context to some of his wins and saying how I didn't really rate those particular opponents.

 

Bute is a top win, but you don't rate Pascal!!! That doesn't make any sense

 

Why? Because Pascal beat Bute when they were both, Bute more so imo, past it? Or that Pascal was relevant for a bit longer?

Edit: the two are different things. See the response to feebles below. Context and such. I'm done on the subject. When I said top win I just meant good solid win anyway, not a great one.

 

Well, Pascal was much better than Bute. He proved that fairly conclusively.

I'll respond to your lengthy post when I'm not in the pub for a pool match

MTF

 

Did he? There wasn't much between them overall to me. Pascal won when they fought, yeah, but Bute wasn't nearly the same after the Froch fight imo. Pascal has stuck around longer and managed to win back a splinter title while still losing comprehensively to the best he fought other than Dawson, himself a flawed fighter, where Bute just spiralled in comparison. Bute looked better to me though when he was initially undefeated and was mostly steamrolling opponents.

I don't rate either highly and don't care to argue about it. What was more impressive to me with regards to Froch was that Bute in spite of his limitations was an undefeated reasonably long standing titlist with knockout power who was mostly dominating more experienced opponents than Pascal had faced when the latter faced Froch. Of the two when they faced Froch, Bute was easily the more highly regarded and dangerous even though he never entered the super six or left his home turf much. Pascal had beaten no-one of note despite being unbeaten and was unproven and green when he fought Froch who was himself unproven at that level with few notable wins. Froch prior to facing Bute had lost two of his last four, closeish but clearly to Kessler and being made to look like a novice against Ward. He'd been good against Abraham but mediocre against Johnson in the other two fights. The Bute fight was seen as a bit of a gamble and brave move straight off the back of the Ward schooling and plenty of people thought he was going to lose. And he smashed Bute like an avocado. It's all about context and relative stages of careers. At no point did I say that Bute was way better than Pascal, it was jesus who jumped to that conclusion. I don't care either way and have never really thought of comparing their careers. Apples and oranges. But Bute imo when he fought Froch was better, more proven and dangerous than Pascal when Pascal faced the more inexperienced version of Froch. Hindsight is a fine thing. I know on one hand that it seems contradictory to say Froch was inexperienced when he faced Pascal and then maybe thought to be declining or at least having his ceiling shown prior to facing Bute. And Pascal put up a much better fight than Bute did ironically.

Anyway, I'm tying myself in knots in here a bit and dont see the point in arguing further. You both rate Froch higher than me both in terms of ability and achievement. Fine. I'm on Xplosives page though and I know that we're both vastly experienced in the number of fighters and fights we've both watched over the years and how much we've studied and been involved in the sport to feel comfortable in assigning our opinion of Froch in a historical sense. It's still high praise and no shame to say that Froch was a good fighter but not a great or even near great one. I think we just have a different idea of the meaning, it seems. I'm done on the subject.

I hope you won your pool match btw. I'm a snooker man myself but enjoy a knock on the pool table still.

 

I think Froch had a decent chance of beating the Canelo who fought when he was active, but I don't give him much of a shout against the new and improved version we see today.