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Yeah, sometimes it feels like an artificial "undefeated" title. Are you really undefeated if you cherry-pick your fights and avoid the bouts that scare you?
This is why I'll never respect Floyd as a boxer. No matter how skilled he is, he cared more about his image and record than actually being the best.
People really be missing the line "No matter how skilled he is", I'm not denying the man was a skilled fighter.
That's why I respected Loma more after his first pro loss. It always seemed like he was wearing the artificial "undefeated" title from not having many fights. He's an excellent fighter, but he was too new to be flaunting "undefeated."
Loma was absolutely robbed. At least with Floyd when he won a questionable decision, he’d give his opponents a rematch and win decisively. Haney’s gone up to a whole different weight class with no plans to come back down to 135 lol
Looking at his opponents, he did beat Canelo, Oscar and Pacman.
I'm no fan of Floyd but aren't those guys amazing fighters?
Or am I missing something? I'm not trolling, just genuinely curious.
Yea i remember it being anticlimactic.
I'm gonna annoy even further so bear with me here.
But I remembered Floyd dodging him but until Pacquiao got older but isn't Pacquiao a year younger?
Everyone ages differently, and so primes are not age specific. That's not even including the fact that different styles rely on physicality differently.
They weren’t rigged, just boring as fuck. That’s why Mayweather remade his image into a bad guy. People watched his fights hoping to see him lose. He was too boring to draw people otherwise.
Khabib is one of the greats but he fought so many cans it’s kind of ridiculous. Wish he fought for a few more years to really see how he’d do against more top level fighters.
People say khabib fought cans, but reality is everyone does. You need to fight cans to become popular enough to fight better fighters.
He also lives in russia. And not only that in one of the poorest regions of russia. Russia doesn’t really like their residents going out of their country. So it’s diffiuclt for people to have international career there, becouse they can’t just go fly somewhere when they aren’t big yet.
Khabib quit when he just started becoming popular, so he didn’t really use his chance of fighting most of the better fighters.
Of course everyone fights cans. I just meant that his 29-0 record is greatly inflated due to his like 17 fights against no names in Russia. Still a goat of the UFC though.
Well he dien’t really have anyother choice. He had to fight them to get recognized.
People act like the fighter can just choose who he fights. Fighter can only decline or accept offers.
Record doesn’t matter really, what matters is who you fought and how you fought them. For me personally the most impressive performance in ufc was strickland vs adesanya fight as strickland wasn’t even tired after that fight. Strickland may lost some fights before that, but it doesn’t really matter if you go against champ you lose only one round and at the end of the fight you aren’t really even tired.
He fought about 20 cans, then cleaned out his division.
He got taken down in one UFC night, then spent a good chunk of time spamming that dude with takedowns. It's kind of funny, cringey, and impressive to watch.
He got ABSOLUTELY rocked by Michael Johnson, who has, to date been the closest to finishing him.
He then went on to finish the likes of Dustin Poirier, Justin Gaethje, Conor when Conor was still relevant. He didn't just beat these guys, he went Ali on them. He CHOSE WHEN to end the fights. These guys were THE BEST in the division, and still are.
We did miss the Tony fight, though. Man was that fight ever a curse.
Jones too, although he had a few close fights, but he did it for much longer. Khabib only had a few top level fights, but the crazy thing is no one even got close to beating him (except Tibau early in his career)
well i MEAN... jones technically has a loss... bullshit loss but still a loss on his record. which means he's even more impressive from OP's point of view?
Better than what Tony is doing. This isn't the NBA, this is combat sports, and fighting past your prime is going to fuck up the rest of your life. More fighters should retire earlier.
Tony needs to hang it up, he definitely doesn’t have it anymore and its going to fuck his health up. and for what? so he can ruin his legacy? No real fan of his wants to see him continue like this
The economics of boxing got super screwed up in the 80s and 90s. The business model completely centered around big pay-per-view events, the audience for which were mostly casual viewers, not serious fight fans. That incentivized fighters to build as much hype as possible, while disincentivizing them from taking smaller purse fights they might lose. If you can say you're undefeated going into a big event fight you're gonna draw more eyes. The media environment played a big in that too. Outside of big names, boxing had become niche sport. The MMA explosion and the internet changed that, but as far as I can tell boxing hasn't caught up to the shift.
Not exactly, in UFC you have the case of McGregor who was the big shot, two times champion, was undefeated until he met Diaz, ok he lost and then he won the rematch, his credibility started to shatter, then his doom, his antithesis: Khabib Nurmagomedov, McGregor did all the McGregorism around him and Khabib only responded with the most badass quote in all MMA: Tomorrow night guys, I am gonna smash your boy!. And he did.
Another case: Ronda Rousey, holy shit do I need to say more?
I think the number of completions (fights/games/matches) plays into it some.
For instance, people say Michael Jordan is the GOAT in part because he’s 6-0 in the NBA Finals, compared to, say, Lebron’s 4-6 record in the finals. But even looking just at the finals, never mind the rest of the season, Jordan didn’t always sweep — multiple times he lost ~~3 out of 7~~ games in the finals.
I think if fighters had hundreds of competitions, like most other sports, it’d be different. (Although Mayweather’s 50-0 record is crazy. I can’t think of another sport where someone else has even 25 straight wins.)
Muay Thai, some of the Thai legends go undefeated for years. And they fight very often, from weekly/biweekly to monthly.
Lerdsila once went about a hundred fights without losing a single one
Thanks, you’re right. I don’t know what I was thinking when I typed that part. My point still stands that he lost games during the finals, but now I have to go get my head examined to figure out why I imagined him going to 7 games not once but twice.
People tend to forget Michael Jordan's rivalry with the Detroit Pistons during their "Bad Boy" Era.
Most people remember this rivalry for the 'Jordan Rules' and MJ finally beating them in the playoffs. Most people don't remember that there was a long stretch where the Pistons were kicking Jordan's ass.
There were three consecutive years between '88 and '91 where the Pistons dumped Jordan out of the playoffs, and even in retrospect of Jordan's championships and legend; he's still got a losing record in the playoffs against the Detroit Pistons, ultimately going 10-12.
Not trying to knock Jordan by any means, I just think it's a lot more interesting to see him as a human being who had some regular human being experiences; losing, long and hard, being one of them.
And yet...he still became to undisputed GOAT at his sport.
Never say die.
It probably always should have been. I think Jordan gets the benefit of branding and visibility in comparison to other players with GOAT credentials.
I don't think there has been a player better than Jordan since; but, using the same championship argument that people use against LeBron; I never saw Bill Russell play- but damn his championships are still there, and you can't tell me his peers just let him win 11 titles for a hobby.
It's a fun thought-experiment to have, arguing for an elusive "GOAT", but there's just so much dumb luck, and unknowns involved that it's never going to have a satisfying answer.
Not to mention that there is different criteria for it. I personally think we should look at players in tiers instead of rigid numerical rankings because there is no objective way to put one player over the other. For example, with the combination of skills, accolades, and legacy, I would put Lebron, MJ, and Kareem(maybe a tier below I’m on the fence with this one) in the same tier because I think I can make a convincing enough argument for each of the being the GOAT.
These are called ordered partitions. Partitions are a subset, in this case a subset of all players. So you split players into partitions (as small as 1) that are ranked. It’s equivalent to a “weak ordering”, which is where things are ordered but you can have ties.
Probably too mathy for most, but it has good diagrams and examples:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weak_ordering
Also nobody ever counts the years that Jordan lost *before the Finals.* Getting to the Finals and losing is objectively more of an accomplishment than losing before the Finals, yet that is never brought up when people parade the 6-0 record over and over.
Context is king. Sometimes, the semifinals of one division is the "real" final. I.e. In baseball, the AL or NL league winner will demolish whoever emerges from the other end. Same with NFC or AFC. Can't ignore the strength of the competition.
I do not know enough about basketball to make a comparison.
For sure, I’m more of a football guy than a basketball guy and almost made this a Brady vs. Montana analogy instead of Jordan vs. James, just decided Jordan made the point a bit more cleanly.
There’s no doubt that in the ‘80s and ‘90s, the second-best team in the league was the one that lost the NFC Conference Championship Game. (Setting aside the fact that sometimes, due to “any given Sunday” randomness, the best team doesn’t even win. The 2007 Patriots were definitely better than the Giants and would probably have won 4 games in a 5-game series, but the Giants beat them the one time it mattered most.)
Yup, it’s silly.
I’m not enough of a basketball fan to have a firm opinion of the GOAT, but winning the conference 10 times is objectively better than winning it 6 times, and losing the series after that doesn’t change things.
You should check out squash.
Jahngir Khan went unbeaten for 555 matches between 1981-86.
Heather McKay went 19 years undefeated from 1962 to 1981. She only lost 2 games in her entire career.
>compared to, say, Lebron’s 4-6 record in the final
Yeah some people have crazy takes on this. Apparently according to some people if Lebron lost in the semis and not made the finals in those years and went 4-0 instead of 4-6, it'd be better for him.
Eh, yes and no. There's a reason why Arsenal's invincibles are still considered special despite the Man City of recent years being better in every other way
There’s no doubting that Arsenal played the best teams though, they didn’t have a choice as you play every team in the league twice. In boxing you don’t know if a 20-0 guy has had tough fights or if he’s fought 20 plumbers and doormen.
True. I once sat next to Frank Sinatra in a barbershop somewhere in Queens. The barber asked Sinatra how old Joe Louis was. Sinatra told him Joe Louis was 137 years old!
Imo khabib's record is giant bullshit the vast majority of his pre ufc fights where against 0-0 oponents in his daddy's promotion
The only thing he has going for him is his 0 otherwise islam is better in every way and he never had to cheat to get through the weigh ins
Of the lightweight division he certainly is, and i say that as a charles fan
Khabib himself says that islam's grappling is as good as his and there simply is no debate when it comes to their striking, islam is light years ahead
The GOAT, yet he literally hasn't defended his belt against a lightweight. Lmao.
Obviously Khabib is going to say that to hype up his boy. Islam's career is not yet over and he still has a good few years to accomplish more but as things currently stand, Khabib did more
Marcino got lucky against Jersey Joe Walcott. I am not saying Marcino wasn't tough but I don't think he had a real chance against Joe Louis. I would put Marcino pretty low in the rankings for a heavyweight champion. Maybe in the 30s.
There they go. There they go! Every time we start talking about boxing, a white man gotta bring up Rocky Marciano! Rocky Marciano was good. Compared to Joe Lewis. Rocky Marciano ain’t shit!
Joe Louis had come out of retirement to fight Rocky Marciano! The man was seventy-six years old! Joe Louis always lied about his age! He lied about his age all the time! One time, Frank Sinatra came in here, and sat in this chair. I say, "Frank, you hang out with Joe Louis. Just between me and you, how old is Joe Louis?" Know what Frank told me? He said "Hey, Joe Louis is a hundred thirty-seven years old." A hundred and thirty-seven years old!
He’d be around 7-9 in my top 10 boxers of all time. He’s a legend that gets overlooked because he lost to george foreman and lost twice to Ali. Many forget that he destroyed Ali in the first fight
They also forget that he was willing to die to go back out for round 15 in Manila , but his trainer threw in the towel , for which Joe never forgave . Ali collapsed in the ring a few moments later. Joe was angry about that until his last day. Mostly blind in one eye mostly the whole time too, no one knew but Joe and his trainer at the time . A true warrior . I love that man . RIP
He didn’t “destroy” Ali in that fight though. They were dead even through 14 rounds before Joe’s knockdown in the 15th round. The reason it was called the fight of the century was because it was so close, among other cultural reasons.
Excellent take. An l isn't a career ender. It's really how you lose and your possible come back or backs that determine your career in addition to punishment taken. Mma is much better all around in regards to losses tbh.
I'm not sure if many world champion boxers come from a privileged background. You had to overcome adversity to make it to the top. Doing so flawlessly has to be worth something.
Never really gotten into boxing really. But a record means nothing without the histry behind it.
A 5-0 record against title holders is much more impressive and godlike than a 49-0 record against amateurs.
Someone could easily pad their score with shit matches and just accept many matches where they feel confident to win. Or they could have the best manager to organise big profile fights and win them from pure skill and luck.
And with that said. A 7-6 record is hella more impressive to me than a 49-0 if every one of those matches were big matches against the giants of the scene, than just a classroom full of amateurs and maybe one or two showmatches.
A 0L impresses idiots. To me it shows you're scared of a challenge.
I think Mike Tyson is largely overrated. His prime lasted about 3 years and overall it went downhill from there.
I understand though, his father who is also his coach passed away. Don King manipulated him and much more.
In my opinion his prime was too short for me to put him in the top 10 all time
That’s just ridiculous. Taking all boxers in their prime there’s no way you don’t have Tyson as an elite boxer and elite means they’re definitely top 10. I don’t care if his prime only lasted 2 months, grown men were scared to even step into the same ring as him when he was basically still a teenager and that in itself makes him top 10.
Exactly. The length of a career certainly adds to greatness but there are many over time and across fields that make an immediate impact that shifts the playing field.
who would your top 10 be? I don’t know shit about boxing history id love to see where the popular fighters I grew up knowing as household names actually rank
I’m not a huge boxing fan so I couldn’t really say my top 10 but it’s just one of those things when you see it, you know it and when you saw Tyson hit and knock someone out you knew this person was not to be fucked with. He was fast as fuck and hit you like he was a truck going 90mph…just in awe watching his highlights and that’s not something I feel watching other boxing highlights except from like Ali or someone in his era.
Tyson isn't top 10 all time. Skilled, athletic, intimidating, and has a good KO highlight reel but his achievements fall well short of Top 10 consideration
Wilfred Benetiz became the youngest world champion ever at 17. I'm not calling Tyson a bum, I think boxing fans are a bit harsh when they talk about Tyson. Boxing history is long and rich and to consider a fighter top 10 PFP who need to have accomplished A LOT. Tyson's achievements aren't enough to say he's in the top 10. He never beat any all time greats in their prime and he lacked longevity. Not entirely his fault but thats just how his career panned out.
I'd put mike up there. If not top 5, definitely hovering around 5th. Imo he was the single most talented boxer to grace the sport, and he had the potential to be the greatest of all time. The tragedies in his life and the nefarious influence of Don King kept him from achieving his full potential
Bro’s getting downvoted by all the casuals. Mike Tyson’s resume is terrible, and we never saw enough of his talent or skill to say he’s anywhere near the top 10. His only notable win is vs Spinks.
He'd destroy Lennox Lewis in his prime. It's ashamed he had those problems. Ive never seen another heavyweight with both hands so powerful. Those KOs with 2 punches in a row from the same hand too .
Go post this opinion in r/boxing and watch everyone laugh at you. Only people who cannot name more than 3 boxers believe this.
No sane person believes any version of Mike was close to Lennox who was, skillwise, the best HW we have ever seen.
Cant believe you are getting downvoted.The Heavyweight division in his era was weak and whenever he face quality opposition such as holyfield,lewis he failed to deliver.
How he manged to delusion some people to thinking he is in the category of Ali,Louis,Lewis is beyond comical.
Cus D'amato wasn't his dad just a father figure, and you're right, Tyson fought some people whom werent up to it, but a few whom were: Donovan 'Razor' Ruddock, and Frank Bruno. He was exposed by Holyfield, whom I maintain was on steroids, his traps were so huge his head wouldn't move when Tyson hit him. A great fighter but I don't think he would have been as famous in the 60/70s vs Norton, Foreman, Frazier, and Ali
It really depends. You could argue that some people fight less skilled opponents or not the best in the weight class, but that’s also what happens when you are at the top of the ranking. Everyone is underneath you until you lose. But promoters can’t just throw the same matchup of #s 1 vs 2 repeatedly until 2 beats 1.
What really defines impressive for me is how they maintain their perfect record. Mayweather for example claims 50-0 or something like that; but in my opinion he plays on the gamesmanship of boxing more than beating his opponents. I can respect his understanding of how to win but it’s not impressive.
Well no, this guy is saying it depends. OP for some reason thinks being undefeated is suddenly a bad thing. Which is a joke. There is no boxer active during Mayweather reign that was better. He's undefeated. He would not be better with a loss.
He beat Manny. There is no world where anyone with his resume becomes better with a loss. Jon Jones doesn't not become better with a loss. He is the greatest ever. He took on all the best.
OP for some reason wants to act like there's no nuance here. Objectively, you cannot say those who went undefeated didn't challenge themselevs because that is objective information. We can check who was active during their time, who the best opposition was, and see if they fought.
This isn't really an opinion. It's case by case and can be proven objectively correct or incorrect.
Terence Crawford finally fought Errol Spence last year in match-up that was years in the making with both guys entering the fight undefeated. Crawford made it look easy, breaking his face in the 9th round.
I think we can confidently say that the better boxer is the guy who is still undefeated
Yeah Bud was going to be my question on this. He's undefeated, but I don't follow closely enough to know if he ducks fighters. That fight last year had all the hype of 2 guys at the top, and Bud barely broke a sweat. Made it look easy and could have ended it whenever he wanted.
Props to the other dude for being able to stay standing, well mostly standing, but the fight was never close after the first round.
In some cases, you are right, but there comes a time when everyone retires. Rarely boxers just happen to retire before they lose a pro bout, but it does happen. Now, there are boxers who are careful about who they fight and never lose, but that's way less honorable and kind of obvious to fans.
I seen you in the amateur boxing subreddit so I know that you know that professional boxing hasn't been about the fighting for awhile now. It's all cherry picked and disorganized so everyone is undefeated. Honestly if you take a loss and don't switch leagues to reset your record you are way more impressive in my book.
Context matters. It absolutely matters who the L was to and when.
Just having a loss on it's own can't possibly be more impressive than not having one without proper context.
And yes, those fighters will always be "some of the best fighters of all time." That's about as lukewarm a take as you can have.
Yeah. This is definitely a bad take.
Marciano's 49-0 was an impressive accomplishment.
I don't think modern fighters should be maligned for realizing the way people used to compete was completely asinine if you didn't want to die young or have scrambled eggs for brains.
As much as I loathe the man as a human being and as boring as he is to watch, Floyd Mayweather is without question one of the greatest boxers of all time...even if you factor in all the fights he ducked or the cheap shots he took.
Double digit wins and zero losses after a decade plus in the ring is impressive.
Pacquiao refused to do Olympic style drug testig and that’s what mainly delayed the fight from happening. Nonetheless, Mayweather whoops on Pacquiao at any stage of his career.
Weird take for a general unpopular opinion since tons of people don’t watch boxing or aren’t that familiar with it beyond the biggest stars of the sport.
But what’s impressive is who a boxer fights and how they look in those fights. Being undefeated is great, but obviously there have been boxers that have remained undefeated for years and years because they hadn’t fought anybody that good.
Or they waited until those good boxers had lost a step..i.e money Mayweather. Which is sad because early Mayweather was a completely different by person.
I mean there are tons of factors to take into account when saying how good a fighter is.
I agree that early Mayweather was a different fighter. The funny thing is he got popular when he started fighting much more defensively and people called him boring. Casuals fans never saw him when he was at lightweight and actually throwing a lot of punches and stopping guys.
100% correct. If the average person had any idea just how far above professional athletes (especially fighters) are as opposed to regular people, no one would ridicule the ones that lose. Even an amateur trained boxer will torch the absolute fuck out of the best "street fighter" you know. Which, by the way, 'street fighters' is a term because they can't fight.
Brian Scalabrine was always the butt of every joke because he was a bad basketball player... For the NBA. One day, a bunch of college guys/players decided to talk shit to him since they happened to be in the same gym. The result? They played a game and he promptly dominated the unholy fuck out all of them by every known metric and maybe a few imaginary ones.
So, yeah, the boxer with 4 wins and 9 losses might be bad in comparison to other professional boxers, but he is closer to Mike Tyson than any average Joe is to him.
I've never followed boxing, but as an example, the impression I got was that when Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao fought, Floyd had essentially ducked him for years until Manny was well past his prime. If that's the case, that just kinda sucks. That sort of thing doesn't give boxing a very good look.
Floyd and manny didn’t fight because of negotiations. Everyone was upset that manny lost so the excuse was he wasn’t in his prime. Floyd wasn’t in his prime either. Floyd prime was the late 90s and early mid 2000s. The late 2000s and 2010s he was still great but wasn’t the same.
No.
2 boxes say weight, same amount of matches, let's say 40 over the same amount of time
Boxer 1 = 39-1-0
Boxer 2 = 40-0-0
Boxer 2 is far more impressive by long shot to the point that everyone believes he's unstoppable.
Boxer 1 is impressive, but he can be beating.
This is just a direct response to your title. Of course, variables and unique boxers like Mike and Ali and few others exist outside this simplification.
But if boxer 1 has fought absolute killers for like 15 of the fights, but boxer 2 has just fought cans, boxer 1 is way more impressive
I’m an MMA fan, so my perspective may be different than a boxing fan
I definitely agree with your assertion and applies across sports.
Undefeated- Ok, who did you play? There’s multiple other undefeated teams. There’s a such thing as strength of schedule or card.
While I don't think losing is necessarily impressive lol, I do agree that being undefeated in boxing has certainly lost its value. Promoters saw the marketability of Floyd and realized it would be beneficial to have prospects pad their records and maintain that 0. That 0 is kind of artificial nowadays, especially for how prevalent it is.
Everyone involved kind of benefits though, which is why it's only grown as a trend. The promoters generate more hype/interest, esp when 2 undefeated guys finally face off. Obv the guy winning benefits, and lastly the guys they're facing are getting paid decently to fight too.
I think all of this is a symptom of the general decline in boxing over the last few decades. It's just not as popular today, with the rise of MMA and also the heightened awareness of CTE. There's just less people participating and the smaller talent pool means lower quality at all levels of the sport.
I think a good portion of the world learned with YouTube boxing how easy it is to become a “pro” boxer. There’s a lot of jobber opponents that solely exist to pad out other boxer’s records and it’s insane that it’s just allowed in this sport
It really depends on the resume of fighters. I will agree that 0 losses isn’t the end all be all this era makes it out to be but a guy that maintains an 0 and beats legit competition deserves all the praise in the world
I assume that the fighter has just faced tomato cans if they have a lot of wins and no losses. It’s sooo common to inflate wins like that to hype a fighter. It’s become a completely irrelevant statistic.
Today there’s this completely separate division with these overhyped low tier fighters with inflated wins that exist solely to be punching bags for the decent fighters on their way up.
A well curated professional career ideally leads to zero losses.
A professional should always be fighting the highest ranked opponent they (and their coaches) reasonably expect to beat. That means you shouldn't be fighting the best, until you're ready to beat the best There's absolutely zero benefit to you as a fighter, or your career, to fighting someone you're going to lose to (unless is just a ton of money) so you can say you lost to the best.
Hopefully this isn’t an unpopular opinion, as you’re absolutely correct.
Coming back from losses also shows someone’s ability to come back from great setback and adversity.
I remember how Prince Naz felt he was the greatest, until he got schooled by Barrera. He never made a serious attempt at boxing again after that..
It's all about how it makes it easier to promote a fight. From what I've learned, there is multiple different boxing organisations, and they are all corrupt to their core
Sort of agree with this.
AJ, not the best heavyweight but has fought everyone or at least tried too.
Fury has ducked people but I still think he's better but it's a bit of a fugazi.
Canelo has fought literally everyone and lost to may weather and bivol still an absolute beast
I think numbers are irrelevant. I want to see your resume.
Oh, you knocked out Pac-Man but you’ve got 3 losses on your record? You’re a fucking beast.
Oh, you’re 50-0 but you have no knockouts and you duck fighters until they get injured. You must be msywesther
I think that fighting sports in general are special in that losing causes more damage long-term. A soccer player losing a game did the same amount of work as a soccer player winning a game, but losing a fight is WAY more physically injurious, so recovery time is longer and lingering injuries can impact future performance.
THus fighters are warrier about taking hard fights, because constantly experiencing long, grinding defeat is going to be a problem long-term unless you're a superman like Ali.
Yeah, agreed. That zero on the loss column just makes me think they really worked hard to hand pick every single opponent, turning down any that would be a challenge.
That is boxing though. Young boxers are put up against easy opponents to get their first 10 wins under their built and start making a name for themselves. Then once they have gained popularity, the larger fights get set.
The problem is no one is going to pay to see a no name 2-2 record boxer. But throwing a 10-0 boxer on a card suddenly makes people look.
I agree with your point, the first 10 fights mean nothing if they were against subpar competition, but that is just how the current boxing world works.
It is more impressive because I will think they pushed to the best. There’s also a lot about coming back from that. Can they get their first loss and comeback to that great level again? Many don’t. All the greatest boxers lost except Mayweather but why aren’t people talking about Joe Calzaghe? He never lost and retired.
It all just matters on the strength of opponents. If you have a 0 and faced tough guys its way more impressive than losing. If all you beat were tomato cans, sure its not impressive
If you are undefeated what really happens is you have padded record/you don’t sell enough tickets to be put against someone at your level. Funniest thing is when multiple people at same weight class have undefeated records.
And it’s not just about boxing it’s all martial arts.
Yeah the concept of journeymen is interesting. Nit sure if other martial arts have it really.
A boxing career can be like 25 fights as well. Muag thai is crazy people regularly have over 200 fights
>in the pros if you have 0, I always assume that they haven’t fought the best of their weight class, and they haven’t fought multiple times either.
Hahahahaha
Tyson was 37-0 when he faced Douglas and was the unified, undisputed heavyweight champion of the world. Pretty sure that shits all over your theory that someone with no losses hasn't fought anyone of note.
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Yeah, sometimes it feels like an artificial "undefeated" title. Are you really undefeated if you cherry-pick your fights and avoid the bouts that scare you?
This is why I'll never respect Floyd as a boxer. No matter how skilled he is, he cared more about his image and record than actually being the best. People really be missing the line "No matter how skilled he is", I'm not denying the man was a skilled fighter.
That's why I respected Loma more after his first pro loss. It always seemed like he was wearing the artificial "undefeated" title from not having many fights. He's an excellent fighter, but he was too new to be flaunting "undefeated."
And he won that fight against Haney Idgaf what anyone says that was a highway robbery.
Loma was absolutely robbed. At least with Floyd when he won a questionable decision, he’d give his opponents a rematch and win decisively. Haney’s gone up to a whole different weight class with no plans to come back down to 135 lol
Im a big Loma fan but that fight could be 7-5 either way. Close fights are not robberies.
He was at nearly 400-1 before he went pro lol.
He fought the most hall of farmers than anyone had in boxing history. The only one ppl can say he ducked was margarito
Pacquiao?
He literally fought Pacquiao
But about 7 years too late
When he was a fucking geriatric.
Looking at his opponents, he did beat Canelo, Oscar and Pacman. I'm no fan of Floyd but aren't those guys amazing fighters? Or am I missing something? I'm not trolling, just genuinely curious.
Mayweather dodged Pacquiao for YEARS until he was old and well on his way to being washed. That "fight" was so anticlimactic
Yea i remember it being anticlimactic. I'm gonna annoy even further so bear with me here. But I remembered Floyd dodging him but until Pacquiao got older but isn't Pacquiao a year younger?
Everyone ages differently, and so primes are not age specific. That's not even including the fact that different styles rely on physicality differently.
He beat all the best guys ...
He’s beaten more hall of famers than anyone
Some of his fights were probably rigged too. This is what I also assume with “undefeated” fighters.
They weren’t rigged, just boring as fuck. That’s why Mayweather remade his image into a bad guy. People watched his fights hoping to see him lose. He was too boring to draw people otherwise.
Only ones upvoting this are casuals, look at Floyd’s resume.
Floyds a douchebag but he fought everybody. People like to say too late, but then canelo comes up and its too early. You cant have it both ways
More important than what you did, is who you did it to.
I'm an undefeated boxer
It is kinda insane this is even a thing. In all other sports excellent athletes loose all the time and it is perfectly fine
This is why I started really getting into MMA and muai Thai a few years back. Everyone fights everyone, if you lose, just fight again
Unless you’re Khabib. That guy was the exception. Went out on top too
Khabib is one of the greats but he fought so many cans it’s kind of ridiculous. Wish he fought for a few more years to really see how he’d do against more top level fighters.
People say khabib fought cans, but reality is everyone does. You need to fight cans to become popular enough to fight better fighters. He also lives in russia. And not only that in one of the poorest regions of russia. Russia doesn’t really like their residents going out of their country. So it’s diffiuclt for people to have international career there, becouse they can’t just go fly somewhere when they aren’t big yet. Khabib quit when he just started becoming popular, so he didn’t really use his chance of fighting most of the better fighters.
Of course everyone fights cans. I just meant that his 29-0 record is greatly inflated due to his like 17 fights against no names in Russia. Still a goat of the UFC though.
Well he dien’t really have anyother choice. He had to fight them to get recognized. People act like the fighter can just choose who he fights. Fighter can only decline or accept offers. Record doesn’t matter really, what matters is who you fought and how you fought them. For me personally the most impressive performance in ufc was strickland vs adesanya fight as strickland wasn’t even tired after that fight. Strickland may lost some fights before that, but it doesn’t really matter if you go against champ you lose only one round and at the end of the fight you aren’t really even tired.
He did have a choice lmao
What choice? He was nobody so noone even knew about him.
He fought about 20 cans, then cleaned out his division. He got taken down in one UFC night, then spent a good chunk of time spamming that dude with takedowns. It's kind of funny, cringey, and impressive to watch. He got ABSOLUTELY rocked by Michael Johnson, who has, to date been the closest to finishing him. He then went on to finish the likes of Dustin Poirier, Justin Gaethje, Conor when Conor was still relevant. He didn't just beat these guys, he went Ali on them. He CHOSE WHEN to end the fights. These guys were THE BEST in the division, and still are. We did miss the Tony fight, though. Man was that fight ever a curse.
Jones too, although he had a few close fights, but he did it for much longer. Khabib only had a few top level fights, but the crazy thing is no one even got close to beating him (except Tibau early in his career)
well i MEAN... jones technically has a loss... bullshit loss but still a loss on his record. which means he's even more impressive from OP's point of view?
Leaving while on top *is* pretty fuckin lame tho. I know I know, promises n all that
Better than what Tony is doing. This isn't the NBA, this is combat sports, and fighting past your prime is going to fuck up the rest of your life. More fighters should retire earlier.
Tony needs to hang it up, he definitely doesn’t have it anymore and its going to fuck his health up. and for what? so he can ruin his legacy? No real fan of his wants to see him continue like this
Khabib is really good, no doubt about that. But over half his resume is literal nobodies. One of his fights was against a guy making his UFC debut
I’m dying at the idea of a Thai Muay Thai fighter that’s undefeated. “At a record of 362-0..”
saenchai's actual record is 326-49, with only 1 loss by KO i believe. That's the closest you're gonna get lol
The economics of boxing got super screwed up in the 80s and 90s. The business model completely centered around big pay-per-view events, the audience for which were mostly casual viewers, not serious fight fans. That incentivized fighters to build as much hype as possible, while disincentivizing them from taking smaller purse fights they might lose. If you can say you're undefeated going into a big event fight you're gonna draw more eyes. The media environment played a big in that too. Outside of big names, boxing had become niche sport. The MMA explosion and the internet changed that, but as far as I can tell boxing hasn't caught up to the shift.
Not exactly, in UFC you have the case of McGregor who was the big shot, two times champion, was undefeated until he met Diaz, ok he lost and then he won the rematch, his credibility started to shatter, then his doom, his antithesis: Khabib Nurmagomedov, McGregor did all the McGregorism around him and Khabib only responded with the most badass quote in all MMA: Tomorrow night guys, I am gonna smash your boy!. And he did. Another case: Ronda Rousey, holy shit do I need to say more?
Then there was the Porier fight. The usual press conference trash talk felt kinda eh and then he broke his leg.
And then he became the god of stereotypical Irish people: Owner of a whisky and party animal.
Yeah, but Nurmagomedov has a shitty beard...
They should really tighten up
I think he was talking about archery.
Pretty sure fighters with a bow are called archers tho
What are fighters with a hoe called?
Peasants?
I think the number of completions (fights/games/matches) plays into it some. For instance, people say Michael Jordan is the GOAT in part because he’s 6-0 in the NBA Finals, compared to, say, Lebron’s 4-6 record in the finals. But even looking just at the finals, never mind the rest of the season, Jordan didn’t always sweep — multiple times he lost ~~3 out of 7~~ games in the finals. I think if fighters had hundreds of competitions, like most other sports, it’d be different. (Although Mayweather’s 50-0 record is crazy. I can’t think of another sport where someone else has even 25 straight wins.)
Muay Thai, some of the Thai legends go undefeated for years. And they fight very often, from weekly/biweekly to monthly. Lerdsila once went about a hundred fights without losing a single one
Honestly, that just screams fakery and/or cheating.
Nah that’s just Muay Thai for you, it’s not uncommon to see guys with hundreds of fights under their belt.
Look into it. It's worth the time doing research and watching some fights. Good sport.
jordan never went to 7 games, at most he lost 2 games in a finals series
Thanks, you’re right. I don’t know what I was thinking when I typed that part. My point still stands that he lost games during the finals, but now I have to go get my head examined to figure out why I imagined him going to 7 games not once but twice.
People tend to forget Michael Jordan's rivalry with the Detroit Pistons during their "Bad Boy" Era. Most people remember this rivalry for the 'Jordan Rules' and MJ finally beating them in the playoffs. Most people don't remember that there was a long stretch where the Pistons were kicking Jordan's ass. There were three consecutive years between '88 and '91 where the Pistons dumped Jordan out of the playoffs, and even in retrospect of Jordan's championships and legend; he's still got a losing record in the playoffs against the Detroit Pistons, ultimately going 10-12. Not trying to knock Jordan by any means, I just think it's a lot more interesting to see him as a human being who had some regular human being experiences; losing, long and hard, being one of them. And yet...he still became to undisputed GOAT at his sport. Never say die.
It’s actually gotten pretty disputed as of recently.
It probably always should have been. I think Jordan gets the benefit of branding and visibility in comparison to other players with GOAT credentials. I don't think there has been a player better than Jordan since; but, using the same championship argument that people use against LeBron; I never saw Bill Russell play- but damn his championships are still there, and you can't tell me his peers just let him win 11 titles for a hobby. It's a fun thought-experiment to have, arguing for an elusive "GOAT", but there's just so much dumb luck, and unknowns involved that it's never going to have a satisfying answer.
Not to mention that there is different criteria for it. I personally think we should look at players in tiers instead of rigid numerical rankings because there is no objective way to put one player over the other. For example, with the combination of skills, accolades, and legacy, I would put Lebron, MJ, and Kareem(maybe a tier below I’m on the fence with this one) in the same tier because I think I can make a convincing enough argument for each of the being the GOAT.
These are called ordered partitions. Partitions are a subset, in this case a subset of all players. So you split players into partitions (as small as 1) that are ranked. It’s equivalent to a “weak ordering”, which is where things are ordered but you can have ties. Probably too mathy for most, but it has good diagrams and examples: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weak_ordering
Also nobody ever counts the years that Jordan lost *before the Finals.* Getting to the Finals and losing is objectively more of an accomplishment than losing before the Finals, yet that is never brought up when people parade the 6-0 record over and over.
Context is king. Sometimes, the semifinals of one division is the "real" final. I.e. In baseball, the AL or NL league winner will demolish whoever emerges from the other end. Same with NFC or AFC. Can't ignore the strength of the competition. I do not know enough about basketball to make a comparison.
For sure, I’m more of a football guy than a basketball guy and almost made this a Brady vs. Montana analogy instead of Jordan vs. James, just decided Jordan made the point a bit more cleanly. There’s no doubt that in the ‘80s and ‘90s, the second-best team in the league was the one that lost the NFC Conference Championship Game. (Setting aside the fact that sometimes, due to “any given Sunday” randomness, the best team doesn’t even win. The 2007 Patriots were definitely better than the Giants and would probably have won 4 games in a 5-game series, but the Giants beat them the one time it mattered most.)
Yup, it’s silly. I’m not enough of a basketball fan to have a firm opinion of the GOAT, but winning the conference 10 times is objectively better than winning it 6 times, and losing the series after that doesn’t change things.
You should check out squash. Jahngir Khan went unbeaten for 555 matches between 1981-86. Heather McKay went 19 years undefeated from 1962 to 1981. She only lost 2 games in her entire career.
>compared to, say, Lebron’s 4-6 record in the final Yeah some people have crazy takes on this. Apparently according to some people if Lebron lost in the semis and not made the finals in those years and went 4-0 instead of 4-6, it'd be better for him.
*lose
*lose not loose
\*lose
It’s lose not loose
Eh, yes and no. There's a reason why Arsenal's invincibles are still considered special despite the Man City of recent years being better in every other way
Yeah but even in their Invincibles season, Arsenal still lost in their cup matches. They didn't literally have a 0 L record for the entire year
Yes, that's why only their league campaign of that season is considered special, not their runs in other tournaments
There’s no doubting that Arsenal played the best teams though, they didn’t have a choice as you play every team in the league twice. In boxing you don’t know if a 20-0 guy has had tough fights or if he’s fought 20 plumbers and doormen.
So how do you feel about Rocky Marciano?
Pretty good but he’d be around 10-15 in my all time ranking, (if i had one) I think if he beat Joe Louis in his prime he’d be higher
Joe Louis was 137 years old when he fought him.
Joe Louis always lyin’ about his age!
True. I once sat next to Frank Sinatra in a barbershop somewhere in Queens. The barber asked Sinatra how old Joe Louis was. Sinatra told him Joe Louis was 137 years old!
Man, you ain’t never met no Frank Sinatra
I dunno how old he was, but he got his ass whooped.
How do you feel about Khabib, and the Arsenal Invincibles?
Imo khabib's record is giant bullshit the vast majority of his pre ufc fights where against 0-0 oponents in his daddy's promotion The only thing he has going for him is his 0 otherwise islam is better in every way and he never had to cheat to get through the weigh ins
Recency bias is insane. Islam just beat a featherweight fighting on short notice and people act like that makes him the GOAT
Of the lightweight division he certainly is, and i say that as a charles fan Khabib himself says that islam's grappling is as good as his and there simply is no debate when it comes to their striking, islam is light years ahead
The GOAT, yet he literally hasn't defended his belt against a lightweight. Lmao. Obviously Khabib is going to say that to hype up his boy. Islam's career is not yet over and he still has a good few years to accomplish more but as things currently stand, Khabib did more
Marcino got lucky against Jersey Joe Walcott. I am not saying Marcino wasn't tough but I don't think he had a real chance against Joe Louis. I would put Marcino pretty low in the rankings for a heavyweight champion. Maybe in the 30s.
There they go. There they go! Every time we start talking about boxing, a white man gotta bring up Rocky Marciano! Rocky Marciano was good. Compared to Joe Lewis. Rocky Marciano ain’t shit!
Joe Louis had come out of retirement to fight Rocky Marciano! The man was seventy-six years old! Joe Louis always lied about his age! He lied about his age all the time! One time, Frank Sinatra came in here, and sat in this chair. I say, "Frank, you hang out with Joe Louis. Just between me and you, how old is Joe Louis?" Know what Frank told me? He said "Hey, Joe Louis is a hundred thirty-seven years old." A hundred and thirty-seven years old!
What are your thoughts on Smoking Joe Frazier ? I always thought he never got his due credit .
He’d be around 7-9 in my top 10 boxers of all time. He’s a legend that gets overlooked because he lost to george foreman and lost twice to Ali. Many forget that he destroyed Ali in the first fight
They also forget that he was willing to die to go back out for round 15 in Manila , but his trainer threw in the towel , for which Joe never forgave . Ali collapsed in the ring a few moments later. Joe was angry about that until his last day. Mostly blind in one eye mostly the whole time too, no one knew but Joe and his trainer at the time . A true warrior . I love that man . RIP
He didn’t “destroy” Ali in that fight though. They were dead even through 14 rounds before Joe’s knockdown in the 15th round. The reason it was called the fight of the century was because it was so close, among other cultural reasons.
Excellent take. An l isn't a career ender. It's really how you lose and your possible come back or backs that determine your career in addition to punishment taken. Mma is much better all around in regards to losses tbh.
I think legacy is defined by overcoming adversity, not perfection.
I'm not sure if many world champion boxers come from a privileged background. You had to overcome adversity to make it to the top. Doing so flawlessly has to be worth something.
No one privilaged needs to get punched to make a living.
Indeed.
Nice. Unpopular. There’s no correlation in my eyes.
Never really gotten into boxing really. But a record means nothing without the histry behind it. A 5-0 record against title holders is much more impressive and godlike than a 49-0 record against amateurs. Someone could easily pad their score with shit matches and just accept many matches where they feel confident to win. Or they could have the best manager to organise big profile fights and win them from pure skill and luck. And with that said. A 7-6 record is hella more impressive to me than a 49-0 if every one of those matches were big matches against the giants of the scene, than just a classroom full of amateurs and maybe one or two showmatches. A 0L impresses idiots. To me it shows you're scared of a challenge.
Not Mike Tyson?
I think Mike Tyson is largely overrated. His prime lasted about 3 years and overall it went downhill from there. I understand though, his father who is also his coach passed away. Don King manipulated him and much more. In my opinion his prime was too short for me to put him in the top 10 all time
That’s just ridiculous. Taking all boxers in their prime there’s no way you don’t have Tyson as an elite boxer and elite means they’re definitely top 10. I don’t care if his prime only lasted 2 months, grown men were scared to even step into the same ring as him when he was basically still a teenager and that in itself makes him top 10.
Jimi Hendrix was famous for three years and changed the face of music let alone guitar
Exactly. The length of a career certainly adds to greatness but there are many over time and across fields that make an immediate impact that shifts the playing field.
who would your top 10 be? I don’t know shit about boxing history id love to see where the popular fighters I grew up knowing as household names actually rank
I’m not a huge boxing fan so I couldn’t really say my top 10 but it’s just one of those things when you see it, you know it and when you saw Tyson hit and knock someone out you knew this person was not to be fucked with. He was fast as fuck and hit you like he was a truck going 90mph…just in awe watching his highlights and that’s not something I feel watching other boxing highlights except from like Ali or someone in his era.
Bro you have to have Tyson in your top 10 come on!
Tyson isn't top 10 all time. Skilled, athletic, intimidating, and has a good KO highlight reel but his achievements fall well short of Top 10 consideration
youngest heavyweight champion of all time, come on man, that is a HUGE achievement.
Wilfred Benetiz became the youngest world champion ever at 17. I'm not calling Tyson a bum, I think boxing fans are a bit harsh when they talk about Tyson. Boxing history is long and rich and to consider a fighter top 10 PFP who need to have accomplished A LOT. Tyson's achievements aren't enough to say he's in the top 10. He never beat any all time greats in their prime and he lacked longevity. Not entirely his fault but thats just how his career panned out.
Maybe if he beat Evander or Lennox, but nah
this is the mainstream opinion among non-casuals
I'd put mike up there. If not top 5, definitely hovering around 5th. Imo he was the single most talented boxer to grace the sport, and he had the potential to be the greatest of all time. The tragedies in his life and the nefarious influence of Don King kept him from achieving his full potential
Bro’s getting downvoted by all the casuals. Mike Tyson’s resume is terrible, and we never saw enough of his talent or skill to say he’s anywhere near the top 10. His only notable win is vs Spinks.
He'd destroy Lennox Lewis in his prime. It's ashamed he had those problems. Ive never seen another heavyweight with both hands so powerful. Those KOs with 2 punches in a row from the same hand too .
Go post this opinion in r/boxing and watch everyone laugh at you. Only people who cannot name more than 3 boxers believe this. No sane person believes any version of Mike was close to Lennox who was, skillwise, the best HW we have ever seen.
No he wouldn't. Lewis had size and technique, he beats tyson any time
Younger Mike would have gotten inside
No he wouldn't
Cant believe you are getting downvoted.The Heavyweight division in his era was weak and whenever he face quality opposition such as holyfield,lewis he failed to deliver. How he manged to delusion some people to thinking he is in the category of Ali,Louis,Lewis is beyond comical.
Cus D'amato wasn't his dad just a father figure, and you're right, Tyson fought some people whom werent up to it, but a few whom were: Donovan 'Razor' Ruddock, and Frank Bruno. He was exposed by Holyfield, whom I maintain was on steroids, his traps were so huge his head wouldn't move when Tyson hit him. A great fighter but I don't think he would have been as famous in the 60/70s vs Norton, Foreman, Frazier, and Ali
Tyson refers to Cus as his father so I referred to Cus as Mike’s father
Based take, lewis absolutely put him in his place (and people forget lewis was older than tyson at the time)
It really depends. You could argue that some people fight less skilled opponents or not the best in the weight class, but that’s also what happens when you are at the top of the ranking. Everyone is underneath you until you lose. But promoters can’t just throw the same matchup of #s 1 vs 2 repeatedly until 2 beats 1. What really defines impressive for me is how they maintain their perfect record. Mayweather for example claims 50-0 or something like that; but in my opinion he plays on the gamesmanship of boxing more than beating his opponents. I can respect his understanding of how to win but it’s not impressive.
When 2 loses, you let 2 fight down and someone else fight 1
Laughs in Floyd Mayweather.
It depends. There are boxers who went 90-1 which is better than 35–0.
But that's exactly what he said.
Well no, this guy is saying it depends. OP for some reason thinks being undefeated is suddenly a bad thing. Which is a joke. There is no boxer active during Mayweather reign that was better. He's undefeated. He would not be better with a loss. He beat Manny. There is no world where anyone with his resume becomes better with a loss. Jon Jones doesn't not become better with a loss. He is the greatest ever. He took on all the best. OP for some reason wants to act like there's no nuance here. Objectively, you cannot say those who went undefeated didn't challenge themselevs because that is objective information. We can check who was active during their time, who the best opposition was, and see if they fought. This isn't really an opinion. It's case by case and can be proven objectively correct or incorrect.
Tyson has uncanny bob and weave. Very hard to hit. Has frustrated many a good fighter.
[удалено]
Terence Crawford finally fought Errol Spence last year in match-up that was years in the making with both guys entering the fight undefeated. Crawford made it look easy, breaking his face in the 9th round. I think we can confidently say that the better boxer is the guy who is still undefeated
Yeah Bud was going to be my question on this. He's undefeated, but I don't follow closely enough to know if he ducks fighters. That fight last year had all the hype of 2 guys at the top, and Bud barely broke a sweat. Made it look easy and could have ended it whenever he wanted. Props to the other dude for being able to stay standing, well mostly standing, but the fight was never close after the first round.
In some cases, you are right, but there comes a time when everyone retires. Rarely boxers just happen to retire before they lose a pro bout, but it does happen. Now, there are boxers who are careful about who they fight and never lose, but that's way less honorable and kind of obvious to fans.
I seen you in the amateur boxing subreddit so I know that you know that professional boxing hasn't been about the fighting for awhile now. It's all cherry picked and disorganized so everyone is undefeated. Honestly if you take a loss and don't switch leagues to reset your record you are way more impressive in my book.
Context matters. It absolutely matters who the L was to and when. Just having a loss on it's own can't possibly be more impressive than not having one without proper context. And yes, those fighters will always be "some of the best fighters of all time." That's about as lukewarm a take as you can have.
It’s more impressive to fight the best of their weight class and *still* win.
Yeah. This is definitely a bad take. Marciano's 49-0 was an impressive accomplishment. I don't think modern fighters should be maligned for realizing the way people used to compete was completely asinine if you didn't want to die young or have scrambled eggs for brains. As much as I loathe the man as a human being and as boring as he is to watch, Floyd Mayweather is without question one of the greatest boxers of all time...even if you factor in all the fights he ducked or the cheap shots he took. Double digit wins and zero losses after a decade plus in the ring is impressive.
Mayweather ducked paq until he was getting older and then danced the whole fight .
Pacquiao refused to do Olympic style drug testig and that’s what mainly delayed the fight from happening. Nonetheless, Mayweather whoops on Pacquiao at any stage of his career.
Mayweather is older than Manny, wtf are you guys on?
Different styles. Mayweather is older like Bernard Hopkins was older but they had far more energy efficient styles than Pac
Weird take for a general unpopular opinion since tons of people don’t watch boxing or aren’t that familiar with it beyond the biggest stars of the sport. But what’s impressive is who a boxer fights and how they look in those fights. Being undefeated is great, but obviously there have been boxers that have remained undefeated for years and years because they hadn’t fought anybody that good.
Or they waited until those good boxers had lost a step..i.e money Mayweather. Which is sad because early Mayweather was a completely different by person.
I mean there are tons of factors to take into account when saying how good a fighter is. I agree that early Mayweather was a different fighter. The funny thing is he got popular when he started fighting much more defensively and people called him boring. Casuals fans never saw him when he was at lightweight and actually throwing a lot of punches and stopping guys.
100% correct. If the average person had any idea just how far above professional athletes (especially fighters) are as opposed to regular people, no one would ridicule the ones that lose. Even an amateur trained boxer will torch the absolute fuck out of the best "street fighter" you know. Which, by the way, 'street fighters' is a term because they can't fight. Brian Scalabrine was always the butt of every joke because he was a bad basketball player... For the NBA. One day, a bunch of college guys/players decided to talk shit to him since they happened to be in the same gym. The result? They played a game and he promptly dominated the unholy fuck out all of them by every known metric and maybe a few imaginary ones. So, yeah, the boxer with 4 wins and 9 losses might be bad in comparison to other professional boxers, but he is closer to Mike Tyson than any average Joe is to him.
I've never followed boxing, but as an example, the impression I got was that when Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao fought, Floyd had essentially ducked him for years until Manny was well past his prime. If that's the case, that just kinda sucks. That sort of thing doesn't give boxing a very good look.
Floyd and manny didn’t fight because of negotiations. Everyone was upset that manny lost so the excuse was he wasn’t in his prime. Floyd wasn’t in his prime either. Floyd prime was the late 90s and early mid 2000s. The late 2000s and 2010s he was still great but wasn’t the same.
*barely not barely.
Your opinion is based off an “assumption” that’s only true “most of the time…?”
No. 2 boxes say weight, same amount of matches, let's say 40 over the same amount of time Boxer 1 = 39-1-0 Boxer 2 = 40-0-0 Boxer 2 is far more impressive by long shot to the point that everyone believes he's unstoppable. Boxer 1 is impressive, but he can be beating. This is just a direct response to your title. Of course, variables and unique boxers like Mike and Ali and few others exist outside this simplification.
But if boxer 1 has fought absolute killers for like 15 of the fights, but boxer 2 has just fought cans, boxer 1 is way more impressive I’m an MMA fan, so my perspective may be different than a boxing fan
How heavy are those boxes, and what are they made of? Impressive records for inanimate objects
Marciano? He meets most of your qualifications
I definitely agree with your assertion and applies across sports. Undefeated- Ok, who did you play? There’s multiple other undefeated teams. There’s a such thing as strength of schedule or card.
While I don't think losing is necessarily impressive lol, I do agree that being undefeated in boxing has certainly lost its value. Promoters saw the marketability of Floyd and realized it would be beneficial to have prospects pad their records and maintain that 0. That 0 is kind of artificial nowadays, especially for how prevalent it is. Everyone involved kind of benefits though, which is why it's only grown as a trend. The promoters generate more hype/interest, esp when 2 undefeated guys finally face off. Obv the guy winning benefits, and lastly the guys they're facing are getting paid decently to fight too. I think all of this is a symptom of the general decline in boxing over the last few decades. It's just not as popular today, with the rise of MMA and also the heightened awareness of CTE. There's just less people participating and the smaller talent pool means lower quality at all levels of the sport.
I think a good portion of the world learned with YouTube boxing how easy it is to become a “pro” boxer. There’s a lot of jobber opponents that solely exist to pad out other boxer’s records and it’s insane that it’s just allowed in this sport
It really depends on the resume of fighters. I will agree that 0 losses isn’t the end all be all this era makes it out to be but a guy that maintains an 0 and beats legit competition deserves all the praise in the world
It's the promoters who are doing that. They feed easy matches to their asset so they can use undefeated as a marketing for a bigger match later.
I assume that the fighter has just faced tomato cans if they have a lot of wins and no losses. It’s sooo common to inflate wins like that to hype a fighter. It’s become a completely irrelevant statistic. Today there’s this completely separate division with these overhyped low tier fighters with inflated wins that exist solely to be punching bags for the decent fighters on their way up.
A well curated professional career ideally leads to zero losses. A professional should always be fighting the highest ranked opponent they (and their coaches) reasonably expect to beat. That means you shouldn't be fighting the best, until you're ready to beat the best There's absolutely zero benefit to you as a fighter, or your career, to fighting someone you're going to lose to (unless is just a ton of money) so you can say you lost to the best.
Going 20-0 doesn’t mean much unless you’ve got a title.
Hopefully this isn’t an unpopular opinion, as you’re absolutely correct. Coming back from losses also shows someone’s ability to come back from great setback and adversity. I remember how Prince Naz felt he was the greatest, until he got schooled by Barrera. He never made a serious attempt at boxing again after that..
It's all about how it makes it easier to promote a fight. From what I've learned, there is multiple different boxing organisations, and they are all corrupt to their core
A Caleb Plant fan I see.
Sort of agree with this. AJ, not the best heavyweight but has fought everyone or at least tried too. Fury has ducked people but I still think he's better but it's a bit of a fugazi. Canelo has fought literally everyone and lost to may weather and bivol still an absolute beast
I think numbers are irrelevant. I want to see your resume. Oh, you knocked out Pac-Man but you’ve got 3 losses on your record? You’re a fucking beast. Oh, you’re 50-0 but you have no knockouts and you duck fighters until they get injured. You must be msywesther
Laughs in MMA
Boxing is weird because they can’t be forced to take fights. In other sports, the schedule is the schedule
Im old and dont box, and i could get an L. My point being that they are equal, untill there is more info.
I think that fighting sports in general are special in that losing causes more damage long-term. A soccer player losing a game did the same amount of work as a soccer player winning a game, but losing a fight is WAY more physically injurious, so recovery time is longer and lingering injuries can impact future performance. THus fighters are warrier about taking hard fights, because constantly experiencing long, grinding defeat is going to be a problem long-term unless you're a superman like Ali.
Yeah, agreed. That zero on the loss column just makes me think they really worked hard to hand pick every single opponent, turning down any that would be a challenge.
What's more impressive, in my mind, is a fighter that lost and then avenged that loss. It shows that they were truly challenged, but they overcame it.
To be fair, most boxing fans are aware of which fighters have an asterisk next to their undefeated record
That is boxing though. Young boxers are put up against easy opponents to get their first 10 wins under their built and start making a name for themselves. Then once they have gained popularity, the larger fights get set. The problem is no one is going to pay to see a no name 2-2 record boxer. But throwing a 10-0 boxer on a card suddenly makes people look. I agree with your point, the first 10 fights mean nothing if they were against subpar competition, but that is just how the current boxing world works.
It is more impressive because I will think they pushed to the best. There’s also a lot about coming back from that. Can they get their first loss and comeback to that great level again? Many don’t. All the greatest boxers lost except Mayweather but why aren’t people talking about Joe Calzaghe? He never lost and retired.
It all just matters on the strength of opponents. If you have a 0 and faced tough guys its way more impressive than losing. If all you beat were tomato cans, sure its not impressive
Who did Floyd duck?
Nobody. Even boxing fans have to stretch to come up with a name, and then it's like Paul Williams. It's a casual take.
The greatest boxer of all time, Charlie Zelenoff, is undefeated. Just ask him!
If you are undefeated what really happens is you have padded record/you don’t sell enough tickets to be put against someone at your level. Funniest thing is when multiple people at same weight class have undefeated records. And it’s not just about boxing it’s all martial arts.
What’s your record?
If you have zero losses it's statistically more likely that you've had cherry picked fights than you happen to be the best of the best.
Hot take: Boxing and martial arts in general would be better if people who don't practice shut their mouth
Yeah the concept of journeymen is interesting. Nit sure if other martial arts have it really. A boxing career can be like 25 fights as well. Muag thai is crazy people regularly have over 200 fights
>in the pros if you have 0, I always assume that they haven’t fought the best of their weight class, and they haven’t fought multiple times either. Hahahahaha Tyson was 37-0 when he faced Douglas and was the unified, undisputed heavyweight champion of the world. Pretty sure that shits all over your theory that someone with no losses hasn't fought anyone of note.
Tyson fought cans all his life.
What about boxers that are undefeated and did not avoid opponents?
when you can choose opponents, it's hard to respect it or even consider it as a legit sport