If They'd Walked Away Would History Have Been Kinder?

First topic message reminder :

Fighters managing to retire from the sport at the right time and on their own terms is as rare as hen's teeth. Often, they linger on, no longer the same men they were a few years and a few pounds ago.
 
What if, though, the following fighters had walked away on a winning note -- how much higher would they rate all time?
 
Roberto Duran 72-1  

Duran retires a national hero after upsetting Ray Leonard in Montreal.
 
Roy Jones Jr. 48-1 

Having dominated John Ruiz, Jones hangs them up -- his "superman" tag still intact.
 
Willie Pep 134-1-1 

After his miraculous recovery from a plane crash in which he suffered a broken leg, cracked vertebrae and a chest injury, Pep wins a further 26 bouts in two years before bowing out with a win over Johnny LaRusso.
 
Ray Robinson 128-1-2 

After flattening Cyrille Delannoit in Italy, Robinson escapes the clutches of Jim Norris to live out his days on the continent.
 
Julio Cesar Chavez 89-0-1
 
After mauling Liverpudlian Andy Holligan, Chavez, struggling with motivation, walks off into the sunset.

Strongback wrote:Eddie Futch, Emmanuelle Stewart, Freddie Roach and the other great trainers are whose opinion I rate the highest, as long as they are not talking about one of their own fighters of course.

I rate these opinions higher than posters opinions.

Fair statement and I probably agree with you. I'd also rate the aforementioned 3's opinions over boxing historians who, as has been mentioned, know the facts of boxing mainly based on record books and what others have written, often basing their opinions on sometimes 3rd hand testomonies. I certainly wouldn't rate their opinions over the most knowledgeble posters on here just because they're 'experts'.

I think RJJ would've been thought of higher had he quit after Ruiz, what more was there for him except possibly another fight at HW? Defo his fall from grace was very quick, but I don't buy into him being found out by Tarver & Johnson, I believe he'd have beaten both a few years before, neither did a great deal after said fights & will probably be credited as best wins for both.

Jones is the big one.

In my mind there's no way that Jones wouldn't have beaten Jones Jr and Johnson in his prime.

It is my opinion that Jones was slowing anyway and his reflexes were fading, which, when fighting against Clinton Woods, wasn't the biggest problem in the world and may not have been immediately evident. When fighting against a slow heavyweight, again, his reflexes, even when slowed would have been quick enough. Moving back to light heavyweight proved a historical point and made RJJ the historical equal of Ruby Rob, but with fading reflexes and speed - RJJ couldn't quite get past Tarver or Johnson.

After beating Ruiz at HW - we'd still be discussing him the equal of SRR.

I think RJJ should be rated above SRR. He was a better fighter anyway. In a H2H I would back RJJ 11 times out of 10 to beat SRR at MW.

J.Benson II wrote:History would have been kinder to Audley Harrison if he walked away before his pro debut.

 

I'm not sure anyone still takes you seriously Az.

RJJ vs Robbo would have been some fight wouldn't it...........

Wouldn't like to pick that one.............

At MW, SRR's record is very patchy at best.

If you look at his record as an old man returning from retirement, I could quite easily say Jones record at light heavyweight is patchy.

Hammersmith harrier wrote:If you look at his record as an old man returning from retirement, I could quite easily say Jones record at light heavyweight is patchy.

RJJ's career after Ruiz resembles a car crash. Doesn't take away from the fact that he was the most naturally gifted boxer I have ever seen.

The same is true of Robinson, who's patchy form was at a similar age to jones fall from grace.

That's the rub. It didn't affect his standing but you can be sure it will affect RJJ.

Robinson was losing to better fighters than jones but more importantly beating them in rematches.

That's irrelevant imo. When a guys finished he's finished. RJJ's style wasn't based around textbook boxing although he had it based on his amateur and early pro career. When his cat like reflex went down so did his career.

azania wrote:

Hammersmith harrier wrote:If you look at his record as an old man returning from retirement, I could quite easily say Jones record at light heavyweight is patchy.

RJJ's career after Ruiz resembles a car crash. Doesn't take away from the fact that he was the most naturally gifted boxer I have ever seen.

You moved him up your ATG rankings after successive KO losses. And you put in a fighter who you've never watched in a p4p list.

Silly boy.

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:I'm an authority on the sport..........

I've been watching it for thirty years and unlike you Brits I watched it all the time.......because it was widely available back home.........I've seen more fights than Bob Mee I reckon.......

I've also written more articles on here (even If 99% were crap)...and on the old bbc than any other poster......

Does that make my opinion better than ONETWO's.........Nope............

Does it make you a sheep..............Probably.......

Bless you anyway.

No. just no.

You're a laughing stock and completely deluded.

You really have no clue as to how you're perceived on here.

A belligerent fool with opinions on everything.

My god you really are stupid. I mean VERY stupid. Pond life stupid. Beyond the scope stupud. Off the freaking scale. Other than that you're just stupud.

The sign of a truly great boxer is how he performs past his best which is why Jones is downgraded. He relied on his physical gifts and once they were gone he had nothing left.

I disagree somewhat. A sign of a great boxer is what they achiieved, how they achieved it and how good they were. At 35 Ali was losing to Spinks, SRL was losing to Camacho but they had already proved their greatness. RJJ was nit the same fighter prior to Ruiz as he was against Toney or Hill.

Strongback wrote:Eddie Futch, Emmanuelle Stewart, Freddie Roach and the other great trainers are whose opinion I rate the highest, as long as they are not talking about one of their own fighters of course.

I rate these opinions higher than posters opinions.

Is emmanuelle Stewart emanuel steward's porn name?

milkyboy wrote:

Strongback wrote:Eddie Futch, Emmanuelle Stewart, Freddie Roach and the other great trainers are whose opinion I rate the highest, as long as they are not talking about one of their own fighters of course.

I rate these opinions higher than posters opinions.

Is emmanuelle Stewart emanuel steward's porn name?

 

emancipator wrote:

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:I'm an authority on the sport..........

I've been watching it for thirty years and unlike you Brits I watched it all the time.......because it was widely available back home.........I've seen more fights than Bob Mee I reckon.......

I've also written more articles on here (even If 99% were crap)...and on the old bbc than any other poster......

Does that make my opinion better than ONETWO's.........Nope............

Does it make you a sheep..............Probably.......

Bless you anyway.

No. just no.

You're a laughing stock and completely deluded.

You really have no clue as to how you're perceived on here.

A belligerent fool with opinions on everything.

Glad to see he's still alive........and consistent in his offerings..

This is a tiny bit ridiculous, given I don't really post regularly on here so can't actually consider myself a mod - but please play nicely folks?

Some of us always do...........

I'm playing fair. Just stating a fact above.

azania wrote:

Hammersmith harrier wrote:If you look at his record as an old man returning from retirement, I could quite easily say Jones record at light heavyweight is patchy.

RJJ's career after Ruiz resembles a car crash. Doesn't take away from the fact that he was the most naturally gifted boxer I have ever read about.

Fixed that for ya  

Reborn-DeeMcK-Reborn wrote:

azania wrote:

Hammersmith harrier wrote:If you look at his record as an old man returning from retirement, I could quite easily say Jones record at light heavyweight is patchy.

RJJ's career after Ruiz resembles a car crash. Doesn't take away from the fact that he was the most naturally gifted boxer I have ever read about.

Fixed that for ya  

Has your kid started speaking Afrikaans yet? 

Yea, theres one speaking to me now. Tell your mum I said hi by the way :-)

Obviously Robinson's more patchy exploits post La Motta VI haven't done him any harm, given that it's still seen as 'controversial' to put anyone other than him at the all-time number one spot. I'm not even sure retiring at 128-1-2 (1NC) would have simply made that grip even stronger either really, as his comeback wins when past his best against the likes of Basilio and Fullmer are amongst his best. The difference with Robinson is that he was never really humiliated or hammered in any of his late career fights (well, short of being forty-odd years of age anyway) whereas some of the other names were. Don't think he's been effected too greatly.

Duran is the complete opposite end of the spectrum - if he retires after Leonard I, he'd be in just about everyone's top half-dozen I think, and certainly never out of a top ten. As it stands, he seldom makes a top six and is more of a 'cusp of the top ten man' in many cases. Not bad going, mind you, but he was still only 29 at 'No Mas', so can't really blame his decline immediately afterwards on age as some of these other fellas can.

Jones is another casualty here. Retires at 49-1 after Tarver I, the first Heavyweight titlist to drop back down in weight and pick up the Light-Heavy title (Fitzsimmons actually scaled more in winning the 175 lb crown than he did the Heavy one!), and we'd have been struggling to find superlatives to describe him, I guess. As I touched on in Az's Mayweather thread, it's the manner of his decline which has hurt Roy. If, aged 35, he'd simply been outworked and bravely lost untidy decisions to Tarver and Johnson in 2004, more people would be willing to say, "Well, everyone gets old." But because he went from one polar opposite to the other in such a short space of time, there's more of a tendency for some to say that he was 'exposed' and that such a pair of defeats was always going to happen sooner rather than later (a load of cobblers, but still, doesn't stop people saying it).

Oddly enough, Pep's results after the plane crash don't effect his all-time great standings as badly as I reckon they should. He gave his finest career performance (Saddler II) after the plane crash, as well as scoring some of his best wins after it too (Riley, Famechon, Sierra etc) - and yet him getting absolutely mangled by Saddler first time out (no excuses or mitigating factors for that one) and failing to establish superiority over a man who he is virtually always placed ahead of, oddly enough, is always put down to the plane crash. Doesn't seem to have had a negative effect on his standing when it perhaps should have, just a little.

Chavez is a tricky one. I think he did take away from his standing a little. He arguably lost to La Porte at 130 (super close fight, though), arguably got a shade lucky against Taylor at 140 and definitely deserved to lose to Whitaker at 147 - but in all three instances, he escaped that 'L' on his record and the more time passes, the more these kind of things tend to get forgotten as that '0' shines brighter and brighter. History would have shown an unbeaten record and, in today's age when everyone seems obsessed with the '0', I suspect in general fans would be more misty-eyed when looking back at the great, unbeaten warrior Julio.

As it was, carrying on past the Holligan fight saw him outclassed by Randall, giving his detractors all the more reason to delve back to the close runs against La Porte, Taylor and Whitaker as a way of pointing out that such a defeat shouldn't really have been seen as a shock at all, and of course it saw him more or less quit in the rematch, only to be gifted a verdict he didn't deserve. Again, that did his reputation no favours. By the time Oscar got to him you can give Julio a bit of a pass, really, as there were a lot of miles on the clock and De la Hoya was red-hot at the time, but still, Chavez did cost himself a few legacy points by continuing past 1993.

Reborn-DeeMcK-Reborn wrote:Yea, theres one speaking to me now. Tell your mum I said hi by the way :-)

That would be a little difficult. But I'll tell my missus.

Awk bless

J.Benson II wrote:History would have been kinder to Audley Harrison if he walked away before his pro debut.

But, think of the potentially disastrous effects on the world economy caused by a monumental crash in sales of drawing boards. Swings and roundabouts.