The old timers in a modern world

Coxy001 wrote:

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:

Coxy001 wrote:

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:

Coxy001 wrote:

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:Depends If you regard the best fighter to be the Champion at that weight........

Jones Jr is the best middleweight I've ever seen............

I think he beats every middle in history..

In terms of record he's not even in the Top 10 Truss. For a guy who barely campaigned at the weight against anyone of note he's the best you've ever seen? You have a rather nasty habitual way of ranking fighters Truss.

Can you tell me where I've said he's number 1 on my list........

Jones Jr is the best middleweight I've ever seen............

Are you thick....

Pot kettle black.

"Surpassing all others in excellence, achievement, or quality"

So, and I'll spell it out for you, by saying you think he's the best you're rating him as number 1 of those you've seen.

To of those you seen you think he's "Surpassing all others in excellence, achievement, or quality" which includes - Hopkins, Hagler, Monzon of those you've "seen"?

"I think Tiger Woods is the best golfer I've ever seen play but I'm now going to contradict myself and say that he's number two behind Nicklaus, of those I've seen play so he's not really the best I've seen"

captain carrantuohil wrote:Can we really say that Hopkins has definitively proved himself to be the best light-heavyweight of his time at any point? One of them, for sure, but I would argue that Jones' pre-eminence was far more established at 175, and for a good deal longer, than Hoppo's has ever been.

It's extremely annoying that Jones never got round to fighting Michalczewski; it has allowed people to use that omission as a stick to beat Roy with when I've never had the remotest doubt that Jones would have beaten him with some ease. Bearing in mind that at 160, Jones had disposed of Hopkins prior to moving up in weight and Hopkins then embarked on his endless middleweight reign, I'm fairly comfortable awarding Roy the palm there as well.

Despite the fact that his career fell off a cliff with shocking abruptness, Jones would always feature ahead of Hopkins in an all-time sense for me. I just can't get my head around the idea that with only a single belt up for grabs in each division, Hopkins would have ended up with more tangible success than Roy.

88Chris05 wrote:Michalczewski had a couple of tough breaks in one way or another, but I can't really think of him as being THE champion at 175. Strictly speaking, the lineage was lost when Spinks went up to Heavy, and for the next decade nobody really established themselves as an obvious top man at the weight. Did Hill beating Maske to unify the WBA and IBF belts (first time any of the Light-Heavy belts had been unified with another since Spinks, I believe) make him the 'lineal' champion, or did it just give him an extra title? If you think it's the former, then by the letter of the law Michalczewski became the 'real' champion when he beat Hill in 1997. If you don't think Hill automatically became top dog by beating Maske, then Dariusz didn't become top dog by beating Hill, either.

I don't begrudge any publication at the time which might have trumpeted Dariusz as the de facto champion at the time, but I can't ignore that, even if you take that road, his reign coincided with a guy clearly more talented than him, who beat every single one of their mutual opponents more convincingly than he did and also beat better fighters, usually in fine style, than Dariusz did outside of those mutual opponents, too.

When Ring Magazine started awarding belts to who they considered to be the proper, consensus champion in each division again in 2002, I recall not everyone was totally pleased when they bestowed the 175 lb honour on Jones rather than Michalczewki for the reasons I stated in my first paragraph, but I agree with how they saw it, personally.

That's not to say that Michalczewski wasn't a very good fighter, because he was. Not flashy by any means and with glaring holes in his game, but he was very well-drilled and disciplined, extremely tough, fit as a fiddle and heavy-handed. But Jones was lauded as the best fighter on the planet in his pomp, and Michalczewski was demonstrably nowhere near that kind of level. The farce DQ where he'd been getting outclassed beforehand against Rocchigiani, looking a little at sea against Griffin and surrendering the first three rounds before winning via a questionable (but in my opinion, not outright disgraceful) stoppage, being run all the way twice by Hall, getting outboxed round after round before, to his credit, coming back to knock out Harmon.....Michalczewski kept winning, but he did seem to ride his luck at times.

'Tis a shame that he gets lumped in with the Ottkes and Sturms of this world, though. Even though he had plenty of problamatic fights, unlike someone such as Ottke he was usually (the Rocchigiani fight aside) able to dig his own way out of trouble rather than relying on bent officials. His performance against Hill was top class and a cracking showing of how organisation, pressure and a reliable jab can overcome speed and trickiness, and while the Germans of that era are usually painted as classless, cheating bleeders you won't get a much classier reaction to defeat than Dariusz showed after losing to Gonzalez.

But as I said, for me Jones was the top man at Light-Heavy from 1997 to 2003 when he temporarily relinquished the belts. It was his era.

DAVE667 wrote:
Besides which, if it concerns you that much Roy, go and KO the f*cker therefore making your concerns about the scorecards moot.

Rowley wrote:

DAVE667 wrote:
Besides which, if it concerns you that much Roy, go and KO the f*cker therefore making your concerns about the scorecards moot.

Tend to agree Dave, I always felt the same with Calzaghe and Ottke. I felt the gap in their respective abilities was so pronounced that they could turn in the kind of performances even the average Ottke judge would struggle to card in favour of the German.