Bring One Fighter Back

First topic message reminder :

If you could resurrect one fighter from history and set them away in 2014, who would you pick and why?

hogey wrote:

milkyboy wrote:no-one bringing ali back? Surely the sport needs not only a great fighter, but someone with great charisma

We got Froch for that nowadays   

of course. silly billy me!

I'd bring back Jack Johnson...just to hear Floyd Mayweather says "Blimey, HE thinks a lot of himself doesn't he?"

hazharrison wrote:

milkyboy wrote:no-one bringing ali back? Surely the sport needs not only a great fighter, but someone with great charisma

Once was enough wasn't it? Colin Hart's knees couldn't take it.

nor reg gutteridge's wooden leg (god rest his and it's soul)

Actually, come to think of it, with 24 hour weigh ins I don't think Leonard comes back at Hearns.

Bringing back Barrera and Morales in their primes to show the boxers at super bantam and feather how to fight would be great!

Izzi wrote: It was wrapped in jovial love!

Aye, and these things are frequently taken in such spirit!

I would like to bring back Jimmy Wilde. Just would like to see how hard he hit for a little man.

Rowley wrote:

Izzi wrote: It was wrapped in jovial love!

Aye, and these things are frequently taken in such spirit!

To be fair I have been called worse by a 6 year old. But then again I was in Dalston and surprised he didn't just stab me.

How about bringing back Two Ton Galento? Would certainly make watching the HWs a bit more amusing with him gouging and headbutting his way through fights.

I'd bring back Joe Calzaghe to end the Froch debate once and for all

Who had the fittest bird?

Izzi wrote:
How about bringing back Two Ton Galento? Would certainly make watching the HWs a bit more amusing with him gouging and headbutting his way through fights.

Imagine if he got himself into shape and fought at Middleweight we would be a wrecking ball, he had huge hands and heavyweight power packed into that 5ft 9" tubby frame. Must have been bull like strong though to take the shots of naturally much bigger men like Baer and Nova.

DAVE667 wrote:I'd bring back Joe Calzaghe to end the Froch debate once and for all

Who had the fittest bird?

Froch wins that one, in fairness.

Two Ton Tony Galento v Two Ton James Toney for the Real Two Ton Tony Heavyweight Championship of the World?

catchweight wrote:Two Ton Tony Galento v Two Ton James Toney for the Real Two Ton Tony Heavyweight Championship of the World?

  

The fact others have been able to perform well past 35 doesn't mean Jones was at his beyond then. I don't think any boxer is that peak into the mid 30's to be honest. Armstrong, Charles and Robinson were all losing in their early 30's so they must have been peak then too.

Hammersmith harrier wrote:The fact others have been able to perform well past 35 doesn't mean Jones was at his beyond then. I don't think any boxer is that peak into the mid 30's to be honest. Armstrong, Charles and Robinson were all losing in their early 30's so they must have been peak then too.

They were fighting more times in a year than I have breakfasts. More burnt out by then than a bit of burnt toast cooked in a burning toaster.

Not really true of Ezzard who by the time of his decline had only fought around 70 times which is less than more modern fighters like Chavez and Duran. Think it's a bit simplistic to use Tarver and Johnson against him when he'd already beaten better fighters and was showing signs of physical decline. Nobody currently fighting under 175lbs has a hope in hell of beating the peak version of Jones not even Ward.

John Bloody Wayne wrote:Hearns, as I genuinely believe he would knockout EVERYBODY from light welter to middleweight, most super middles and plenty of light heavies.

My choice too!

Would love to see him whoop Floyd all around the ring and whipe that smug grin of his face as well as his precious '0' of his record.

Izzi wrote:

John Bloody Wayne wrote:Hearns, as I genuinely believe he would knockout EVERYBODY from light welter to middleweight, most super middles and plenty of light heavies.

Disagree above WW, chin wasn't the greatest. To say "everyone" is fairly wide of the mark, to say the least.

A couple of consecutive 'chinny' comments, Az??

not sure how well a young Ali would go down these days. He certainly couldnt use his charisma to play the war and racism cards to the same extent. not without a backlash.

I think he might be more beatable nowadays against the larger heavies. Although i do think he would be a world champion, and top man at the weight, i think he would have a few losses along the way.

Hearns wouldnt get near Ward. I think Alvarez would be a tough match up for him and i would expect Martinez to have beaten him a couple of years ago.

Id like to see Holyfied come back in his prime. he would beat Wlad easily, share a couple of decisions with Vitali, dominate Haye and Povetkin, get spanked by Solis, and generally liven up the division and make it interesting again.

Ali wouldn't lose to anyone around at the moment Lance, don't think the added bulk combined with no talent would bother him too much.

As for Hearns, he blitzes Alvarez without too much fuss and Martinez doesn't have a good chin or defence to last too long either, as for Ward he wins a fairly easy decision.

Lance wrote:not sure how well a young Ali would go down these days. He certainly couldnt use his charisma to play the war and racism cards to the same extent. not without a backlash.

I think he might be more beatable nowadays against the larger heavies. Although i do think he would be a world champion, and top man at the weight, i think he would have a few losses along the way.

Hearns wouldnt get near Ward. I think Alvarez would be a tough match up for him and i would expect Martinez to have beaten him a couple of years ago.

Id like to see Holyfied come back in his prime. he would beat Wlad easily, share a couple of decisions with Vitali, dominate Haye and Povetkin, get spanked by Solis, and generally liven up the division and make it interesting again.

Alvarez? He'd be shut out and then knocked out. Alvarez couldn't comprehensively beat Austin Trout. How the hell would he bother Hearns?

Barkley bothered him............and Roldan nearly knocked him out...

That's how..........

Hearns excels in any era..

Both of which were at 160 and post Hagler KO loss from where he was largely downhill. The Barkley punch was one in a million and Roldan got KO'd did he not?

They were still crude sluggers and they still bothered him

When they had no right too..

Who is to say a better fighter like Alvarez wouldn't bother him

Might seem like a bit of an obvious one, maybe even an unimaginative choice, but I'd bring Ray Leonard in to 2014. The most versatile fighter I can think of, so it's not so much whether or not he'd beat the likes of Floyd, Golovkin, Martinez or even Ward between 147 and 168, but also how he'd choose to go about it, which would fascinate me.

Great fighter though he was, Tommy's record at middle and above was patchy. Struggled with kinchen, and whilst the first Barkley Loss was a Hail Mary, the second was on points which I still have to pinch myself about when I think of it.

Would love to see floyd Leonard Chris. Probably the best defensive fighter I've seen in my life time against probably the guy with the most rounded offensive arsenal.  Leonard solved prime benitez, but floyd is a notch higher.  Really tough fight to call.

Aye, would have been something pretty special, wouldn't it? As long as Ray agreed to the random blood testing and ditching Arum as his promoter, of course!

If you had to pick a winner?......

Leonard on points, just because he would be busier. Floyd catches him with single counters but not with enough regularity. Leonard offers up enough variety to keep him guessing. If Floyd opens up then that plays into Leonard's hands.

88Chris05 wrote:Aye, would have been something pretty special, wouldn't it? As long as Ray agreed to the random blood testing and ditching Arum as his promoter, of course!

If you had to pick a winner?......

I'd pick Leonard to win.

Leonard might have to agree to random blood testing and ditching Arum, but Floyd would also have to agree to wearing gloves that Leonard wanted as well as the ring size.

Touché, Atila. Fancy you bringing that particular issue up!   

Mayweather does seem to have a fair few more backers in the hypothetical against Leonard than he had two or three years ago (at least that's my impression). Maybe because Pacquiao's gradual decline has helped to strengthen Floyd's grip on the pound for pound top spot? Who knows.

Have to admit that there have been some good posts on this fight which have made me think about it a lot more, but I still think Leonard has enough going for him here to be installed as semi-warm favourite. The size advantage is maybe a little misleading, as Mayweather wouldn't have been a Super-Feather in the day's of Leonard's prime and he'd probably have been a shade tight at Lightweight as well, but nevertheless Leonard was a natural, hard-hitting Welterweight who was still good enough to be effective at 168. Not a mismatch in terms of size by any means, but 147 suits Leonard a little better. 154 even more so.

I think in terms of trying to decipher how one man would beat the other, it's a really difficult fight to read. Leonard couldn't just beat any style - he could beat any style using a whole range of different styles of his own. Floyd doesn't quite have that versatility (which certainly doesn't mean he isn't versatile in his own right, of course) but is just off the charts in the style which he tends to use.

From the outset, it might seem a bad idea for Leonard to try and stand off Mayweather and control him with the jab and range boxing - but that's how he managed to unlock Benitez, who is the closest thing to a Mayweather clone on his record, and who he beat relatively comfortably (good, competitive fight, but I think Leonard had the upper hand throughout more than some would have us believe, including the man himself oddly enough). Likewise, you'd think at first glance that if Leonard were to go in to out-and-out brawler / bully mode and unleash some unrelenting barrages on Mayweather like he did against Kalule, for instance, then Floyd would have a hard time dealing with the handspeed and heavy nature of the shots, something he's never had to deal with in the inside exchanges before - but then again Leonard's defence was pretty average in that fight and using that style would present Mayweather with plenty of opportunities to counter.

I think a lot of it comes down to looking purely at Leonard's record, as it's just too hard to try and really anticipate what kind of fight it'd be, and what the exact keys to victory are for each man. Leonard's bigger, has the edge in power, has beaten a peak version of a fighter who ain't all that much of a cut-price version of Mayweather (albeit a cut-price version he is at the end of the day) and has shown that he can find a way to get the job done against some phenomenal opposition even when he's been having a torrid time of it. Just can't shake the feeling that all of that combined means that this is one mountain which is just a little bit too high for Mayweather to climb.

Leonard on points for me - pretty close, but not controversial.

As obvious a choice as he is, I would say Ali. His mouth and his talent would invigorate the sport. Bring back Ali, he was our greatest superstar.

Joe Bugner - he'd find most of the current lot intolerable and we'd see some angry knockouts

Chris I could be wrong here but I don't think Mayweather put much if any weight on after the weigh in even in his 130lb days, against Corrales he reweighed in at 136lbs. Now it is worth thinking here that even with weigh ins on the day of the fight, Harry Greb way back used to put weight back on, weighing 166lbs against Walker.

Not sure about his in-ring weights, Hammersmith, so you may be right, but I'm thinking more of Mayweather's candid accounts about how he often wasn't eating for two-three days before the weigh in at 130. Makes me think that he wouldn't be very wise to do a similar thing if he didn't have 36 hours rehydration / recovery time and had to fight that same evening, as would have been the case back int' day.

The only fight I know of that he struggled to make weight was his last at Super Featherweight against Chavez aside from that i've not heard of any struggles. Just had a quick scan through a selection of his fights and he weighed no more than 136lbs for any of them except for Chavez. When I look at Leonard and Hearns I would be fairly confident that the pair even in the early 80's would have been putting on significant weight after the weigh in.

milkyboy wrote:Great fighter though he was, Tommy's record at middle and above was patchy. Struggled with kinchen, and whilst the first Barkley Loss was a Hail Mary, the second was on points which I still have to pinch myself about when I think of it.

Would love to see floyd Leonard Chris. Probably the best defensive fighter I've seen in my life time against probably the guy with the most rounded offensive arsenal.  Leonard solved prime benitez, but floyd is a notch higher.  Really tough fight to call.

Look at the difference in Tommy's legs in the two barkley fights! In the first he was springy and moving quite well but in the second he had concrete feet. Shot.

Tommy was so shot he beat the best 175er and great light heavy Virgil Hill the fight before....

and before that beat Ray Leonard.........Leonard admits these days..

He may have been shot but his record suggests otherwise......

Benny lynch. I would love to have seen him fight. Even in his latter fights he looks graceful and powerful. I think he'd be brilliant even now. Tragic story but great fighter

Has to be Harry Greb, finally getting a chance to see why he was so revered.

Father time probably had an impact on Tommy's legs, but he's going to be less mobile at light heavy than middle, regardless. As truss said, it followed the hill win, so think we have to consider that (bizarre though it seems) Barkley might just have been his bogeyman.

True, some guys just have the antidote.

Bring back Louis, Marciano and Frazier and make cruiserweight a Marquee division