Could SRR ever NOT be the GOAT?

Floyd Mayweather's ridiculous ramblings about being the GOAT has had me thinking.....are we at the point in boxing history where Sugar Ray Robinson could ever be supplanted as the greatest fighter ever?

With each passing decade, it seems to me that Robinson becomes the knee-jerk, automatic answer that comes out of the mouth of the vast majority of educated boxing fans, including myself. It's pretty much at the point where he has become this untouchable, mythological titan spitting nuclear warheads while sitting upon a titanium throne on the top of Mount Kickass. I continue to wonder, will the boxing community ever allow ourselves to even consider someone else as the greatest fighter of all time?

After all, there are many things that happened during Ray's era that will never happen in today's game:

----Fighters will never have 100+ fights these days, outside of the occasional Jorge Castro or Yory Boy Campas.

----Fewer titles overall, and no alphabet soup meant the big fights got made, period. Deepened the title fight pool. Today, even the greatest fighters won't fight EVERYONE. Business gets in the way, the fact that they don't fight as often gets in the way, and one's own sanctioning body gets in the way with random douchebaggery.

----Fighters today are scrutinized much more heavily for every decision made and followed in every facet of their lives, making it easier to hate/love a fighter. And we all know what extreme hating/dickriding produces......SEE ESPN BOXING BOARDS. Would we all have loved and put on a pedestal a modern-day, 2010 Ray Robinson if we knew he was a serial cheater/wife-beater? Like it or not, a strong personal opinion of people can change how we view them professionally.

----TIME. The longer time goes by with SRR as GOAT the harder it gets for people to be blasphemous. Boxing history post ALi-era seems to be incredibly resistant to change and suffers greatly from "Back in the old days" Syndrome. Am I wrong in thinking that? Or will it be another 20-25-35 years or so before the fighters of the 80's-2010 start being looked upon as reverently as the oldtimers are?

Me personally, if Floyd beats Manny and wins a couple more significant fights, he becomes top-10 all-time. Some would completely go apeshit on me for saying that. I actually feel the way about Pacquiao as well. They are both top-25 all-time in my mind already.

But I guess the question is.....what would Manny/Floyd, or any other modern fighter, have to do to get YOU to say they are better than Ray Robinson? What's the criteria? Is it even fathomable in your mind?

Lets not get carried away. Sugar Ray Robinson fought and beat dozens of hall of famers, and he won the Middleweight Championship.

Floyd won't come close, not even if he beat Pacquiao,Martinez and Paul Williams would he crack the top 10.

Ali_1748 wrote:

Lets not get carried away. Sugar Ray Robinson fought and beat dozens of hall of famers, and he won the Middleweight Championship.

Floyd won't come close, not even if he beat Pacquiao,Martinez and Paul Williams would he crack the top 10.

I never said Robinson WASN'T the greatest. I'm saying fighters of today and the future have a distinct disadvantage as to why they will never be considered for GOAT status.

I agree Floyd wont ever be the GOAT but he beats the guys u say Ali u would have to at least start talking top 10. Although I think PW has a better chance of beating Floyd than Pac Man does. I just think with his height and length he could give Floyd fits.

Bobbit said it all

I said it all without even commenting. I'm that good

I was wondering what he was talkin about LOL.

Ray Robinson is the greatest fighter ever no ifs ands or buts about it

bobbitt15 wrote:

I said it all without even commenting. I'm that good

LOL u and ur green name, it was Ali who said it all

Lol yeah I figured it was the green name

Sigh.

The majority of you guys didn't even understand what I was getting across in this thread. It wasn't challenging SRR's status as the GOAT. But the snap judgements without even taking in what I wrote is a perfect example as to the "SRR is the GOAT, how dare anything else be said" Zombie-ism that exists today.

Reading....and understanding.....is fundamental.

krazy you gotta understand this aint the 50s 60s 70s or 80s for that matte

average boxing fan aint that educated, they see a good fighter and go woah how could anyone be better

Birdofthad wrote:

krazy you gotta understand this aint the 50s 60s 70s or 80s for that matte

average boxing fan aint that educated, they see a good fighter and go woah how could anyone be better

But are we, as a community of fans, participants, and reporters, ever even going to be able to allow ourselves to consider someone else as the GOAT, should he come along? Like I said, there are so many factors weighing against the fighters of today and the future that it seems to me that regardless of how much one accomplishes they will never be allowed to challenge SRR for that mythical status. Will the automatic reaction forever be "SUGAR RAY!!!!"????

And I don;t think that's very fair to the fighters of today and the future.

hell ya

morons started thinking Tyson was the GOAT and idiots like the 2 Stus actually believe that stupid shit

so to answer your question yes

you obviously aint met any RJJR fans

all the points listed is why sugar ray robinson is considered the best of all time..yes big fights against great competion and tons of times fighting against the whos who of boxing of course is why..thats why a harry greb is also along with a willie pep that round out the top 3..today like the topic poster said fighters dont fight..why they dont even fight more than 3 times a year..untill someone does exactly what robinson pep and greb and others did yes our response will be robinson untill proven otherwise..floyd can win thoses 5 other fights or so can manny but who do they replace in the top ten..no one cause its been done before and many times over..example greb as a middleweight beat bill brennen billy miske tommy gibbons all top heavy contenders 3 times each just before they got a title shot with dempsey..he did it as a middleweight..
thats why there the greatest in the top ten..can floyd or manny beat ward green abraham dirrell 3 times each weighing 147 against the 168 lbs..thats what greb did..floyd and manny i feel are in the top100 of all time.the greatest of the greats is the top 100..forget the overenthusiastic fans or even burt sugar.how are they going to leapfrog over fighters that time and time again fought 35-40-50 or more fights against the best there is..untill that happens we can say robinsons the greatest pep and greb not to far behind and not be an automatic thing cause its true..

Sorry, but I need to bump this for Marble and some of the new guys. Hopefully they'll get what I'm trying to say.

It's NOT attack of SRR's GOAT status.

KrazyHorseBennett wrote:

Floyd Mayweather's ridiculous ramblings about being the GOAT has had me thinking.....are we at the point in boxing history where Sugar Ray Robinson could ever be supplanted as the greatest fighter ever?

With each passing decade, it seems to me that Robinson becomes the knee-jerk, automatic answer that comes out of the mouth of the vast majority of educated boxing fans, including myself. It's pretty much at the point where he has become this untouchable, mythological titan spitting nuclear warheads while sitting upon a titanium throne on the top of Mount Kickass. I continue to wonder, will the boxing community ever allow ourselves to even consider someone else as the greatest fighter of all time?

After all, there are many things that happened during Ray's era that will never happen in today's game:

----Fighters will never have 100+ fights these days, outside of the occasional Jorge Castro or Yory Boy Campas.

----Fewer titles overall, and no alphabet soup meant the big fights got made, period. Deepened the title fight pool. Today, even the greatest fighters won't fight EVERYONE. Business gets in the way, the fact that they don't fight as often gets in the way, and one's own sanctioning body gets in the way with random douchebaggery.

----Fighters today are scrutinized much more heavily for every decision made and followed in every facet of their lives, making it easier to hate/love a fighter. And we all know what extreme hating/dickriding produces......SEE ESPN BOXING BOARDS. Would we all have loved and put on a pedestal a modern-day, 2010 Ray Robinson if we knew he was a serial cheater/wife-beater? Like it or not, a strong personal opinion of people can change how we view them professionally.

----TIME. The longer time goes by with SRR as GOAT the harder it gets for people to be blasphemous. Boxing history post ALi-era seems to be incredibly resistant to change and suffers greatly from "Back in the old days" Syndrome. Am I wrong in thinking that? Or will it be another 20-25-35 years or so before the fighters of the 80's-2010 start being looked upon as reverently as the oldtimers are?

Me personally, if Floyd beats Manny and wins a couple more significant fights, he becomes top-10 all-time. Some would completely go apeshit on me for saying that. I actually feel the way about Pacquiao as well. They are both top-25 all-time in my mind already.

But I guess the question is.....what would Manny/Floyd, or any other modern fighter, have to do to get YOU to say they are better than Ray Robinson? What's the criteria? Is it even fathomable in your mind?

Hmmmm.

Is it POSSIBLE? Yes. But as long as we have 17 divisions, alphabet straps and fighters fighting 40-50 times is it LIKELY? Nope.

Let's do just one historical comparison for a guy who only fought sixty times. Jimmy McLarnin. Beat ranked guys in every division from 112-147. Two time welter king. Over 1/3 of his fights were against HOFers. His last 13 fights consisted of twelve fights against HOFers and he went 8-5. Eight of his 11 career losses came to HOFers. Now McLarnin usually ranks somewhere in the top 40 or so but not inside the top 25. How many active guys today belong even in McLarnin's ballpark?

Here is some Robinson data. Peak record of 120-1-1. never lost at welter. Defeated 18 champions when there were eight divisions and one champ per, defeated HOFers on over 20 occasions and ranked fighters on over 30 occasions. Again, those rankings were when only eight divisions existed.

What does someone have to do today to exceed that? How about beating over 20 HOFers and over 30 ranked fighters for starters. And just so we're clear, Robinson is NOT the only guy to have done that.

In my view Manny is a top 40 kind of guy, Floyd maybe top 50.

marble good post.lets not forget also the ranking today are bogus..5 differnt commisions all with differnt fighters in there ratings.example are the 2 K brothers ranked in the commision that haye holds they belt..soo beating a ranked fighter today can be watered down..also 122 l or 115 lb or 105 n 105 or 130 154 divisions further water down the rankings today because years ago thoses divisions were part of the 8 you talked about...today indeed there are awsome fighters but beating whats considered a rank contender means litterly very little in comparrison.

dmar5143 wrote:

marble good post.lets not forget also the ranking today are bogus..5 differnt commisions all with differnt fighters in there ratings.example are the 2 K brothers ranked in the commision that haye holds they belt..soo beating a ranked fighter today can be watered down..also 122 l or 115 lb or 105 n 105 or 130 154 divisions further water down the rankings today because years ago thoses divisions were part of the 8 you talked about...today indeed there are awsome fighters but beating whats considered a rank contender means litterly very little in comparrison.

The rankings I am referring to are Ring Magazine's only. I don't care what the WBA thinks. But you are dead right about the multi-divisions.

In Robinson's time there were 88 ranked fighters. Eight champs and then ten contenders in each of eight divisions.

Today there are 187 ranked fighters. 17 champions (not that they are filled at the moment) and ten contenders in seventeen divisions.

Let's take two recent examples of guys who could have made other career choices.

Had Roy Jones defeated Nigel Benn, Joe Calzaghe ten years ago, Swen Ottke, Darius M, Michael Nunn, Chris Eubank, Steve Collins, Henry Maske, Garciano R instead of the postal workers he actually fought on occasion where the heck would he belong? What if he'd taken on the seemingly impossible challenge of Lennox lewis and won?

Had Floyd defeated Stevie Johnston, Paul Spadafora, Popo Frietas, Kosta, Hatton (at 140), Casamayor, Williams, Margarito, Shane (five years ago) where would we rank him?

Those suddenly look like top 20 kinds of resumes to me.

goodpoints and thats why they should not be thought of as a top 20 or 25..its not saying that they didnt have fantasic and great abilty.its saying they didnt prove it or test it enough against the best in there era..by best in there era i dont mean a few fights or fighters but against many that were there willing and able to fight you..folks view us at times wrongly i may add as discrediting these fighters.were not..just putting things in a equal and proper perspective with honesty..

dmar5143 wrote:

goodpoints and thats why they should not be thought of as a top 20 or 25..its not saying that they didnt have fantasic and great abilty.its saying they didnt prove it or test it enough against the best in there era..by best in there era i dont mean a few fights or fighters but against many that were there willing and able to fight you..folks view us at times wrongly i may add as discrediting these fighters.were not..just putting things in a equal and proper perspective with honesty..

Yup, or at least trying to.

I just don't get how folks find the math avoidable.

In say the 1940's. 10,000 pro fighters in 8 divisions means a champ for every 1250 fighters.

Today, 5,000 pro fighters in 17 divisions means a champ for every 294 fighters and a strapholder for every 75 fighters.

In other words it is 15-20 times easier today to win a belt than it was. Even if one believes boxing is getting the same quality athlete it used to? The competitive difference just based on the math is shocking.

yes indeed the math is shocking..also via the math then since the competion in numbers is greatly reduced thus giving you a smaller pool to fight in then why is it that the top competion isnt fought often in general unlike a greb robinson even a fritzie zivic who had a much larger choice of guys to fight..the reason is they sought out the best to fight and did..that makes the math more impressive i feel.

dmar5143 wrote:

yes indeed the math is shocking..also via the math then since the competion in numbers is greatly reduced thus giving you a smaller pool to fight in then why is it that the top competion isnt fought often in general unlike a greb robinson even a fritzie zivic who had a much larger choice of guys to fight..the reason is they sought out the best to fight and did..that makes the math more impressive i feel.

Yup. Plus the wear and tear of fighting top guys over and over again in what would be, by today's standards, in shockingly short periods of time had to have been brutal. Yet somehow guys like Zivic still performed at exceptionally high levels.

Here's another example. Harry Greb went 45-0 with wins over six HOFers. Floyd Mayweather is 41-0 with wins over probably 3-4 HOFers. Pretty comparable. The difference is Floyd did his over 13 or so years.

Greb did his in 1919.

lol lol lol yes..i think lol thats why harry trained very little..he broke all the rules women and at times 2 of them in the dressing room a few hours before a fight etc etc..