But yeah, the self-appointed GOAT nonsense is the most irksome. By Mayweather's twisted logic, Marciano was a greater heavyweight than Ali. Hell, by extension of that same logic, he'd probably rate Sven Ottke higher than Sugar Ray Leonard.

And those old school guys were fighting 10-20+ times a year generally instead of once or twice a year like most elites these days or in Mayweather's case about once every 16-18 months on average since the mid 2000's. Lol at Mayweather being in the top 15 much less anywhere close to the top 5 all time. I think most serious boxing analysts put Mayweather in the 25-45 range currently.

Pacquaio could potentially hold the 130 to 147 titles at the same time since back when he was fighting at 130 he'd come into the ring at about 145-147 just like he does now and maybe cut weight down to 126 but probably not anymore. Henry Armstrong was the 126, 135, and 147 title holder at the same time and as mentioned got a draw for the 160 title and back in a time when they weighed in the same day as the fight. Manny is probably top 15 all time, possibly top ten, but not top five unless he does something crazy like going up and taking the legit 160 title away from Martinez. If Manny did that he'd have and deserve serious consideration as a top 5 all time fighter. Manny winning titles from 112 to 154 is pretty damn good. Having legit titles from 112 to 160 would be insane.

If Pacquiao beat Martinez for the middleweight belt - at least for me - he'd be the undisputed greatest fighter of the last quarter century. You'd have to go back to the middleweight golden age of the 80s to find anyone or anything comparable.

I think Manny would be the best since Sugar Ray Robinson if he took the 160 title from Martinez. He would have won lineal titles from 112 all the way up to 160. That covers 6 of the old 8 divisions I believe though he didn't win titles or lineal titles in all of them but having a lineal title on each end of the range would be just mind boggling. He would compare very favorably with Henry Armstrong.

Those are pretty solid.

I quit the NBA after this past season but haven't been able to completely kick the boxing habit.

You bring up a lot of good points re: Mayweather but I disagree with a couple.

These guys aren't interested in instant fan gratification, they're interested in maximizing the amount of money they can get from boxing before they retire. Floyd made $35 million this fight, do you think he gets that for fighting Victor Ortiz after the epic matchup with Pacman?

Of course Mayweather knows who people want him to fight, but do you really expect him to bill Ortiz as a joke opponent? Do you really expect him to not promote the guys he's fighting against because clearly Pacquio is the opponent everyone wants?

There's a pretty big financial incentive for them to do exactly what they've been doing. Take shots at each other in the media building the hype and fame while cashing in as many times as possible. Then the epic match gets even more buys because of the buildup. Those people you mention who are disgusted with Floyd are gonna buy the ppv b/c they really want to see Floyd get beat by pacman. I wouldn't be surprised at all if the drug test/blood thing was just a work to delay the fight and build more hype.

Maybe I'm just being cynical and Floyd really wants nothing to do with pacman, if they never end up fighting I'll eat my words.

I think your bias is creeping in here. Boxing is going downhill for reasons outside of Floyd mayweather's behavior. Money available in other sports means our top athletes have less dangerous avenues to become rich. UFC cannibalizes a lot of would-be boxing ppv buys. If Floyd was acting like an ambassador he'd have lower PPV buys and the sport would get even less attention than it already does.

There are several good reasons to dislike Floyd and you've pointed some out, but most (maybe all?) of what he does in public is solely designed to generate PPV buys. It might lose some would-be fans but it's pretty damn effective.

Yeah, that's fair. But I really think they've lost a lot of the momentum that they had before the original set of negotiations. Obviously it's impossible to deduce, but I feel like a Pac-PBF fight in mid 2012 would not eclipse or even match the PPV buys that an early 2010 fight would've hit. And the more prolonged this saga has become, the more obvious it becomes to me that at least one camp (and perhaps even both) doesn't want the fight or is apathetic at the very least.

Couple things I'd point out in my defense: a) I realize you can't come out and say "this guy is ridiculously inferior to me," but Mayweather still takes it too far. I believe one of his quotes last night was "the fans came to see a knockout and that's exactly what I gave them." fwiw, I'm in the lol_Ortiz camp, but regardless of your opinion, that was a ridiculously anticlimactic finish, and the more idiotic **** Mayweather says, it becomes harder to not think he actually believes what he says at face value.

b) "Ambassador" was a poor word choice; let's go with "main draw." I was in no way trying to insinuate PBF should be heading up charities and putting on free boxing clinics for underprivileged kids; I was talking about his role as one of, if not the biggest cash cow the sport has.

Like you said it's impossible to compare hypothetical PPVs, but I still think the people who would watch in 2010 will watch in 2012 and they've gained some steam as the "fight of the generation". Though they have lost out on at least one potential rematch's worth of time which is significant money.

What do you think the odds are the fight never happens? I think it all comes down to what Floyd's motive is. You may very well be right that he values his undefeated record over a big payday and doesn't want to fight the one man who could beat him. I'm still gonna go with him just being a shameless self-promoter who wants to squeeze every dollar out of his marquee fight. Either way time is starting to run out so we should know in the next yearish.

i was at that fight and spoke to Billy Graham (Hatton's coach) afterwards, i asked him why did he let Hatton take the fight at WW when it was clear to anyone that seen him fight at that weight previously knew he couldn't hack it there - his reply was "good question - i told Ricky not to take the fight at WW but he ignored me, you seen the result"

Billy Graham was sacked soon after.

Hatton at WW was a walkover for Mayweather.

I actually despise Ricky Hatton but I give him huge credit for taking that fight, he challenged the best in the world at the other guy's weight and put in an admirable effort. It's something Joe Calzaghe probably regrets not doing now.

I think the Hatton - Mayweather fights did 1.4 million PPVs in the UK which is insane. Hatton had a cut of the sales so the fight made him absolutely minted.

I also the like the fact that Hatton was devastated after the fight, he wasn't there just for the money like so many seem to be.

After all this love of Hatton i'm showing I need to go and watch some clips of him talking on youtube to remind myself of why I hate him so much.

He could get there by beating Mayweather.

Right now i think pernell, jcc, holyfield are greater.

No i don't think so. Just look at how many hof fighters some of the guys have beaten.
We have to keep in mind that even though sergio is a good fighter, hes one of the weaker lineal champs there has been at 160. At least in regards to resume. Hes also undersized at 160.

He's certainly not in the class of Hagler, Robinson, Monzon and Hopkins. But to call him one of the weakest I think is a little unfair.

Speaking of Ring Magzaine champions; it's a shame that the magazine's rankings and champions are going to become basically irrelevant soon. From what I have read the magazine will now just become a golden boy puppet. Expect Saul Alvarez to be the pound for pound number 1 soon then.

Note that i wrote lineal champ. That makes a difference.

If we look at whos been lineal champ at mw since the 49-50 we'd have;

Marcel Cerdan,
Jake LaMotta,
Sugar Ray Robinson,
Randy Turping,
Carl Olson,
Gene Fulmer,
Carmen Basilio,
Paul Pender,
Terry Downes,
Dick Tiger,
Joey Giardello,
Emile Griffith,
Nino Benvenuti,
Carlos Monzon,
Rodrigo Valdez,
Vito Antuofermo,
Hugo Corro,
Alan Minter,
Marvin Hagler,
Sugar Ray Leonard,
Michael Nunn,
James Toney,
Bernard Hopkins,
Jermain Taylor,
Kelly Pavlik,

It's an insanely stacked and rich division. Theres some names in there that could be rated lower than Martinez, but not many names.

I don't think beating Martinez would make Pac jump from 15-20ish place to 2nd. Not when you have guys like Greb, Langford, Ali, Leonard, Armstrong contending for that spot.

To each his own i guess.

Why soon? Golden boy has owned that magazine for a long time now. 2007 according to my google skills.

speaking of middleweights. Who would win a super-6 of historical middleweights?

Lineup,

Hopkins,
Robinson,
Monzon,
Hagler,
LaMotta,
Tiger

OK, you've convinced me. He's certainly better than Pavlik and Taylor though. And I wasn't actually arguing that beating Martinez would make Pac no.2, I was just defending Martinez.

They are relocating to california and getting rid of the current editor and writers. I think the new editor is either going to be Doug Fisher or Michael Rosenthal, both of whom are the editors of the Ring website - which is notoriously biased towards Golden Boy and is filled with many grammatical and factual errors. basically, the magzine is going to go down the toilet.

That looks great, let's just hope it wouldn't have as many problems as the current super 6!!

doug fischer is garbage.. that sucks to hear.

It will still be easy to track whos the real champ for us hardcores, though ring magazine made that common knowledge for the casuals.

pacman and pretty boy both top 5 on the true peak rankings

I'd love to read your top5 (or top10) list. Please post it.

it'd be a bunch of modern fighters who would beat the crap out of jake lamotta

Where would you put the limit as to how far back we can go and still have fighters able to compete?

Also for sure this would make Lennox Lewis the greatest fighter of all time right?

By this do you mean best rather than greatest? Like, picking up someone like henry Armstrong from the 1930s and just putting him in with a 2011 Floyd mayweather.

Like many sports, it's impossible to know in boxing. One sport that we can objectively prove that standards have gone up is athletics. Kind of different with boxing because although sports science has improved with nutrition and stuff, fighters of today just are not as tough as they used to be.

lol@**** who dont think mayweather is top 5 boxer all time

I have Kenneth Bentley in my top 5 of all-time.

I seriously think It's overrated to talk about "advancements in sports science and nutrition" when it comes to boxing.

It don't seem like rocket science when Mayweather eat twinkees, ramen noodles and steaks.
He also trains exactly (from what we know) like the past greats. It's a very primitive sport in that aspect.

In regard to technique and strategy, basically every fighter out there today fights like the fighters of the past.

We should also note that boxing was hella more popular back then, with likely 5-10 times as many fighters registered as pros.

Even a guy with a highly unorthodox style like Vitali Klitschko fights exactly like Primo Carnera. A hw champ/contender from the 30s.



George Benton looks almost exactly like Mayweather.



With that said, when i judge greatness personally, It's based on resume and accomplishments. To me theres a difference between being the best ability wise and the greatest.