re Broner, his age and what he might do in the future have no relevance to his current p4p ranking. His two most notable fights so far have been against good but not great opposition. Many people think he lost to Ponce De Leon and he destroyed DeMarco. Putting him above the likes of Donaire is unbelievably stupid.

kingofcool, my basic point is that the sport has changed so much that it is nearly impossoble to compare fighters from different eras.

"There's an argument for the "evolved athlete" but that's only a factor if you can pinpoint how the training is different today than it used to be. In a primitive sport like boxing, that's seldom the case."

You seem to think everyone is on PEDs, if that's the case then they would certainly be more "evolved" than Pep, Armstrong, Marciano etc.

On your other point, Ken Norton is in the hall of fame. If he was in today's division he would maybe lose to both Klitschko brothers and have an otherwise impressive record. You need great fighters around you to be great.

I agree it's hard to compare those fighters of the 10s,20s,30s with todays fighters. But with Ray Leonard vs. Floyd, the sport is very much the same. 15 rounds vs. 12 rounds being the main difference.

Yeah i think most of the current fighters is on peds, but i think the same of the 70~ish, 80s, 90s, 00s.
If those fighters of the past were to time travel they would use the same.

I agree that you need great fighters around you to prove your greatness. Floyd and Pac are great in their own rights, but they have not done close to enough to warrant comparison with some of the past greats. That's all.

I had always suspected Bronies might be at work on the Ring p4p rankings.

De ja vu anyone?

Made exactly the same noises about Pacquiao.

Inb4 Hunter pays too much attention to Ward so Khan may look elsewhere.

More de ja vu.

Im fine with him claiming hes a better boxer than Garcia, and if that last sentence said I'll beat Danny Garcia, fine too, but no, Amir has got to try to knock him out. Doesnt seem to learn ever.

Watching the program on Sky last night about Khan and his new Virgil Hunter was quite a good watch.

Khan ( at some point ) needs to learn hes not quite good enough to take liberties in his fights .. the sooner that happens the better it will be for him.

I like the fact it seems Hunter is basically trying to get rid of all the nonsense thats floating around in Khan's head.

Im not the biggest Khan fan due to how deluded he sounds at times .. but im hoping to see some improvement this weekend.

Khan is a great fighter. Just with next to zero punch resistance. Freddie did a great job of hiding it for so long, even though it was no secret. You can learn a lot of things, improve on others. But a tiny head and no chin? That's an entirely other deal.

I think there is a little more to it than Khan merely having no chin.

He seems to throw a load of punches and when he misses he leaves himself right in the slot for a huge counter .. that can be worked on big time.

He can take shots, the Maidana fight proved that to some extent, but in that fight he was more reluctant to throw shed load of punches and risk being countered by someone that he believed was heavy handed.

I just think he thinks he can take shots against supposedly lesser punchers and therefore takes risks ... the problem is then hes caught flush when hes in no position to absorb such punches.

Cannot believe im slightly defending Khan here ...Sc00by is going to jump all over me now.

Freddie did a good job of bringing in a training coach who built Khan up physically from the ground up. Alot of plyometric work, core strength, and then began to remove from anything in the pocket. Taught him how to work the range, angles, to use his speed, and most importantly to get the hell out after scoring his points. Basically what he did for Pac also when he was stepping up in weight. The problem is, you can only do so much and at the end of the day are still left with the man.

For eg, you can teach Pac all those things, but the guy is a warrior who likes to go toe to toe and battle. We saw him leave there beginning with Oscar...and eventually return. Final conclusion*ooopsKTFO

Same deal for Khan. Except his prob is his boxing brain. He gets tagged even slightly and the game plan goes off the rails and he thinks he can get in a slugging match. Fate says, "Sorry son, that ain't your game."

I'm looking forward to seeing Leo Santa Cruz again on Saturday night, he looks like an absolute beast.

Got that Kahn thing recorded, will get to watch it at some point this week.

Yea, I really like him as is no secret ITT, but I cannot argue with any of his critics. I just want him to fix his ego, realise his strengths and weaknesses and start boxing to them. He would be hard to beat if he did.

larry merchant stepping aside as an hbo boxing commentator after saturday night's fight. he'll have more of a "brokaw-like" role going forward.

Probably a (very) good move.

I know Larry's losing it and it's getting bad, but even with all of the slip ups, I still think he's one of the good guys and I'd rather listen to him stumble than Lampley douche it up - sue me.

I still can't believe Lampley made that reference to the Philippines disaster after the KO, such unbelievable bad taste.

With the sports rivalry thread around I was just wondering who you guys would put down as say the Top 3/Top 5 all time boxing rivalries.

Muhammad Ali - Joe Frazier
Marco Antonio Barrera- Erik Morales
Manny Pacquiao - Juan Manuel Marquez
Israel Vazquez - Rafael Marquez
Arturo Gatti - Mickey Ward

Those are the ones that mean the most to me because I've seen them all and with the exception of Ali/Frazier, Gatti/Ward and the first Barrera/Morales fight I watched them all live or as-live.

Ted Lewis fought jack Britton 20 times and Sugar Ray Robinson fought Jake LaMotta 6 times.

Yeah the Barrera/Morales rivalry is the best for me simply because I watched every single round live. I was pro Barrera at the beginning but then found myself sliding towards Morales as the rivalry grew.

Two guys that hated each other and didn't give two ****s about a W/L because all they wanted to do was knock seven shades of ****e out of each other.

Thats 1 hell of a list Jacket WP.

I wanted to say any combination of the Benn/Eubank/Collins or Hearns/Leonard/Duran/Hagler.

Im not sure that 1v1 rivalry, any of them beat your top 5... Maybe Leonard/Duran?

Good call on Benn/Eubank, for some reason I was only thinking of trilogies. The hatred between those two was fierce. It was a bit before my time so I can't fully appreciated how massive it was but every time there is a budding rivalry between two Brits the names of Benn and Eubank are always mentioned. I guess it didn't have as big a global impact but it's easily the number one British boxing rivalry.

Classy.

It's such a shame that Morales and Marquez never fought to complete this generation's version of Hearns/Leonard/Duran/Hagler. They could do it now of course but I have a feeling it might be a bit one sided.

All great ones. Also Bowe-Holyfield. Had high hopes for Castillo-Corrales after the 1st fight was GOAT but that one didn't pan out.

some other good old timey ones:
Joe Louis - Max Schmeling
Willie Pep - Sandy Sadler
Tony Zale - Rocky Graziano
a ton others I'm sure I'm forgetting.

Did Barrera really hate Morales? I knew Morales despised Barrera.

Barrera threw the first punch in their press conference scrap. Also he held up 2 fingers on one hand and 1 on the other whilst looking at Morales after the decision in their third fight had been read out.

Good calls above guys ,but i am pretty sure nothing beats these two ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Lou..._Max_Schmeling


Don't forget when the fight was on ,what was going on in the world etc etc


(ah, just saw someone else said it ,lol.Great call)