overrated or underrated!

[butterfly1964]

why do you think a fighter becomes overrated or underrated?

[Brockton Lip]

For beating anyone they fight but the opponent isn't good.
For losing alot fights but they fought the best of the best.

Something like that.

[speed_devil]

For beating anyone they fight but the opponent isn't good.
For losing alot fights but they fought the best of the best.

Something like that.

I probably would have said the same thing

[Frazier's 15th round]

When they are known only for a famous loss. Like, the only thing Liston is remembered for is laying on the canvas in the second Ali fight, and Ali jumping around him, telling him to get up.

[rge]

When a big era ends, guys after that get underrated, like Holmes.

[KingAbdullah]

Most overrated: Ray leonard, media darling.

[KingAbdullah]

fighters become overrated for vaiety of reasons. It has to do with charm and flash. having a carefully managed career to to get you around your weakness helps as well. In leonard's case, it was easy to fool the undiscriminating masses as you could see from the Leonard thread.Obviously, most people could not tell it's not when you fight that matters, just name recognition that counts.
"Well, he beat Hagler. he outboxed him" What ignorance!!

These same people should go to the sxith round of the fight to listen to the commentarly between Clancy and Ryan.

Clancy: "marvin Hagler looks very slow!"

Ryan" "Leonard said he had lost a lot of speed and that he was counting on the slowness of Hagler".

That came from Leonard himself.

need i say more?

Okay, I will.

I saw Ray walk up to Roldan who was fighting James Kinchen on the undercard and actually heard him on television say to him "Thanks for softening him up for me buddy"

This in reference to Leonard doing the commentary at ringside while Hagler and Roldan went at it in 1984 title fight.

you decide if his eye was excuse for not staying out of the ring for five years while he continued it in the late 80's.

I say he was a weak chinned phony all along expertly guided in his career.

[machotime]

Ray Leonoad overrated? What are you crazy? This man was one of the smartest boxers if not the smartest boxer to ever step into the ring.

[Da Iceman]

they become underated for beating a over-the-hill opponent when they might have been able to beat them in their prime
ex. marciano = underated

their overated when they have a good record but they havent beatin anybody

[KingAbdullah]

yeah. You mean you didn't know? i obviously have a lot more to say about this than you so i don't expect much of rebuttal.

All you have to do is read the next post below. it was written by me it's only few lines longer.

You can also go over to the leonard haters thread on this same page and read what myself and Abright wrote. you can also look at 1999 Ring fan poll and if you have it. Leonard rated most overrated fighter of all time (3rd place in # votes)

If you dissagree so much then you can tell me why he stalled for years fighting lethargic shell like hagler by 87, Duran in 89, plodders such as lalonde in 88. Smoke and mirrors! It's all about careful selection and timing.

Don't believe me?

Check out his back to back performances with Duran and Norris. Looks great with 37 year old legends running around the ring like a rabbit but loses his composure early against huge underdog and virtually unknown 23 year old Norris. What a difference 14 years makes on a fighter.

Just like i had been saying about leonard all along. Put him in with shells like hagler and 89 version of Hearns and you can do a trick like that -fighting in spurts and stealing the rounds at the end and THE PUBLIC WON'T EVEN NOTICE! They're dumb!!

he tried it against Terry at the end of the first round and held his own in round two but Terry, unlike the junk leonard had been facing since 84 was not only good but was not shot like the others. Still had his reflexes, his speed, his legs and consistently beat Leonard to the punch throughout the fight.And the public responds by saying "he got old"

To think that leonard thought he could match his puny abilities against Norris and presumed to be his equal. But this was an actual fight, not a mythical matchup which would tell you Terry could not carry his jockstrap. In reality, Terry had already put him in his place by the second round and shot down his image.

The third round started and you can tell Leonard lost heart when he took that uppercut. he lost heart like he did against Kevin howard, the small, 5'4" often beat welterweight that retired Leonard for three years.

Leonard is the kind of man that can't overcome adversity which is why he was humbled back into retirement by kevin and fell apart so early against norris.

Leonard thought Norris was going to be intimidated by Ray's reputation and the fact that he was fighting a bigtime fighter in the Garden but he couldn't handle the fact that he wasn't intimidated and had the nerve to actually fight back. "What nerve! He's hitting me!"

I mean, he really looked bad especially when he kept following Terry around the ring falling into every trap he set and taking sucker punches. he looked ******er than he did against hearns in 81 taking shots to the eye and falling behind on the cards.

Even then, he proved to me he just can't handle a moving target. When he tried measuring Terry against the ropes in round seven, all it did was backfire on him as Terry beat him to the punch and dropped Ray on his ass again.

Fact is, it was Ray that didn't have the experience to beat Terry. he didn't have enough fights or experience previous to that and relied strictly on having the edge in reflexes against opponents like Hagler who no longer had theirs. His so called win over Hagler amounted to nothing more than careful management and timing an opponent's decline. Either that or he looked for the weakest man possible that held a title like lalonds but bypassed Jackson , McCallum, Nunn, etc, the way he bypassed Hagler, and rematches with hearns Duran until the end of the decade.

he waited for the longest possible time until finally he was convinced Hagler could not hurt even a limited fighter like Mugabi. Mugabi WAS limited. When it came down to it, he couldn't cut it inthe ring.

A club fighter named Duane Thomas faced him at 145 for WBC title and turned Mugabi back in three while it took life and death struggle for Hagler earlier that year. Hagler was shot and that's why leonard decided to take him on after turning him down several times. So yeah, leonard was smart for waiting it out but he wasn't great.

A great fighter would have stopped making with the excuses and just got in the ring the way Arguello did with Pryor in 82.

Anyways, i don't believe leonard's claims which he used to lie to the people saying "it's not there" and "i don't feel it". What an obvious lie but the public likes it when they are lied to anyways so it doesn't matter.

Obviously, the eye never kept him out of the ring since he fought on several times after the "supposed retina" occured. But notice it didn't keep him from fighting the late 80's after hagler, Hearns, and Duran were already well on their way out?

Hagler never even fought again!

So all he was interested in was fighting retreads and the ****** public actually bought into the belief that it was actual "Superfight" instead of what it really was-a stint targetted and marketted at undisriminating boneheads who are not boxing fans at all but really just followers of the media.


Note: Smartness does not equal 2 greatness.