What you say is correct, which is why a current fighter should not be instantly dismissed compared to a history/yesteryear-fighter based on resume, amount of fights, names on that resume.

A man is a man, and some fighter's today are truly brilliant. Fighters today are never going to have 200 fights because boxing has changed so much. Doesn't mean we should instantly dismiss them in comparison to past fighters in skill levels.

I agree there Martin, but and I do believe some of the hype surrounding past fighters is much bigger than the actual man but I was reffering to the part where you said all people will see is Morales x 2 and MAB etc etc and once they have watched the fights and know who is who they will also know who was or wasnt past their best and the result of the Marquez bouts will be debated for years (ala Ali v Cooper and the taped Glove or Liston and the Mob ties etc etc )

Forget Pacquiao for a minute. Use Oscar De La Hoya vs Floyd Mayweather Jnr as an example? According to the other [poll] thread it's possibly Mayweather's best victory to date is Oscar. On paper it looks reasonable, De La Hoya is a name, after all. But we all knew he was past it when he faced Mayweather.

The only way people would truly know, is to watch Oscar De La Hoya's career preceeding that fight. To see him lose against Sturm, Mosley, get stopped by Hopkins, etc,.. To see De La Hoya's last proper victory was 6yrs before against Vargas. Then you'd have to look at Vargas' recent fights and decide if that really was a good victory for Oscar? And look at the othet fighter's, Sturm, Mosley, Hopkins,.. Were they in their prime. You'd need to start watching all their fights, etc.

What I'm trying to suggest is that unless you are about at the time, the depth you'd have to go too, to valid past fights?, well, you'd have to watch everyone's fights at the time, etc..

agreed, because like I was saying, a guy might lose then have an amazing career, which makes the win over that fighter that much more.

ah im sorry im not buying into the Pacquiao hype, guy is a modern day legend but to compare with Sugar Ray Robinson is in my opinion bull.

If he takes a title at light middle and middle...(I know he wont but still) I'd consider him on the same tier as langford, armstrong and robinson.

Well I know if all the fights from 50 years ago were available to me thats exactly what I'd do

Working out whether an opponent was on the slide or in his prime will be much easier to find out in 50 years.

You also have sites like Boxrec to check out a fighters record and then just look at a particular opponents through boxrec and it gives you a little bar chart thingy of the opponents last 5 results previous to fighting said fighter and with the video footage at your fingertip along with information left by the fans of the era (that could be us) people will be much better prepared to judge for themselves

At this time, Team Pac are planning to get another title at light middleweight for his 8 title. I think Pac by having the first 7 titles in 7 different weight divisions is the most difficult feat to achieve in boxing and nobody may never do it again for many generations. This achievement will put Pacquiao together with other atg's shoulder to shoulder when the time is right 50 to 100 years from now if still nobody able to break this amazing record.

Sugar Ray Robinson > Everybody else.

It's true we have only accounts of some fights and fighters, which is why we're not sitting here wondering about Charley Burley. But We have a lot of Robinson's career and we know a lot aboput his opponents for the most part - we've seen some of his welter performances, we've seen the achievements and the fighters his opponents beat etc. We know Lamoota, Graziano, etc. and there's simply no way the likes of Oscar Larios and David Diaz compare. Morales and Barrera are all time greats for sure, maybe Mayweather. De La Hoya can hardly be called an all time great because he tended to lose his biggest fights. Mayweather might be an all time great, and if Pacquiao beats him, great, a modern legend is born.

But simply winning belts from weak fighters in an era where it's never been easier to claim you're a world champion? That's not the same as a man who fought 6 or 7 times a year, 200 fights, multiple weights, generally taking on the very best in that division. It's so much easier now to know your opponent as well - Robinson would have had extremely limited access to things like video footage, replays etc.

I will not accept that Pacquiao is closing in on Ray Robinson - iof he's lucky he's closing in on Leonard.

That's a great post Gav.

The fact that there is an extremely long thread where many suggest Rocky Marciano was a better H/W at 5ft 10, 185lb with limited skills than a 250lb 6ft 5 extremely skilled Lennox Lewis suggests to me that the modern guys will never get a fair comparison versus the fighters of the past.

IMO Manny is an all time great but imo it is impossible to fairly compare him to SRR or other pre 80's fighters due to the vast difference in how the fight game works now and how much more info we have on Pacman so we can nitpick