Comments Thread For: Fighting Words -- Vinny Pazienza and the long-standing issues with hall of fame voting

[joseph5620]

You do realize that “a boxer’s achievements in the ring” can be interpreted very broadly, don’t you? Along with boxing, I’ve been a baseball fan all my life; I’m accustomed to a very stringent HOF criteria, so Canastota’s inductions rubbed me the wrong way from the start. But their leanings are evident at this point. It’s too late to go back now.

Yes. In the ring. What did Pazienza accomplish in the ring that was HOF worthy? There is no mention of achievements outside of the ring.

No matter what semantics you choose to use for "in the ring" that clearly is intended for a boxers career accommplishments against opponents in the ring. It's no different from a football or baseball player getting in based on their achievements on the field.

[Jab jab boom]

Sorry but Paz shouldn’t be a hall of famer. Now that he is, Fernando Vargas should be in as he was significantly better than Paz and matter of fact, Mayorga should get in too. I thought the bar was lowered with Gatti, Hamed and Bradley but this is even beneath that.

[Gary Coleman]

Every Hall of Fame has this issue, seemingly, except baseball and basketball. There are years where no one gets inducted to the baseball Hall.

[PlasterHands]

Oh come on. This reads like a request to consolidate the voting power to only "the experts" who know what their talking about. I don't agree with Vinny either, but lets not entertain this fantasy that the football and baseball hall of fames work perfectly either. You can't turn greatness into a math formula. And if it could be done, we wouldn't need voters anyway. Vinny isn't the first guy to get in on sketchy creds and he won't be the last...in ANY hall of fame.

[PlasterHands]

Every Hall of Fame has this issue, seemingly, except baseball and basketball. There are years where no one gets inducted to the baseball Hall.

Baseball HOF has many underserving guys too.

[roademier]

I for one would like to know who gets to vote and any boxing "reporter/journalist" that votes for the Johansens , Gattis , Pazienzas should lose their right to vote at all.

[real raw]

Hall of FAME, not the hall of best boxer ever. Some fighters contributions to the sport rise about their actual win-loss record. Paz was good for boxing during his career.

[1Eriugenus]

If you exclude Vinny, then EVERY SINGLE NON-BOXER should be excluded from the HoF. After all, if you exclude Vinny because of his limited skills, how can you justify including Lou or Dan Duva who, so far as I'm aware , had no skills at all, or j Russell Peltz or Larry Merchant, whose skill was being an ignorant bigot?

[1Eriugenus]

IMO any list that includes Larry Merchant can't be a list any decent human being would want to be on.

[elfag]

This article contains more misconceptions than a speech by Liz Truss. Once you include promoters, referees and even (absurdly) journalists because of their ‘service to boxing’ you can’t exclude boxers who did a huge amount to popularise boxing (and contrary to the silly comment, Vinny certainly did) because they aren’t exceptional. The perfect example is Rocky Graziano. Was he an ATG? No, I could name at least 30 MWs better than Rocky. does he belong in the HoF? Of course he does because after World War 2 he & Zale did more than anyone to popularise boxing. I know Vinny was not in a fight of the year and, TBH, he is borderline but saying, e.g, that Gatti should not be in the HoF is ludicrous.

and? israel vasquez was in more exciting fights with his trilogy with marquez