Why Teddy Atlas Is Right

[Eff Pandas]

i agree 100%, but the same logic should be applied to weight classes in general.

having weight classes at all is childlike fantasy sci-fi bs.

who cares about who the 840th best fighter in the world is just because he's the best fighter who can drain the water out of his body and weigh in at a certain weight?

the best fighters in the world are the heavyweights, period. any other division is the equivalent of the WNBA or the little league world series.

I understand what you are saying & can respect that opinion, but I think one on one combat sports demand some leverage with more weight divisions (although I'd argue against how many weight divisions we have currently to get that leverage) to allow for more competitors on more even playing ground.

I do see some hypocrisy with my own stance when you consider that its unlikely there are many 150lb NFL guys or 4'11 NBA players in the modern history of those sports due to the physical dimensions of most people in those sports, but I'd argue there is less pressure put on any one guy in these team sports so being a smaller guy than average in either sport won't lead to drastic injury to death with the weight differences that regularly happen in those team sports now like they would in a boxing universe with no weight requirements.

That said if boxing was just the big guys or extremely skilled less big guys representing the sport I think boxing would command a bigger marketshare in the sports world than it currently does & there wouldn't be many if any issues with defining who "The Champion" was at any given time through out history which would be a pretty nice upside.

[boliodogs]

Why don't you bet lots of money against him every time he fights and see how that works out for you? Atlas is famous for picking the wrong winner in major fights almost every time. Not only is he a very poor judge of boxing talent he is also prejudice against foreign boxers. Boxing Scene, HBO, Ring ****zine Boxrec, ESPN and damn near everybody else have GGG well up in the top 10 and most have him in the top 3. Atlas is wrong as usual.

[soul_survivor]

I know folks were crying foul for Lil g being left off of Atlas's top 10 P4P list.

I hate to say it, but Teddy may have actually been too kind in mentioning Golovkin was 11.

The truth is, we don't know.

And because we don't know it IS OK to speculate that he doesn't belong at all.

We can't even speculate based on how his competition has gone on to do against other elite or near elite guys.

We don't know THAT either.

We don't know because Golovkin's best wins were against good, but not great, competition.

And, we don't know because even counting those wins is difficult because of the prior and subsequent history of those opponents.

What do I mean?

For an example (as a control) let's cite a recent P4P great, Pacquiao, using an elite opponent- Miguel Cotto.

I am the first guy to argue that Pac's victory over Cotto has a few asterisks- the weight drain, the fact that Cotto was probably still slightly damaged goods from the cement beating...

But, a look at Cotto's record after the fight with Manny makes Manny's victory a very solid argument for Pac. It was after Pac destroyed Miguel that Cotto gave Mayweather arguably the toughest fight of Floyd's career. It was after Pac's win that Cotto destroyed Maravilla (albeit a hobbled Sergio). And it was after Pac's win that Cotto suffered a very close and competitive loss to Alvarez, another acknowledged P4P guy.

You look at other Pacquiao wins and you see largely the same thing: JMM has some of his biggest wins after Pac losses. Bradley beats JMM and Provo after his first fight with Pac, then Chavez and Rios after the second one. Even Algieri- who I thought was a nobody- proves he belonged in a closely contested loss to Khan after his fight with Pac.

Now lets look at Lil g's best wins-Murray, Geale, and Lemieux

Not one of those 3 has beaten an elite or even near elite fighter since they fought Lil g. Murray has probably had the most success, but has come up short against an ancient Arthur Abraham and an inconsistent George Groves. Lemieux has yet to even try and test himself against another elite or near elite and will not be doing so his next fight with Curtis Stevens either. And Geale went on to get KTFO by an undersized Cotto (who was more dominant in his win against Geale than Golovkin was in his win) and then follow THAT up by getting KTFO by a guy with 11 fights.

That's exactly why you CAN leave Lil g off a top 10 P4P list.

He has not fought elite competition and the top guys he HAS fought have not proved to be very good post match either.

Yeah, the eye test says he might be top 5 or even 3 or even more.

But, he has to fight someone.

He is 11 years in, over 6 of those with a belt and Jacobs (who one can argue has also done it a little with smoke and mirrors) is THE BEST GUY he has ever faced- yet it is also questionable if Jacobs is truly elite.

So, we will see.

An impressive victory over Danny should help him crack the top 10 IMO.

But for some, even that will not be enough.

You're making excuses for a man who has already explained why GGG isn't on his list. To cut it short: GGGs last performance just wasnt good enough thus he is not in a p4p list which Atlas claims can be very short lived and change moment to moment.

I'd be behind all that if not for the hypocrisy of having Wward or Rigo in the list lol And Ward particularly high. Heck Spence is on the list and he's only beaten one world class name and looked great doing it....but has no depth, which goes against one of Atlas' own criteria: "How long has he performed at this level?"

The answer: Maybe one fight lol

So I have no idea what Atlas' motivations are for this list but its not boxing. Maybe getting some cheap clicks and mentions in the small world of the boxing media?

[boliodogs]

Jacobs is without a reasonable doubt the best middleweight GGG could possibly fight. If you complain about him fighting Jacobs clearly you would complain about anyone he fought.You are a GGG hater with an agenda. You aren't going to give him any credit at all for 24 KOs in a row and 16 successful title defenses. You won't give him credit for defending his titles twice as often as most champions do. You won't give him credit for holding 3 of the 4 major middleweight belts and have Saunders, the other belt holder running scared. If these things are so easy to do how come GGG is the ONLY one doing them? Jacobs has 12 KOs in a row since beating cancer. He is the only man to ever KO Mora or Quillen. That's not smoke and mirrors. That's some damn good fighting.

[boliodogs]

You sure is the little unsecure rat posting everyday on this forum almost only in Ward/GGG related threads.

You should get banned for never talking about boxing and doing bait sht threads.

You definitely are just like freedom an useless poster.

He always has 3 or more threads going at the same time. He starts more threads than any other 3 guys combined. His threads are the absolute worst. He thinks his opinion is so important he must force it on this board many times a day. SugarKaneHook please make this board better. Stop starting so damn many hate filled threads.

[koolkc107]

I am explaining why Teddy is right to leave Lil g out of the top 10.

But, I am not necessarily trying to use the reasons that Atlas gives.

I have presented my own take on it and in a nutshell it is this: you get on the P4P list by fighting very good or elite fighters. And, if a guy has a better resume than you then you are going to be outside looking in.

Right now, resume-wise, you can make an argument for MORE THAN 10 active ranked guys who have beaten BETTER OPPONENTS.

By definition, they get more consideration from me.

Again, let me repeat that if it was just about eye test, Lil g would be in. No question.

I just have more factored in to my own P4P list.

And, apparently others do as well.

[boliodogs]

The very term "Pound 4 Pound" assumes multiple weight classes. Upward. Facing quality competition in each. Upward.

Until he goes UP and faces more threats, he can't possibly be.

It doesn't mean multiple weight classes at all. Where did you get that from. PFP means how good you are and how hard you are to beat right now, today in the weight class you are now fighting in. Nothing more and nothing less. It's not about resume or how many weight classes you moved up by beating the easiest champion. It's about how good you think a boxer is today for his weight class based on his recent fights, not his resume from years ago.Moving up in weight has nothing to do with it. It's just opinion based with no right or wrong answers, only different opinions. Since GGG seems damn near impossible to beat at 160 which is where he now fights most fans and experts give him a high PFP rating. He doesn't get penalized for not fighting at a higher weight. That's just your special rule.

[Cheek busting]

we don't know about ggg but we know about spence and thurman? your argument would make sense if those guys weren't on the list but they are.

ERROL SPENCE was on his list!?!!

Hahahahah WTF?!?!? GGG has fought MUCH better competition than Spence?!

Thurman I can see being there because of his win over Porter.

But SPENCE?!??!

[Cheek busting]

I am explaining why Teddy is right to leave Lil g out of the top 10.

But, I am not necessarily trying to use the reasons that Atlas gives.

I have presented my own take on it and in a nutshell it is this: you get on the P4P list by fighting very good or elite fighters. And, if a guy has a better resume than you then you are going to be outside looking in.

Right now, resume-wise, you can make an argument for MORE THAN 10 active ranked guys who have beaten BETTER OPPONENTS.

By definition, they get more consideration from me.

Again, let me repeat that if it was just about eye test, Lil g would be in. No question.

I just have more factored in to my own P4P list.

And, apparently others do as well.

DO u think Errol Spence belongs on the list?

If so - why?

[boliodogs]

I am explaining why Teddy is right to leave Lil g out of the top 10.

But, I am not necessarily trying to use the reasons that Atlas gives.

I have presented my own take on it and in a nutshell it is this: you get on the P4P list by fighting very good or elite fighters. And, if a guy has a better resume than you then you are going to be outside looking in.

Right now, resume-wise, you can make an argument for MORE THAN 10 active ranked guys who have beaten BETTER OPPONENTS.

By definition, they get more consideration from me.

Again, let me repeat that if it was just about eye test, Lil g would be in. No question.

I just have more factored in to my own P4P list.

And, apparently others do as well.

The eye test is exactly the way pound for pound should be done. It's about how good, and hard to beat someone thinks a fighter is for his weight class right now based on how he looks in recent fights. It's not about resume from years ago. It's just personal opinion based on recent fights. If Atlas really thinks GGG looked so bad against Brook that he should be dropped from the top ten he has a right to that opinion. Atlas is using the eye test as he should. I just disagree that GGG looked that bad in that fight.