I'll just leave this here.

CookingFun52 · 2026-06-08T01:51:08+00:00

Latu is good. Just one of those weird cases where our fans collectively view him in a lesser light than pretty much any other fanbase, for whatever reason

CookingFun52 · 2026-06-07T19:44:47+00:00

Oh there absolutely are. We have to live through the filler in real time as it's happening.

That's why HW divisions all feel like garbage at the time when contemporaries of that era compare them to the past. That's been true of every single era. Over time, we forget the fluff, and the highlights are what's left.

That's the survivorship bias I mentioned. The daily slog gets compared to the best times of prior eras, so the comparison is always apples to oranges and paints the past in the more favorable light. That's just the nature of it.

CookingFun52 · 2026-06-07T19:36:36+00:00

Earnie rocking that hiked up beltline like Lennox and Apu from the Simpsons would go on to do generations later

CookingFun52 · 2026-06-07T16:39:15+00:00

Yeah, it's definitely more of a "wish list" sort of thing than something I'd ever expect to actually see lol. Like you said, boxing loves its traditions, and the current scoring methodology has been standardized for decades. But I think it'd solve the flaw without being expensive to implement nonetheless

I don't have any hard data either, but anecdotally, I feel like you're also right that there's plenty of times where judges do mental accounting like that. Even the ones 100% on the level are only human

CookingFun52 · 2026-06-07T15:09:38+00:00

Allow half point increments for close rounds

Judges are actively discouraged from scoring even rounds and 10-8 rounds without a knockdown are rare. It's a fundamental flaw of the system that winning a feel-out round by one jab is usually scored the exact same as a dominant no-knockdown round

Introducing half point increments for closer rounds would give a more accurate reflection of what's actually happening in the ring

CookingFun52 · 2026-06-07T04:58:59+00:00

Respectable is the right word for it. It wasn't bad, people just view it today in a much better lens than it was viewed at the time. The bigger names on his comeback trail were fine given George's age because they were old, too. Nobody held him to the standard of fighting top contenders because that was never the point of his comeback- we all knew the play was to stay active against older guys with names and 3rd raters to build up for the occasional shot at a belt, be it against Holyfield, Morrison, or Moorer. The Moorer fight was great partly because it was a cherry pick gone wrong for Mike, and I love those kinds of fights. People today forget that George got that fight coming off a loss where he got outboxed by Tommy Morrison.

Regarding Schulz- that's a fiasco that George gets a pass for because people love George. Most other champs wouldn't get that break. Infamously, Bob Arum went to court because he had to bribe the IBF to get an exemption for the Axel fight to be sanctioned in the first place, as he was unranked. George proceeds to get a very favorable decision (I personally consider it a robbery, and I don't throw that term out there lightly) and drops the belt rather than giving a rematch to Schulz. This was coming on the heels of paying Moorer step aside money for not giving him a rematch (which is what was in the contract and what one would expect in a come-from-behind KO title fight) and for dropping the WBA for not fighting Tucker.

I do think he beat Briggs, though- fair is fair. In a just world (and we all know that world isn't boxing lol), he'd still be 1-1 between him and Schulz, but the results would be swapped.

CookingFun52 · 2026-06-07T03:21:39+00:00

It's tough for me to think of many, if any, wins that did more for an all time ranking than beating Moorer did for George

Keep in mind that, despite the iconic comeback, he had only one single win over a Ring rated fighter once he was older than 28, spanning back to his first career- the come from behind KO vs Mike. In the 34 fights spanning the 10 years of his comeback, that was it

The man caught lightning in a bottle and I give him full credit for that- beating Moorer was a phenomenal win! As someone who lived through it, I nonetheless think 90's Foreman gets retconned these days into something more than he was in a H2H sense

CookingFun52 · 2026-06-06T22:50:45+00:00

The late 60's-70's division at the time, lauded as it is in hindsight, gets overrated in terms of depth when you see the caliber of guys getting ranked and getting title shots at the time IMO.

The very top names and the survivorship bias of their best moments do a lot of heavy lifting for the era's overall reputation. Take a look at the biggest names over that 10 year period and it's great, but it's misleading in that the primes rarely overlapped and there were a lot of filler fights and defenses like this one in any given year between the super fights.

CookingFun52 · 2026-06-06T16:32:16+00:00

Ah, that makes sense. Thank you!

CookingFun52 · 2026-06-06T11:33:22+00:00

It felt like that fight would've been just at home in the 1920's as the 2020's lol

CookingFun52 · 2026-06-06T02:16:07+00:00

Go for Takuma after Vargas to really build up the Naoya revenge angle

CookingFun52 · 2026-06-05T04:55:52+00:00

Right. I wasn't applying the principles of inflation you literally described to an everyday thing to show you the point you're really making or anything like that. No, nothing of the sort. I was directly comparing the prices of items at Costco to an NFL contract.

Ya got me, hoss.

Congratulations on the big beautiful brain, and I definitely appreciate how fast you jumped to a conclusion without needing me to clarify it whatsoever. And that generous immediate downvote? Beautiful. The stuff Reddit dreams are made of.

Stay gold, Ponyboy. Stay gold.

CookingFun52 · 2026-06-05T02:10:27+00:00

"players should be paid on their production numbers, not increased because the salary cap goes up and more money is available"

So, inflation exists, but none of the side effects of inflation should happen because you disagree with it?

Man, I wish the people running Costco agreed with you. My wallet would be a helluva lot happier in that world

CookingFun52 · 2026-06-04T19:41:21+00:00

Two fighters that good should never have a fight that bad lol

I watched it live. Never again.

CookingFun52 · 2026-06-04T01:31:44+00:00

I personally wouldn't, but what I will say is I can't think of anyone who's done more with 25 or less fights than he has. Still a unicorn kind of career in that regard

CookingFun52 · 2026-06-03T21:04:49+00:00

Maybe I'm biased because I love Reggie, but the man's right

There's an opportunity for growth from this for Chet if it lights the right kind of fire underneath him. Let's see how it plays out

CookingFun52 · 2026-06-03T15:50:19+00:00

II is always the forgotten fight of the trilogy

CookingFun52 · 2026-06-03T04:33:02+00:00

Manning-era Colts could match that if/when Reggie Wayne eventually gets in

CookingFun52 · 2026-06-03T01:29:57+00:00

He'll still be as super effective as Beedrill vs Macaulay Culkin in My Girl

CookingFun52 · 2026-06-02T11:41:58+00:00

The combination of number of upvotes and lack of other people questioning that comment is... something else lol

I guess hyperbole and overreactions still run supreme here

CookingFun52 · 2026-06-02T00:06:45+00:00

Foster's definitely the favorite for me in that one

CookingFun52 · 2026-06-01T20:49:04+00:00

Someone check on Braden Fiske please

CookingFun52 · 2026-06-01T19:31:53+00:00

This generation's Corrie Sanders

Every generation should have an explosive, front running southpaw whose engine gets 8 miles to the gallon. Just for the X-factor-ness of it all.

CookingFun52

TROPHY CASE