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10/10/2003 Archived Entry: "Why Dariusz’ Perfect ‘0’ Means Zilch to Me"
The Numbers Racket: Why Dariusz’ Perfect ‘0’ Means Zilch to Me
By James McDonnell
Whilst doing my daily trawl through the latest news in boxing on Tuesday 7th August, I came across a startling piece of news emblazoned on various websites: Dariusz Michaelczewski hunting 3 different world records.
It turns out that Dariusz’ promotional team have chosen to attempt to enhance his standing in the boxing world by ramming down our throats a set of meaningless records which Dariusz is set to bypass in his ‘illustrious’ boxing career.
I can only assume that this tawdry piece of ‘spin’ worthy of Tony Blair had been written by the press agent of Klaus Peter Kohl and Co., who sought to hype up Dariusz’ momentous fight against Roy Jones retread Julio Gonzalez, as a colossal milestone in boxing lore and legend. Well, let’s have a look at these stunning achievements. According the ‘press release’ (which is what it is) these are they:
ROCKY MARCIANO’S UNBEATEN 49-0 RECORD
Now Marciano’s perfect 49-0 is one of the most well known of any fighter’s record, perhaps the best known, and personally I’ve always thought that a lot of his standing as a former heavyweight champion is tied to the perfection of that perfect ‘0.’ There are those who rate Marciano very highly indeed, but if you were to do a poll of 100 boxing writers, I think you would be lucky to find one who rated him above Joe Louis or Muhammad Ali as a heavyweight champion.
There is an unhealthy obsession with numbers as an indication of a fighter’s worth. We are led to believe that the number of wins losses and draws in a fighters records is the ultimate determination of their worth, rather than the quality of opponents and the manner of their winning, which is a much fairer indication.
Henry Armstrong, by anyone’s reckoning, is one of the greatest fighters of all time, the only man ever to hold titles in three weight divisions at one time (featherweight, lightweight and welterweight), but the reason for his greatness isn’t established by dint of an unbeaten record. Far from it, in fact, in Armstrong’s case, for he lost his three of his first four professional fights. In today’s ‘perfect 0’ obsessed boxing world, he’d be lucky to have gotten so much as a sniff of a world title.
Is Evander Holyfield, now with seven losses on his ledger, now a lesser fighter because of that? Did Ray Robinson tarnish his legacy when he lost and won the title so many times at middleweight, even though he was pretty much acknowledged as the best welterweight in the world (having been avoided like the plague for five years for the title)? Are we to tear down his legacy for all the losses at the end of his career?
Going 49-0 isn’t even that impressive a statistic anyway. Mexico’s former three-division champion Julio Cesar Chavez, claimed a total of 87-0-0 before his first ‘loss’ (actually a draw) against Pernell Whittaker. [Ed. Note: Chavez had lost an early fight by DQ]. As far as I am concerned Dariusz's record doesn’t mean anything unless he retires in his very next fight after beating Gonzales, and even then means very little. You don’t have an unbeaten record until you retire.
In any case, Marciano’s record has never impressed me that much. He had only six title defenses, and that against old men and also rans, but at least he was an undisputed champion, and he made sure of the decision for the fight by stopping five of those six men inside the distance. Marciano had the good sense to retire at the top, and that to me was his real greatness as heavyweight champ. Had Chavez retired before the Whittaker fight, he would have well surpassed that record, and against better opposition but he still turned in some good performances following his peak.
Next:
JOE LOUIS’ 25 SUCCESSFUL TITLE DEFENSES
Please. Spare me. This makes me so angry I want to spit! Joe Louis rightly places in the top five of every boxing writer I can think of as heavyweight champ, and the ‘Brown Bomber’ makes most peoples first two. Louis reigned in an era that wasn’t particularly blessed with heavyweight talent. Aside from Louis himself, there aren’t really many notable heavyweights from his prime, and none that make the top 10 all time. The two best heavyweights he met during his reign were James J. Braddock, Jersey Joe Walcott, Max Schmeling, and following this reign, Ezzard Charles and Marciano, both of whom he lost to.
However, what is beyond doubt, is that during his long reign, with the exception perhaps of his controversial win over Joe Walcott, Joe was considered the greatest heavyweight in the world, without any other claims on to his throne. And he did this not only through 25 defenses before briefly retiring, but including a period when three of the prime years (1928-1931) of his career were lost to active service during World War II. He was the best heavyweight in the world for an unbroken 11 years, something you can’t say about any other modern heavyweight. Joe never had to regain the title like Patterson, Ali, Holyfield and Lewis, because in his prime as champion nobody could beat him.
Dariusz, by contrast, has never been recognized by anyone, outside of his devoted and deluded fan base in Germany, as the greatest in his division. Some may claim him to be, but it has never been established beyond reasonable doubt, to use legal parlance. Dariusz has never held all of the belts at one time, and in fact has only ever held on to the least respected of the four major bodies, the WBO title.
Now I know it’s not Dariusz’s fault that the titles have been splintered. The light heavyweight division has had particular problems with the allocation of its titles, typified by the case of Rocchigiani who sued the WBC over having his title effectively stripped from him. However, I cannot recall Dariusz making any great strides to unify the titles at any stage, like a number of European title holders, and in particular German and some notable UK fighters, he has been more than content to simply continue defending his belts and notching up title defenses.
Aside from a brief period when he beat Virgil Hill (back in ’97), he hasn’t held more than one belt during his reign. Roy Jones tried and failed to entice him out of Germany to put his belts on the line, but Dariusz refused pretty much point blank to engage in that bout, unless Roy come to Germany, even though at the time Roy had all the major sanctioning bodies’ belts.
In addition, the WBO champ has had some decidedly dubious defenses including dubious wins over Richard Hall who was stopped the minute Dariusz looked in trouble by the referee, Rocchigiani, who was disqualified for hitting on the break, and he has looked less and less convincing as time has passed.
To call Dariusz a dominant champion, is an insult to boxing fans, and to the achievements of men who were real dominant champions during their reigns.
Next:
LONGEST REIGN AT LIGHT HEAVYWIGHT
Currently this ‘world record’ is held by the old mongoose, Archie Moore, another fighter firmly held to be one of the greatest of all time, at nine years and 2 months. However, again, Moore was the undisputed champion, in an era absolutely brimming with talent, not the paper-thin division we see today.
The insinuation that Dariusz is on a par with Archie Moore makes my bile ducts pump on overdrive. In fact, there are many light heavyweight champions who although they didn’t reign as long as Moore or Dariusz, easily make my top 10. Ezzard Charles, a man best known as a heavyweight champion was every bit as great a fighter as Moore at light heavyweight, if not greater than he was (he beat the Old Mongoose three times), but remarkably never got a shot at the title, despite beating many former, present and future title holders in non-title bouts.
When Moore was champion, it was commonplace for a champion to fight without putting his title on the line, and yet Moore cut through most of his opposition with ease in those non-title affairs. In 10 years as champion, he won 50 fights, some at light heavy, some at heavyweight, and lost four (including a loss to Patterson and Marciano).
What makes Moore’s achievement particularly, all the more remarkable, is that for years he was denied a title shot altogether, frozen out in one of the most corrupt decades in boxing, until he finally got his shot at the undisputed world title, at the age of 39! Moore held that title until almost 49 years old, along the way beating the likes of Harold Johnson, Joey Maxim (x 3), Harold Johnson (x 5!), Jimmy Bivins, (x 5), and even heavyweight contenders Nino Valdes and Bob Satterfield.
And get this; Moore started his career as what would have been a modern middleweight! Of course early in his career is relative. Archie turned pro in 1937, and fought until 1964. He remains the only undisputed title winner to fight in four different decades.
In today’s scene you can only wonder what Archie might have achieved. Fighters in Archie’s day didn’t have the luxury of one fight a year to make a living; they fought every month, at times as often as once a week! They didn’t have the best facilities, the best nutritionists, nor did they get to see tapes of their opponents, nor the luxury of only boxing for a living in some cases, a lot of them had day jobs too!
I dare say had Archie been fighting now would have won versions of titles from light middleweight to at least cruiserweight, after all, he was good enough to drop Rocky Marciano who I think would have been the greatest cruiserweight ever, and even in his late ‘40s went a few rounds with Floyd Patterson and Muhammad Ali. I think Moore would not only have beaten John Ruiz, he’d have probably have knocked him out.
The same goes for Ezzard Charles who would have won titles at cruiserweight and light heavyweight and probably at super middleweight and middleweight, too. Hell, Charley Burley who started at welterweight regularly mixed it up with heavyweights and even beat some of them. Harry Greb beat Gene Tunney, back in the day there were men welterweight mixing it up with heavyweights.
So please, spare me the guff about Dariusz amazing run of title defenses, it’s a testament to the fact that he’s been overprotected, that there are too many title belts, and that he has always fought in his hometown, and still he hasn’t even looked very convincing. His greatest win was over a past-prime Virgil Hill in 1997.
I find the trumpeting of Dariusz’ mediocre achievements frankly, ludicrous, Dariusz isn’t some sort of bum, anyone claiming that has obviously never seen the man fight, but to mark these statistics as a landmark in the history of boxing is preposterous.
When you look at this history of the division and the great men who have passed through it, Archie Moore, Ezzard Charles, John Henry Lewis, Billy Conn, Dick Tiger, Bob Foster, Matthew Saad Muhammad, Dwight Muhammad Qawi, Michael Spinks, it is clear that Dariusz’ record simply doesn’t compare.
These men fought the best available competition in their eras, and were undisputed champions in their day. Beating the likes of Richard Hall, Derrick Harmon, et al simply doesn’t stand up, especially when you have to rely on a hometown decision or premature stoppage to save you. This same criteria applies to Roy Jones, too. He may be a great fighter, but the greatest light heavyweight ever? Well, not based on his achievements in the division he isn’t.
Titles are like tampons these days, they come in ‘Super’ and ‘Regular’, and who knows possibly ‘Lite’ soon, and the achievements of peripheral titleholders, and that includes Jones, need to be put into stark perspective when compared to the eras when the best fought the best, and one man ruled each division.
I guess some people will be impressed with Dariusz’ ‘World records’ but the adulation of a few thousand partisan fans doesn’t make you a future hall of famer. Bald statistics are not what gets fighters into the hall of fame, it’s the historical impact they make on the sport, and Dariusz’ impact, outside of Germany and a few nations surrounding it, is virtually non-existent.
Being a great fighter is to my mind in no way dependent on an unbeaten record. I will always rate Robinson, Moore and Hagler, Over Ottke, Michaelszewski and Calzaghe even if the last three maintain their unbeaten records until the end of their careers, because there is no way the latter three can match the level of opposition of these men.
Even former lightweight Roberto Duran at middleweight was a more difficult proposition to Hagler than any of those three have faced at their respective weights.
To paraphrase Frank Lotierzo’s recent excellent article on eastsideboxing.com, which quoted one of the greatest trainers in boxing history, Whitey Bimstein, who worked in the corner of approximately 25 world champions, including Gene Tunney, Harry Greb, Jake LaMotta, and Barney Ross: “Show me a guy with an unbeaten record, and I’ll show you a guy who didn’t beat nobody.”
