The Top 100 Pound for Pound All-Time Greats

Tommy Ryan and Hopkins above Sal.

 

Well here's my case for Oscar:
- Beats a prime Felix Trinidad who is also an ATG - Oscar landed 150 more punches on Felix.

Mosley Saga
- He was robbed against Mosley in their second fight in 2003 (Oscar had torubles with Mosley's style in general growing up). This isn't just any Mosley, this is a STEROIDED Mosley who got busted for it after this fight.
Boxing experts say this was one of the biggest robberies in Boxing history.

- Mosley won the close first fight, but he was probably roiding then as well, I mean, he did completely dodge 140lbs and went from 135-147lbs remember. I have next to zero doubt Mosley's first win was with the help of steroids.

Light Middleweight Streak
- Shane Mosley situation already addressed. He was a roider and Oscar was robbed.

- Fernando Vargas. This is the STEROIDED VERSION of Fernando Vargas who was coming off wins over none other than WINKY WRIGHT and IKE QUARTEY. Julio Cesar Vasquez (the win at LMW that we give Pernell **** loads of credit for) had his biggest win in Winky Wright. Vargas matched that

- Win over Javier Castillejo. Oscar's first fight at 154lbs. What on earth is this once super featherweight doing getting in the ring immediately with a very good light middleweight who had many title defenses and was undefeated for 6 years?

Other great wins
- IMO got the better hand over a slightly past his prime Pernell Whitaker. Although very slightly past his prime, Pernell is still considered one of the top 10 all time H2H matchups AND he's in your tier 3.

- 2 years removed of his KO over Meldrick Taylor, Oscar De La Hoya BRUTALIZES Julio Cesar Chavez Sr like no one has seen.

- Win against Miguel Angel Gonzalez who was coming of a big winning streak and..AT THE TIME, was considered as good as Ricardo Finito Lopez AND Julio Cesar Chavez. Gonzalez was never the same after his loss to Oscar.

- A win against a welterweight Great in Ike Quartey - just another great name on his resume.

- A TKO 5 whitewash of Arturo Gatti, because Oscar wanted to :thumbsup

- Oscar started at super featherweight and went all the way up to middleweight.


1995
Let's not forget Oscar's 1995 massacre of 4 very solid opponents i.e John John Molina who had around 10 title defenses leading to the Oscar fight.
Jesse James Leija who was coming off wins against Louie Espinoza and Azumah Nelson. A legit lightweight in Rafael Ruelas who was coming of a title defending streak.
Also, Genaro Hernandez. We know how good this guy was. Oscar fought him in his prime when he was undefeated.

- Complete shutout of Jimmy Bredahl at Super Feather. If you give Whitaker credit for his win over Jorge Paez, you have to also give the credit to Oscar also. After all, Paez turns out to be one of the best names on Whitaker's resume.

Middleweight Streak
Losses to Felix Sturm and Bernard Hopkins. Oscar had no business whatsoever at 160lbs. Also, in 2004 Post-Mosley 2, Oscar was clearly past his prime. Go and look at the fights Pre and Post-Mosley 2. I dare you.
- It was a weight too big for Oscar, just as some weights are just too big for many of the Top 50 boxers you have listed.

Past Prime Career
Had taken Floyd Mayweather to a Split Decision. If this was a prime Oscar, I have him winning 116-112 against Mayweather, like a lot of people.

Manny Pacquiao - Give De La Hoya his props, he was weight drained to 145lbs from 154lbs - a weight he was comfortably at for 7 years. De La Hoya had dehydration issues and needed medical attention. He looked like death on the weigh in, go and have a look lol I give Manny ZERO credit for this win, and prefer Manny's rubbish wins at flyweight over this win.


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Other:
- Be completely honest, who actually has a resume stacked with as many VERY solid fighters like this FROM START TO FINISH? The answer is not many.

- Olympic Gold Medalist

- Oscar is the biggest money maker and attracted huge figures to the sport, and continues to do so with Golden Boy Promotions.

He was one of the only fighters to throw himself in the deep end against the best opponents rather than be picky about fights.

Summarising his losses: 2 losses were at a weight that was way too big for him and he was also past his prime. Do they really count as losses? Losses to Manny and Floyd - one a split decision, the other does not even ****ing count because Oscar walked in like a corpse, both were WAY past Oscar's prime.
2 losses were robberies - Mosley 2 and Trinidad.
So that's ALL 6 losses with legit 'back stories'.
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You've written Jimmy Wilde twice. He's definitely one of the greatest of all time, in the higher tiers not the mid tiers.

Dick Tiger is clearly ATG, but his particular losses keep him just off the TOP 50 list for me.

I think you put Salvador Sanchez too high, as well as Zarate and Gomez!

 

Tommy Ryan over Sal:

Ryan set the bar for greatness in the WW division. By my money he spent an incredible 90 months as the best WW in the world and then moved up to conquer the Mw division for a further 59 months.

In total he spent well over a decade as the best ww-mw and arguably one of the best p4p in the world (if such rankings existed back then).

MW: M Smith (x2), Green (x2), Bonner, Dunfee, Purtell, Moffat, Craig, West, Garrard - McCoy (L), Green (L).

WW: NP Dempsey, M Smith, Needham, Tracy (x2) - M Smith (D).

He has incredible longevity and incredible dominance. Not everything is known about some of his opponents but the victories were solid enough to build his reputation. His victories over M Smith and Dempsey are great and it can't be said his top end doesn't compete with future generations, because it does!

He was stopped only once in his career when giving up half a stone to the monstrous punching McCoy (a future LHW).

Other than that his only relevant loss is a DQ against a man he would knock out in his very next fight.

He also racked up an astonishing 70 ko victories in this decade of dominance.

McG, this isn't a case of Sal being ranked too high, but Ryan being ranked waaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy too low. If dominance and p4p achievements have anything to do with your criteria, this is your guy. If you're looking for quality victories at the top end, this is still your guy.

 

Great work luf

 

:good

 

Oh, yeah Basilio. ****.

 

ANJ No Paez is not one of Pea's best names.

 

I'd argue by saying Walcott was stopped by West who Ryan did then stop himself. Plus Walcott made no claim (as far as I know) towards being the best MW out there.

The Dempsey victory is of course questionable but I was including for the sake of the name. Mysterious Billy Smith was very highly regarded though when Ryan beat him.

In terms of tiers, I'd say 5 or 4.