The Top 100 Pound for Pound All-Time Greats

Monzon.

 

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#80 Jim Driscoll (53-3-5; Newspaper Decisions 7-1)

The story goes that when Jim Driscoll’s died in January of 1925 and his funeral procession passed through the streets of Cardiff, one-hundred thousand wet-eyed Welshmen and women lined the streets, hats in hands. That was the kind of man he was; both belonging to the people and the master of their hearts.

100,000 hearts does not get you onto this list, however, so how to explain Driscoll’s absence of a title reign? After all, he is ranked here in front of some of the greatest champions the sport has produced. What happened?

There is a story here, too. The story says that in 1909 Driscoll, by then boxing in America, met the cynical Abe Attell, one of the greatest featherweights in history, and provided for him a boxing lesson over ten rounds in a non-title bout—only for the cowardly champion to deny Driscoll a rematch for the championship.

Like all great stories, there are elements of truth…and elements of hokum. There are also some twists that are stranger than fiction. The reason Driscoll did not pursue an immediate rematch with Attell is the same reason that half of Cardiff lined up to pay their final respects, namely that his heart called him to duty rather than glory. Driscoll returned home to box in a benefit for local orphans.

Attell seemed open to the notion of bringing Driscoll back to the US for a rematch, but when he finally arrived more than a year later it was to lose, whilst in ill health, to Pal Moore who clearly got the better of him in a six round go. Suffering from a serious chest infection, Driscoll returned home to recuperate and the chance was missed.

That he gave Attell a boxing lesson seems to have been, at least in part, true. The Reading Eagle nominated him “the last word in exquisite boxing skills.” The New York Evening World said that Attell “…tried desperately for a walloping finish. Curiously enough it was during these flurries that he found Driscoll hardest to hit. It’s safe to say that in all his experience Attell has never met with such disappointment…he found himself up against a man who actually beat him in speed and skill.”

It is also true that newspaper reports can be found which deemed the fight a draw, but for the most part, Driscoll was deemed the superior. Very much in character, Driscoll leapt from the ring and into another, at “a charity barn dance where he boxed for more rounds then danced ‘till the sun rose.”

He was seen off on his steamship by a huge crowd of Americans who seemed to love him almost as much as the Welsh.

They had not been so impressed when he arrived. He was seen as small and sickly looking. Whilst it was true that he had bested the master, George Dixon, three times in the UK, including a knockout in five, his wins were over a faded version. He had also bested the best Europeans from bantamweight to lightweight often giving away size but never skill, twin wins over Joe Bowker the highlight. He won them over with brilliance and character.

His prime ended with his 1911 trouncing of Spike Robson (KO15). Spike had fought draws with Terry McGovern and Abe Attell and held multiple wins over the superb Harlem Tommy Murphy; against Driscoll, he was not in the fight, outclassed and stopped.

He let himself down a little bit in a DQ loss to fellow genius and Welshman Freddie Welsh, losing his treasured composure whilst being out-generalled by the bigger man but it was one of only four losses—none of which was without circumstances— in the most dignified of boxing careers.

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01 – Sam Langford
02 – Harry Greb
03 – Sugar Ray Robinson
04 – Henry Armstrong
05 – Ezzard Charles
06 – Bob Fitzsimmons
07 – Benny Leonard
08 – Muhammad Ali
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09 – Willie Pep
10 – Joe Louis
11 – Roberto Duran
12 – Joe Gans
13 – Packey McFarland
14 – Archie Moore
15 – Sugar Ray Leonard
16 – Mickey Walker
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17 – Barney Ross
18 – Terry McGovern
19 – Tony Canzoneri
20 – Pernell Whitaker
21 – Charley Burley
22 – Holman Williams
23 – Jimmy McLarnin
24 – Sandy Saddler
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25 - George Dixon
26 - Barbados Joe Walcott
27 - Stanley Ketchel
28 - Billy Conn
29 - Kid Gavilan
30 -Roy Jones
31- Gene Tunney
32 - Tommy Gibbons
33 - Tommy Loughran
34 – Jack Britton
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35 – Eder Jofre
36 – Jose Napoles
37 – Carlos Monzon
38 – Jimmy Bivins
39 – Marvin Hagler
40 – Tommy Ryan
41 – Jack Dillon
42 - Emile Griffith
43 –Alexis Arguello
44 – Ike Williams
45 – Jimmy Wilde
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46 – Julio Cesar Chavez
47 – Ruben Olivares
48 – Fighting Harada
49 – Carlos Ortiz
50 – Michael Spinks
51 – Young Corbett
52 – Thomas Hearns
53 - Floyd Mayweather
54 - Manny Pacquiao
55 – Evander Holyfield
56 – Freddie Steele
57 – Abe Attell
58 – Mike Gibbons
59 - Bernard Hopkins
60 - Ted Kid Lewis
61 - Luis Manuel Rodriguez
62 - Salvador Sanchez
63 - Wilfredo Gomez
64 - Vicente Saldivar
65 - Rocky Marciano
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66 - Lou Ambers
67 - Freddie Welsh
68 - Manuel Ortiz
69 - Dick Tiger
70 - Harold Johnson
71 - Carmen Basilio
72 - Carlos Zarate
73 - Miguel Canto
74 - Oscar De La Hoya
75 - Azumah Nelson
76 - Mike McCallum
77 - Lary Holmes
78 - Bob Foster
79 - Teddy Yarosz
80 - Jim Driscoll
81 - Panama Al Brown
82 - Pascual Perez
83 - Lloyd Marshall
84 – Jake LaMotta
85 - Juan Manuel Marquez
86 – Wilfred Benitez
87 – Nonpareil Jack Dempsey
88 – Erik Morales
89 – Marco Antonio Barrera
90 - Young Griffo
91 - Fritzie Zivic
92 - Joe Frazier
93 - Pete Herman
94 - Lennox Lewis
95 - Jack "Kid" Berg
96 - Philadelphia Jack O'Brien
97 - James Toney
98 - Nicolino Locche
99 - Jung Koo Chang
100-George Foreman

 

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#79 Teddy Yarosz (107-18-3)

Teddy Yarosz hit like a girl. In 128 fights he posted a pitiful 17 knockouts. In spite of his total inability to punch hard enough to make the definitive impression he beat Lloyd Marshall, Nate Bolden, Archie Moore, Ken Overlin, Ralph DeJohn, Billy Conn, Lou Brouillard, Solly Krieger, Vince Dundee, Jimmy Smith, Tommy Freeman, Ben Je—you get the point.

Yarosz lifted a piece of the middleweight title in 1934 and unified later that year against Vince Dundee. The only black marks from the prime that followed came against Babe Risko, who went 1-2 against Yarosz but only after the Pittsburgh man fractured his knee in both of those losing efforts. A pair of losses to all-time great Billy Conn make sense on paper, but both of these fights were hugely controversial. When the decision for the first fight was read the ring was pelted with seat cushions and bottles, a cacophony of booing drowning out the cheers of the Conn fans.

“Billy is a good boy,” said Yarosz. “But I certainly beat him.”

In the second fight, Yarosz seemed to be winning out of sight but a near collapse in the championship rounds seemed to offer Conn a glimmer—and Conn took full advantage, beating Yarosz around the ring like a bad dog for a seeming endless nine minutes. Although he greeted the final bell with near total collapse the press were near unanimous in seeing Yarosz the winner but the judges, again, chose Billy. A third fight was inevitable and Yarosz finally received a decision. A brilliant performance against a heavily favored Archie Moore in 1939 would be his best post-Conn performance, although he also went 1-1 Lloyd Marshall.

Grace, speed a superb jab and two-handed punching (often to the body) were the main ingredients in Teddy’s great success. The addition of power would have made him amongst the most complete fighters in the history of the middleweight division.

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Cheers, and, I would hope so!

The fighters ranked immediately higher are two of the most dominant champions in history, one is completely unbeaten at his best weight, the other posted enough defences to see him rated as one of the greatest champions in history. I don't think a paragraph is quite enough to overhaul these boys.

 

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#78 Bob Foster (56-8-1)

Bob Foster lost eight fights, but not one of them was to a light-heavyweight. At 175 lbs., his best weight, he went through his entire career unbeaten. His competition was not exceptional, but he was. It can be argued that Foster is the single hardest puncher that has ever boxed, and whilst his division was not resplendent with talent, it was resplendent with iron chins. Didn’t matter. Foster was one of those freaky-deaky punchers, the kind of guys who seem to carry dynamite that has been blessed by a voodoo priest then coated in astrolite before being planted in gloves mounted with cyanide tipped nine-inch nails.

Seemingly too upright and too slouched at the same time, Foster appeared as some terrifying prehistoric bird all legs and feathers, both fragile and deadly. That fragility was exposed up at heavyweight where all of Foster’s losses occurred and where he failed to turn in a single top-class scalp despite repeated opportunities. Nevertheless he did beat something in the region of twenty fighters weighing in over the light-heavyweight limit, work that does enhance his standing slightly on this pound-for-pound list. But it is that incredible unbeaten run at light-heavyweight that locks him up, a run that include some sixteen victorious title fights. Losses to Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier can’t be seen to hurt him much, and although losses to the lesser lights of Doug Jones, Mauro Mina, Ernie Terrell and Zora Folley may have an air of disappointment about them, they all occurred before he hit his absolute stride, during which time only all-time great heavyweights found a way to lay him low.

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#77 Larry Holmes (69-6)

Larry Holmes staged dual comebacks in 1988 and 1991, the first a result of a big money offer to come straight out of retirement and match Mike Tyson, the second a surprisingly meandering stroll through the peaks and valleys of the 1990s heavyweight scene—in fact Holmes boxed all the way into the 2000s, stopping an equally creaky Mike Weaver in 2002 in the sixth round. Larry’s decision to box on did not seem born of financial insecurity or an unquenchable ego but because of an unerring desire to dominate. You can see it for every moment Larry Holmes is in the ring, whether you are watching the young man go to war with Ken Norton or the old man chasing the twenty years younger Anthony Willis.

The tools he brought to bear in this oldest of ambitions were formidable. Holmes argues the best jab, the best right hand and the best footwork in the history of the heavyweight division. You may have a personal preference for Sonny Liston or Joe Louis or Muhammad Ali in each of these areas respectively but it is beyond question that Holmes belongs in those debates. Add a granite chin, superb accuracy, some dig, technical accomplishment unequaled in heavyweight history and that natural proclivity for domination and you have a fully-fledged 215 lb. war machine.

This birthed the most celebrated reign in WBC championship history— until it came to make more financial sense to adopt the IBF trinket, at which point Holmes happily changed allegiances, defending the new bauble until he was shockingly separated from it by a brilliant Michael Spinks in September of ’85. Holmes was already slipping by this point and it is arguably the case that he went through his entire prime unbeaten. The reason he is in the top 80 rather than the top 70? Well, he arguably did not.

Holmes had a desperately close call in the match in which he lifted the title against Ken Norton in a fight I thought he lost (the judges awarded him a split decision). No rematch was forthcoming; a criticism that would be leveled against Holmes again when he was arguably beaten by a novice Tim Witherspoon in their 1983 confrontation which I scored a draw (the judges, again, handed it to Holmes on a split). He also seemed adverse to unification fights and his reign is littered with alternative heavyweight strapholders. His failure to meet a surging Greg Page instead of opting for the limited Marvis Frazier (whom he dispatched in a single round) was also a concern. Holmes, like Jack Dempsey, arguably missed out on some of the most important fights of his career and many of his defenses were soft.

Unlike Dempsey, he was an enormously busy champion who busted up a huge raft of top-class contenders over a seven-year period that included twenty successful title fights and a stretch of 48-0. He won his first meaningful fight in 1978 and his last in 1992. Like Lennox Lewis he was more feared than loved—but, when he was in the ring at least, that suited Holmes just fine.

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