The Top 100 Pound for Pound All-Time Greats

Someone wanted to know why you'e such a little ***, but I deleted that post out of respect for your feelings.

 

This content is protected

#70 Luis Manuel Rodriguez (107-13)

Luis Manuel Rodriguez was a loose-limbed and brilliant operator who boxed as beautifully as anyone in his era. A slippery combination puncher with superb timing and ability to judge positioning, he owned his turf in the ring, picking his circle and maintaining distance or shutting his man down inside, making room for punches whilst simultaneously positioning himself to smother the opponent’s. He is the epitome of a boxer-puncher who lays the emphasis on the boxing—he is also in possession of one of the most frustrating coulda woulda shoulda stories in the sport, defined by his struggles with Emile Griffith.

Griffith represented the opposite stylistic polar to Rodriguez, a tough, strong, comparatively ugly boxer who was neither anything like the puncher Rodriguez was. Griffith, who we’ll discuss later in the series, was very capable of fluid and even destructive punches, but he never had The Cuban’s panache. On paper, these fights should have belonged clearly to Rodriguez—and if you speak to the right people, they did.

They first met in December of 1960, with Rodriguez in the assent at 35-0 and Griffith, by comparison, dragging his heels at 21-2.

“I was scared, only once in my life,” remembered Griffith, years later, “and that was because of Luis Manuel Rodriguez. The first time I fought him in 1960—I thought I was going to shake to pieces.”

The fight was close. Rodriguez posted his first loss by a hair. It is literally the case that if you count the UPI ringside poll of writers and combine their opinion with that of the judges, these nineteen boxing men cannot be separated. They had it 8-8-3.

The inevitable rematch, fought for the world title in 1963, was an equally close affair with Rodriguez taking the unanimous decision but more ringside reporters this time finding for Griffith—there was nothing to do but fight again, which they did later that year in a fight which Rodriguez clearly won only for the judges to hand it to Emile Griffith. No fewer than seventeen ringside reporters scored against him whilst six found in his favor. Whilst this is overwhelming rather than definitive, the key thing to recognize is that this is the widest margin of ringside observers that ever found in the favor of either fighter through the entirety of their rivalry.

More than this, it is a result that forever defines the great Cuban as a nearly man, in as much as that is possible for a fighter appearing on our list. Should he have been given the decision in this fight, Rodriguez would not only have posted a successful defense of a world title—something he never managed to do in his hall of fame career—but be afforded the chance to make others. When he stepped up to middleweight, Rodriguez scalped some very impressive fighters, men like Holly Mims, in perhaps his best filmed performance, Gene Armstrong, George Benton, Rubin Carter, Bennie Briscoe, Denny Moyer and future light-heavyweight titlist Vicente Rondon, but when he got his title shot, he was firmly beaten by Nino Benvenuti, who stopped him in nine, dropping him to 1-3 in title fights.

The lurking Curtis Cokes, who, although clearly not quite as brilliant as Rodriguez, beat him twice out of three goes, may have had a word to say about Rodriguez managing a meaningful number of defenses as might Emile Griffith, who beat him in another split decision in 1964 (seven ringside reporters favored Griffith, five favored Rodriguez) but he had earned the right to try.

Title defenses, although crucial, are no replacement for a win ledger as stacked as the one Rodriguez built, especially given that the bulk of that work came at 160 lbs. whilst his slim frame fit snugly into 147 lbs., a combination of factors which leads to his gracing the top seventy.

[yt]1OIK9VqwyfI[/yt]

 

This content is protected

#69 Dick Tiger (60-19-3)

Dick Tiger was unbrawlable. I don’t care which fighter you name, if he weighs 160 lbs. or under and tries to brawl with this guy, he would lose. So singular was the perfect storm of his considerable talents that he is rendered unbreakable in that kind of fight and he proved it, just as he proved his phenomenal strength (he once threw the terrifying Gene Fullmer, who sought to test him in this area, straight to the canvas) and punch resistance as well as an indomitable spirit that just made it extremely likely that the opponent rather than he would be the one to quit—almost regardless of who the opponent was.

The three truly destructive brawlers he bumped up against during a career were Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, the New Jersey tough who was said to have up and moved house due to his inability to stop challenging gym-mate Sonny Liston to violent spars once he was actually at the gym (to his severe physical detriment); Henry Hank the Mississippi born middle and light-heavyweight; and Florentino Fernandez, “The Ox”, so named for his prestigious strength and power. What all of these men had in common was their inability to fight any other way than straight ahead and the huge success they had made of it. Not one put so much as a dent in Tiger, Carter actually backing up after twice being dropped, receiving another serious rattling in the seventh, Hank winning, at most, a single round, and Fernandez beaten into total submission at the end of just five.

Tiger was, at middleweight, utterly unbreakable.

The rub; not a brawler himself but a box-punching counter-puncher, he could be out-maneuvered. Such varied individuals as Wilf Greaves, Spider Webb, Joey Archer and, bizarrely, Joey Giardello managed to do just that. Nevertheless, he did beat more than a few world-class fighters who likely had the technical attributes to pull of this trick, amongst them Giardello, Greaves and Webb as well as Gene Armstrong, Gene Fullmer and Holly Mims before he dropped his title to the cagey Emile Griffith who executed Gil Clancy’s plan for frustration to a tee.

Losing his middleweight title to a former welterweight is hurtful to his overall standing, but Tiger responded by stepping up to 175 lbs. and adding a second title, past his prime in a division which, at 5’8, he wasn’t really built for. Certainly his stoppage loss to the 7” taller, 8” rangier murderous punching Bob Foster is difficult to hold against him. Tiger beat Jose Torres, Roger Rouse, Frank DePaula, Nino Benvenuti and Andy Kendall during his time above 160 lbs., all whilst past his prime and likely whilst working on the liver cancer that was shortly to kill him.

[yt]Qh9JE2EsTlg[/yt]