The Top 100 Pound for Pound All-Time Greats

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#68 Harold Johnson (76-11-0)

Harold Johnson seems to have become known as a technically exacting but rather plodding 1950s light-heavyweight, eclipsed, as he is, behind Archie Moore, Ezzard Charles and the other leading lights of that stacked division’s history. Fair enough; he beat both of those guys though.

Nor should he be known just for his superb body of work in the fifties. Both the forties and the sixties bear his mark. Neither should be known only as a light-heavyweight— starting with his 1949 defeat of Chilean veteran Arturo Godoy, Johnson made his mark at heavyweight too. He would add such notables as Ezzard Charles and Eddie Machen in two technical masterclasses during which he out-jabbed the two supposed best jabbers that division had to offer.

Brilliant at distance despite his short reach, Johnson built his boxing from that one-two but was no slave to it like many of the so-called technicians boxing today; he was a master at all ranges. A single win over Archie Moore in their 1-3 series may be his greatest triumph, but defeats of Jimmy Bivins, Bert Lytell, Henry Hank, Doug Jones and Nino Valdes give him the bones of a rather splendid top-to-tail resume. Losses to Bob Satterfield and the one-punch devastation wrought by Oakland Billy Smith hurt him but it is likely that these losses and his defeats to Moore aside, Johnson doesn’t have another legitimate loss between his turning pro in 1946 and Willie Pastrano controversially edging him out in 1963.

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#67 Manuel Ortiz (100-28-3)

Tricky.

Manuel Ortiz remains, in these marvelous days of lavishly shared footage and online newspaper archives, something of a shadow, a legend who, when compared to peers like Willie Pep and Henry Armstrong, lies relatively unexplored. A Mexican-American who dominated a weight division during a decade that is perhaps the richest in fight history, the 1940s, he nevertheless has a Wikipedia entry that would fit into Oscar De La Hoya’s one-hundred times over. He wasn’t even inducted to the IBHOF until 1996— they finally thought to get around to him a quarter of a century after his death.

And yet I name him greater than Oscar; greater than Juan Manuel Marquez; greater than Miguel Canto; greater even than Zarate. In fact, you can count the Mexicans who are clearly greater than Manuel Ortiz on one hand and then wonder to yourself, “Am I sure?”

He took a little time to find his feet at title level, failing in tilts at the American flyweight title and the Californian State bantamweight title between ’39 and ’41 and in spite of an astonishing draw with future champion Little Dado in January of ’40, Ortiz appeared to be slouching towards journeyman hell. Then, in ’42, he hit his stride. And boy did he.

Between the beginning of that year and the middle of ’44 when he stepped out of the bantamweight division to take on featherweight giant Willie Pep (then 74-1), Ortiz does not appear to have come close to losing. Dusting himself off, Ortiz put together another astounding run, unbeaten from August of ’44 until October of ’46. It was a rare, rare peak.

During it, he won sixteen world title fights. He also found time to step up to featherweight to dust ranked top ten toughs like Carlos Chavez (SD10 in a gutter war), Enrique Bolanos (in the middle of a superb featherweight run when he was brutalized in six), and Larry Bolvin (outclassed over ten). Comparing them is natural and so it is natural to point out that Ortiz had more success at featherweight than Zarate could manage in the newly constructed super-bantamweight division.

The first of those title fights was against incumbent champion Lou Salica. Fading by the time he met Ortiz for the second time (he had won a non-title bout against a novice Ortiz in 1939), Salica was still a wonderful champion, wielding a title in two stints between ’39 and ’42 during what was a confused time for the bantamweight division. That confusion was about to be singularly and brilliantly put to bed for some time by one of the greatest title runs in history, although it began inauspiciously with defenses against the unranked Kenny Lindsay, George Freitas, Lupe Cardoza and Joe Robleto (twice, bizarrely). He also rematched Lou Salica removing him with the certainty of a knockout and then a year into his reign he knocked out the ranked Leo Lopez and the unbeaten Benny Goldberg, who had previously beaten him not once but twice, including on his pro debut. “The clever southpaw challenger,” made it difficult for the champion to begin with but once Ortiz had warmed up to the man in front of him—a recurring theme in this great career—Goldberg had it all taken away from him by sustained punishment the Lewiston Morning Tribune described as “terrific.” It was not a close fight, and when Goldberg picked up the duration title when Ortiz went into the army in ’45, the people knew it was just that.

The #2 ranked Tony Olivera went next and then the #5, Luis Castillo, matched twice after a cut and not the concussive punching that would decide the rematch decided the first. Castillo was matched again in ’46 after he re-climbed the rankings to #3 and then another top 5 opponent was crushed in the form of perennial Hawaiian contender David Kui Kong Young.

When #1 contender Harold Dade unseated him by a wide margin in 1947 it seemed a natural conclusion to an enormously dominant run. And then he won the title again.

“He recaptured his title,” wrote the Toledo Blade, “by punching out a fifteen round decision over lightning fast Chicago Negro whose youth and speed defeated Ortiz two months ago…Ortiz came back with a flashing series of left hooks, right uppercuts and overhand rights that had Dade backing across the ring while Ortiz determinedly closed in, building up a lead that Dade never could overcome.”

More defenses followed. Only Joe Louis would amass more in protection of a unified title. When he was separated from it once and for all in 1950 by the excellent Vic Toweel, he had been fighting top contenders for more than ten years. During his exquisite best he went 43-1-1, a record amassed in the main against ranked bantam and featherweights, the one loss suffered at the hands of Willie Pep.

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#66 Abe Attell (72-9-16; Newspaper Decisions 41-8-6)

In October of 1904 Abe Attell defended his featherweight title against the tough Brooklyn featherweight Tommy Sullivan, and lost by way of a controversial fifth round knockout. The offending punch was a left uppercut, driven to the belt-line with such ferocity it is said to have lifted Attell from the canvas and then reintroduced him to it face first, but Abe claimed he had been fouled. In accordance with the sometime rule of the era, the referee, unsure as to the legitimacy of a foul called forth the doctor who would examine the brutalized party. No less than three physicians examined Attell, whilst he writhed in apparent agony in full view of an agitated crowd and none found any evidence of his being fouled (what might constitute evidence, I am unsure!) at which point Sullivan was named the winner.

Once he had recovered from this foul blow, Attell completely ignored the judgment of the referee and doctors and continued to defend “his” world featherweight title, just as though that loss had never happened. Such were the vagaries of boxing in this time that many people happily acknowledged his claim and, fascinatingly, so too do many modern commentators. If you examine the Wikipedia and Cyber Boxing Zone entries for featherweight lineage you will see that they name Attell as champion from 1902 and 1903 respectively, with no loss to or reign by Tommy Sullivan referenced. Furthermore, BoxRec lists no defenses of this title by Sullivan, although the general sense seems to be that it was vacated after Sullivan lost it to the mysterious Hugh McPadden, who then retired, allowing Attell to pick it up once more by defeating Jimmy Walsh in 1906.

I have broken with the seeming tradition in honoring Sullivan’s victory over Attell thereby crediting him with two shorter reigns rather than one extremely long one. Although this still makes him one of the most dominant champions in bantamweight history, an unbroken run of a decade would have resulted from the Sullivan victory being ruled a foul and that would indeed have seen Attell ranked even higher. These calls are tough but have to be made.

Even so, Attell’s raw statistics are stunning. He managed twenty successful title defenses of his undisputed world championship and he met the best of his time, even if he was perhaps a little too keen on non-title or no-decision bouts (see part three for details of his no-decision bout with the great Jim Driscoll) for the taste of some.

His decision to sit on the title for two years between 1909 and 1912 was also unfortunate but in the end few champions stack up.

 

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#65 Rocky Marciano (49-0)

He was a monk, sequestered in a chapel on a hill where he worshiped only destruction. So focused was he upon the approaching fight that in the final weeks of training for a title match he did not speak to his wife on the telephone and did not shake hands with other men, his fists still except when they were not, except when they were training for war and his fingers for the skill of battle. He did not set foot in a car. He did not do anything except prepare himself for what he had to do; nowhere in the annals of ring history is there a fighter more committed or indelibly determined than Rocky Marciano.

This was important. Marciano’s style traded on grit. He was one of the ring’s most violent disciples and he propelled, apparently face-first, into whatever his opponent had to give whilst landing prodigiously hard punches two-handed on whatever part of his unfortunate target’s anatomy presented itself. He was a living nightmare in the ring.

Harder to hit clean than he appeared (Jersey Joe Walcott: “Rocky was easy to hit, but hard to get at with effective punches&#8221 Marciano also had the durability born of sheer, bloody-minded over-commitment, the same over-commitment that would make him appear badly balanced or awkward. He held his power late, as the aforementioned Jersey Joe Walcott can attest, and was capable of delivering the knockout blow with either hand.

He is one of only two unbeaten fighters to appear on this list, in part because Rocky dealt only in the #1 and #2 contenders in his division for his title years, and he crushed them all. In Archie Moore, Jersey Joe Walcott and Ezzard Charles he met all-time great fighters of his own size who represent his superiority over types that on paper appear to have certain stylistic advantages over him; more, they underpin the argument that against fighters of his poundage, he may have been invulnerable. Rocky came as close in his career to proving this as any fighter has at any other weight, and he must respected and lauded for it.

Marciano can be ranked lower depending upon how you feel about his competition and the incredible manifestation of his psychological determination in the ring, but whilst it is true that he has not defeated the level of competition many of the other men on this list have, a core group of Rex Layne, Joe Louis, Lee Savold, Henry Matthews, Jersey Joe Walcott, Ezzard Charles, Don Cockell and Archie Moore, in addition to the big fat zero wielded in the face of the best contenders his era produced, Marciano can be ranked higher, too.

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#64 Vicente Saldivar (37-3)

Saldivar was tiny and deadly. At just 5’3, his physical limitations should have curbed his potential but the Mexican genius learned to box around them. He developed an uncanny ability, even against a fighter as superb as Ismael Laguna, at judging the range, stepping with the type of timing that made the difference in height and reach between him and his opponent unimportant and then lashing home, generally with combinations. He hit out with hard punches with great speed behind an elegant and accurate right jab out of the southpaw stance. Although a fearsome and gradual body attack was a favored tactic, he could box with the best of them and he could brawl with the bad; as complete a featherweight boxer as ever laced ‘em up.

He broke out of the Mexican scene in 1963, cracking two of the toughest hombres Mexico ever tossed out of its brutal ghettos, Eduardo Guerrero who boasted a win over then #2 contender Don Johnson, and Juan Ramirez, who headbutted his way to a disqualification loss against the same (whilst ahead on the cards, no less). Then came that superb win against Laguna, a fight that was written up in some corners as a robbery until footage emerged last year, clearly showing Saldivar as superior to a fighter who was less than a year away from a win over the great Carlos Ortiz up at lightweight.

For an encore, he broke the legendary Sugar Ramos (then 45-1-3, the single loss a disqualification), brutalized in twelve savage rounds as a counterpoint to his beautiful boxing performance against Laguna and the featherweight title belonged him. For his first defense he utterly outclassed future champ Raul Rojas, stopping him in fifteen, then he all but outclassed another champion-to-be, Howard Winstone (53-2), a trick he would pull off again in 1967 and in 1970. In all, he would defeat an astounding five past, present or future world titlists; like Miguel Canto the dominance of his reign illustrated by the ability of his opponents to prosper only in his wake. The loss of his title (after a failed retirement attempt) to Kuniaki Shibata, who basically outfought Saldivar, is concerning, as is his lack of longevity, but in a short career the Mexican great beat enough champions for two careers, drying the paint on one of the most outstanding of featherweight title reigns.

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That's quite mad.

 

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#63 Wilfredo Gomez (44-3-1)

“The wonder kid from Las Monjas” is what they called him as an amateur. This list is littered with men who have used boxing to wrench themselves from the most disgusting of poverties; none more so than Wilfredo Gomez.

A natural puncher even as a child, Gomez harnessed that ingenerate ability to become one of the most destructive hitters in fight history and the undisputed king of the super-bantamweights, drawing in his debut but then knocking out thirty-two consecutive opponents, including, in just his sixteenth professional fight, the excellent strap-holder Dong-Hyun Yum (then 50-2-6). He boxed seventeen successful defenses of this strap, scooping up the linear title in the process, all of them by knockout. To suggest that Gomez was dominant over the field is like saying the Romans did alright in Europe. Gomez was awesome. He was awesome in dispatching Royal Kobayashi in his native Japan with a single punch after just three rounds (a trick it had taken Alexis Arguello, in a career’s best performance, five rounds to turn all the way up at featherweight) and he was more than that in dispatching the legendary Carlos Zarate in just five rounds in October of 1978. Gomez did what no fighter down at bantamweight ever did and attacked Zarate directly, out-speeding and out-punching another technical genius and likely settling the question of who was the best box-puncher of that era—for the moment. Defenses followed, but Gomez’s ambition knew no bounds. He moved up to featherweight and met with no less a fighter than Salvador Sanchez. Sanchez was, in many ways, the Hagler to Gomez’s Sugar Ray, less natural gifted, bereft of the superstar stylings Gomez enjoyed and the bigger man determined to brutalize his due from the smaller man who earned the bigger purses. For Gomez however, there would be no miracle victory. He was clinically destroyed.

Whereas Zarate had seemed troubled in the wake of his defeat by Gomez, Gomez, although utterly devastated, went right back to work in the super-bantamweight division in his normal fashion, adding yet more defenses, including a victory over the superb Lupe Pintor in a brilliant and grueling battle.

When his war with the scales became more than he could overcome he finally was able to add a featherweight strap to his locker, outclassing Juan LaPorte in March of 1984. When it was ripped from him by a rampant Azumah Nelson in his very next fight, Gomez took the astonishing step of moving up in weight again and becoming the linear super-featherweight champion of the world, winning a fortunate decision over Rocky Lockridge. In truth, he lost the fight, but it was a performance of such pride and bravery that it enhances his standing still. Gomez, no longer the superb technical mover of the 1970s, had to stand and trade with the bigger man, “I hit him, then he hit me, it was brutal. We went at it from the start.”

Gomez, like Marciano, has all the apparent tools, physical, technical and psychological to remain, in his prime, undefeated in any super-bantamweight division you would care to array. Winning eighteen title bouts by knockout, many of them against superb opposition, is an astonishing achievement. Whilst it is true that he ruled over a weaker division than some, he ruled for many years, and with an iron fist, and this, combined with his determination to succeed at the higher weights and his brilliance on film, finds him in the high sixties on this list.

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#62 Salvador Sanchez (44-1)

There is a mutter, sometimes, when discussing the career of Salvador Sanchez and the mutter mutters that we need to be careful about overrating him due to his early and tragic death, which cannot be counted in his favor—his potential is meaningless, it is what he achieved that counts. Firstly, only in the midst of the vagaries of an all-time great list can concerns about somebody dying “being held in their favor” come up naturally as a part of the discussion and secondly, Sanchez does not need to be propped up by sentimentality and sensationalism—he boxed a career before his death at the tender age of just twenty-three.

Consider: Sanchez has as many wins as Wilfredo Gomez, fewer losses than Wilfredo Gomez, and like Gomez he never lost his (featherweight) title in the ring. He boasts more defenses of his title than Vicente Saldivar, and, as we shall see, his level of competition is comparable. It is not for the sake of tender feeling or a dwindled sense of what could have been that he is ranked a hair’s breadth in front of his fellow Latin American compeers but rather the overall sense that he combines the best of what makes them both great.

Sanchez won sixteen of his first seventeen fights by knockout and then dropped a split decision to Antonio Beccera down at bantamweight before stepping up to complete what would be perhaps the second most celebrated run ever at featherweight (the first is locked down by a fighter very near the top of this list, and if you don’t know who that is, you will by the end of the series). It would last from late 1977 until summer of 1982 and included the deeply unpleasant job of picking up the featherweight title from Danny Lopez, likely the hardest hitter ever at the weight.

Sanchez looked sensational in the first round of their February 1980 contest, a jab that came all the way from his toes and a hook that looked like it might be a jab until it landed, a shucking, sliding style that did not compromise his offense and, given that he was only twenty-one years old, an almost offensive confidence bordering on smugness putting him firmly in control. His confidence was justified as over and over again he slipped the Lopez jab and found a punch.

It was not abnormal for Lopez to have a bad first round, but it was abnormal for such an aggressive showing to bring such roaring success. Sanchez was able to box-punch Lopez in range without allowing him to get his offense going and when in the eighth round he felt that Lopez had become worn, he initiated bruising exchanges, coming out almost exclusively ahead. When the champion finally cracked in the thirteenth, awash in his own blood, it was only after several rounds equally awash with a sense of inevitability.

After beating the superb Ruben Castillo (47-1, and the “1” came against Alexis Arguello) in his first defense, Sanchez rematched Lopez and showed him a subtle difference—boxing more—and although it produced an almost identical result, it was telling. Sanchez was a thinking fighter; wary of showing a top-class opponent the same thing twice he re-developed the same strategy to present new problems. It was this kind of astonishing tactical awareness that brought him wins over Juan LaPorte, Wilfredo Gomez, Pat Cowdell and Azumah Nelson.

Who knows what we in boxing lost when we lost Sanchez? He consistently showed the understanding and awareness of a veteran in his early twenties, a testimony perhaps to the number of fights and defenses he crammed into his short career. As a veteran, he might have attained the rare heights of strategic genius reserved for the likes of Archie Moore and Bernard Hopkins.

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#61 Lou Ambers (91-8-7)

Eight losses posted in nine years over more than one-hundred fights in an era as deep as the one he fought in is an insane return. He was stopped but twice, by big punching Lew Jenkins, both occurring in the final ten months of his career and this diminutive lightweight (5’4) took some scalps.

Take a deep breath, say it with me:

Bummy Davis, Henry Armstrong, Baby Arizmendi, Paul Junior, Tommy Cross, Pedro Montanez, Tony Canzoneri, Fritzie Zivic, Jimmy Leto, Cocoa Kid and about eighty-five other forlorn souls who had the bad luck to share the ring with a lightweight as brutal as any who would come after him.

Beyond the names lie almost exclusively clean wins, although his single victory over Armstrong is tainted by the involvement of referee Arthur Donovan who took away multiple rounds from Henry in what was considered excessive interference, and he was perhaps a shade lucky to get through versus Zivic. The victories over Canzoneri are legitimate and at least one of those encounters was as brutal a lacing as that ring giant has ever suffered, right behind his victory over Jimmy McLarnin no less. His shallower win resume and lack of their startling pound-for-pound achievements means he doesn’t quite belong in their company, but as a fighter he sure as **** belonged in their ring.

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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 – Freddie Welsh
58 – Mike Gibbons
59 - Bernard Hopkins
60 - Ted Kid Lewis
61 - Lou Ambers
62 - Salvador Sanchez
63 - Wilfredo Gomez
64 - Vicente Saldivar
65 - Rocky Marciano
66 - Abe Attell
67 - Manuel Ortiz
68 - Harold Johnson
69 - Dick Tiger
70 - Luis Manuel Rodriguez
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

 

beauty ain't it?