Top 50 Middleweight of all Time

I saw both Pep and Saddler ringside in their primes and in modern times I must rate the rampaging 126 pound Henry Armstrong to whip both Pep and Saddler in their primes. Willie was almost impossible to hit but he hadn't the punch to hold off Henry for too long I believe...As for Saddler, Sandy was easy to hit and Armstrong would have outmauled him and possibly stopped Saddler...I don't Know how to guage featherweight
oldtimers like Dundee, Kilbane, Abe Attell, Terry McGovern and Young Griffo...It is very possible they were better than Armstrong, Pep and Saddler...Who knows ?...

 

Darcy just has to be top 20......... don't care where you all put him there but if you don't then you just haven't looked deep enough. Basically if he ain't top 20 in his weight then Floyd doesn't deserve a top 20 place in any weight category either, he has had less fights than Darcy.... it ain't about years, its what they did. Darcy btw would have beat Floyd to a pulp.

 

Oh Burt you have got me green with envy mate, I would have been spellbound by Pep. I agree that if you don't have the big punch you just cannot beat a great mauler, Azumah Nelson beat Fenech in their second fight, two reasons behind this, #1. Nelson had the punch to make it a bad day for Jeff, #2. The robbery of the first fight destroyed Fenech's faith in everything, he was haunted by it and the result was his heart wasn't in it anymore, his training slackened and he wasn't what he was.... Yeah Armstrong could have beat both Pep and Saddler but Pep's record before he met Saddler was incredible and Griffo like but I don't think he fought a lot of great guys there before Saddler as Griffo had done.
What I found out about Griffo last night reading reports from newspapers and the Police gazette was that amazingly Griffo was an awesome infighter, I am sure due to what we have heard about him we all imagine him being an outside fighter but this is false, yeah he stood right in front of you using lateral movement a bit like Pep (Pep was pretty rough on the inside too}... but for Griffo to destroy guys on the inside yet hardly get hit must put him in a class of his own, I doubt there will ever be or was anyone like the bloke, he must have been simply awesome to behold... the contemporaries say so as well, I even admit he may have been even better than Darcy.
As I said, I envy you, you must have seen so many great fighters so please tell me more................................. I have met guys like you, I once met a bloke who on a trip to the US he attended the fight between Marciano and Charles, the one with the knockout, he said he sat in the third row near ringside and he said that his white shirt had changed colour to red from all the blood that was sprayed over him, he described the punches Rocky was throwing, said he was in awe of Ezzard being able to stand even from one hit let alone the hundreds he did take, as well he described how badly hurt Rocky was...... I wish I was next to him that night. Also met old men who saw Darcy fight at the stadium and they all said they thought him the greatest fighter they ever saw and they saw LOTS obviously.

 

Greg, a little anecdote : My dad was a cab driver who hacked in NYC in the 1920s on. When I as a lad became interested in boxing primarily because our family lived next door to a trainer of the great LHT champion John Henry Lewis and I would nightly
go next door and spar with a few of John Henry Lewis's sparring partners. these sessions hooked me on boxing. One of the welterweights who sparred with me was named Tommy Jones
who to get matches went to Australia with a tough American welterweight named Jimmy Leto who once beat the great Charley Burley...Inquire with your mates about Jimmy Leto and Tommy Jones...
One other thing... My dad would tell me when he was hacking in the Broadway area in NYC, he and other cab drivers would see an old fat man sleeping in the cold winter nights in front of the theatres quite often. This old fat man turned out to be none other than Young Griffo who was a legendary fighter 30 years before..He Griffo, became a drunk and lived by getting handouts
from theatre goers...Young Griffo was the "original will-of- the wisp"...But how low the mighty had fallen...

 

gregluland, Larry Foley appeared to have had a hand in the development of an astounding number of Australian boxers who fought when the Marquis of Queensbury Rules was coming into vogue. The impact of Australian boxers was tremendous worldwide from the 1880s to the 1910s.

- Chuck Johnston

 

well make that to 1917 when Les Darcy died and we have the truth, Foley said he had never seen anyone as good as Darcy...... ever, he had an enormous impact

 

:good:good:good:good

 

Fenech deserved the decision in the first fight ,The reason he was beaten up in the second is that Nelson was not recovering from malaria as he was in the first fight.At their best Nelson beats him like a drum, as he did in the second fight.Fenech threw dozens of punches but not many had any steam on them. Nelson could bang and walking into him is not a good idea.The little training clips I have seen of Darcy show an agile, fast man, who looks very strong,though top 25 might be a bit high? Klompton on here ,the resident Greb expert is very disparaging about Darcy,But I keep an open mind on him.

 

So I have been digging around studying Tony Zale's record and therefore coming across some of these names you have here way ahead of Darcy, so lets see how they stack up against Darcy and others.

From Tier 4 : Bert Lytell - 71-23-7 that is not at all impressive and compared to Darcy ?? ok lets look deeper........... His losses, Artie Towne... ok his first fight, no worries, Graham Gooch started his test career with a pair of ducks and look how good he became. Artie was 10-0 at the time so no black mark there. 12 fights and 10 wins and 2 draws later Bert loses again this time to Johnny Finazzo, a fighter with a barely average record at the time of his fight 24-24-8 but still far more experience than Bert, he wins next fight then loses to Henry Chiemlewski whose record stood at 36-12-0 not too bad on the surface.

Henry has a weak chin he was knocked out 14 times but scored 24 KO's himself, he lost to lou Broulliard but beat Lou on points later he also had a good win over Georgie Abrams but soon after Abrams knocks Henry out. Henry also lost against Tony Martin on points and to Ernie Booker and Nate Bolden and Coley Welsh (3 times) by TKO in almost as many fights he lost to HoFer Jake LaMotta. Ok then he loses may more lots by knockout and no more wins against anyone worth mentioning, all in all Henry can only be described as an average fighter for the first half of his career but it's all downhill from there.

Back to Mr Lytell, who lost twice to Henry The rather ordinary then a few fights later he ges a win over Johnny Finazzo to even the score with him. a few fights later he draws the short straw, the short straw is called Jake La Motta and looking at Bert's career so far it's no surprise that he loses on points here. Jake's record at time of fight is 48-9-2 while Bert's is 18-4-2, Jake had lost 3 out of four against SRR at this time and a loss and a win against his other great adversary Fritzie Zivic by the time he beat Lytell. Berts next loss just a few fights later is against the excellent Walter Woods who was nearing the end of his career, at time of fight his record is 62-6-2. 5 fights later he fights Holman Williams to a draw but then loses to Holman the very next fight, so far bert has fought some good uns but here's the rub, he has lost all those fights so far. He loses to a pretty good fighter called Aaron Wade 57-11-6 at time of fight then he loses again to Walter Woods on points.

Bert Lytell then enters his best period by far with three very good wins, two against Cocoa Kid 167-47-9 atof, and finally gets a win over Holman Williams but then Charley Burley beats Bert just as Berts career seems to be taking off and to make matters worse he loses to Deacon Johnny Brown soon after whose record at the time is 24-18-3 OUCH !!!!, he then takes on two bums then gets a win over Deacon Johnny Brown who is coming off a loss so he was now 26-19-3. Things start going well after this he gets to avenge his loss against Charley Burley and a few fights after that he beats Cocoa Kid and Holman Williams. BUT once again he starts on a downturn and no wonder he takes on Archie Moore and gives away 13 pounds, Archie was then at 84-13-7, He can certainly be excused for this loss but then he inexplicably loses to some guy called Leonard Morrow who is a novice with just 13 fights and his record stood at 10-2-1. OUCH !!!!!!!

He now goes back to the drawing board fight against nondescript guys and beats them but then loses to light heavyweight Charley Doc Williams (Holmans brother ?) and gave away 10 pounds but Doc's record is a paltry 27-6-1. Again fighting no names he wins a few then suffers two losses to the heavier by 6 pounds in first clash then 8 pounds next fight Henry Hall who was 43-11-4. He loses a few fights later to Jimmy Hooper 18-13-3 (OUCH again). He tries to avenge his loss to Doc Williams but loses again, it took his third attempt before he scores a points win over Doc Williams, he then runs into young 22 year old Harold Johnson and loses to him on points, Harold was 27-1-0 young Harold already showing he was destined to be a world champion. He then loses 3 out of his next 6, one to Archie Moore, one to a novice called Jimmy Slade 17-3-2 and one to experienced Artie Towne. On the 16th of October 1951 He loses to Julian Keene who has only 30 odd fights 27-5-0, then wisely he hangs his gloves up, never to return to the ring.

So to wrap things up, on the plus side we have a guy with a very solid chin, only 1 loss by KO and he has a KO percentage of 24 and a total of 24 KO's so he was no puncher. He did have a few big wins, 2 over Cocoa Kid, 2 wins and a draw over Holman Williams, 1 win over Burley and thats about it as far as wins over big names but he also lost to Williams and to Burley.

Unfortunately on the negative side there is so much bad stuff as it more than cancels out his achievements many times over. He could be excused for his loss against LaMotta, He lost twice to Walter Woods who I can tell you right now was a better fighter both head to head and in resume to Bert Lytell, he had some good wins and a lot less losses, he beat Ken Overlin, Solly Krieger (one win and one loss to him), Ralph DeJohn (twice), Fred Hennebury and Jack mcNamee both in front of their native roaring Australian crowds, a loss to Ceferino Garcia, two losses to Nate Bolden, a loss to LaMotta and of course a win over Bert Lytell.

My conclusion is that you made a mistake putting this guy in your top 50 mate, we all make mistakes. Bert lytell has no right whatsoever to be rated above such fighters as Les Darcy, James Toney, Fred Apostolini, Georgie Abrahams, Marcel Cerdan, Tony Zale, Frank Klaus, Jack Dillon, Reggie Johnson, Mike McCallum, Vince Dundee, Ken Overlin, Eddie Booker, Tommy Gibbons, Randy Turpin, Marcel Thil, Archie Moore, Billy Conn, zzard Charles, Michael Nunn, Sumba Kalambay, Gene Fulmer, Philadelphia Jack O’Brien, Nino Benvenuti, Jeff Smith, Kid McCoy, Sam Langford, Barbados Joe Walcott, Dave Sands, Billy Soose, OR WALTER WOODS. Les darcy would have wiped the floor with Bert Lytell easily, all Darcy's losses are understandable not one of the 3 guys that had wins over Les were anywhere near bums and Les avenged all of those losses and he beat more big names than Bert even got close to and Les never lost lots of fights to journeymen and never got knocked down, Berts record is just above average. he may be top 100 but even that doesn't look good. Unfortunately Calvin Coolidge Lytle just does not cut it.

I also just realised you don't have the Non Pareil Jack Dempsey in your list.

 

Well Klompton is disparaging of every Australian fighter, disparaging about every Australian, we are all low life crims and scum y'know, what with our Ned Kelly gang and Ben Hall (the most sucessful highwayman/bushranger/outlaw of all time, he robbed more gold and cash than Billy The Kid, Jesse James gang, Ned Kelly, the Dalton Bros, **** Turpin combined and then some) our Razor gangs of the twenties and thirties and arch crims Squizzy Taylor, Roger Rogerson and John McArthur we have had some baddies among us but as far as Klompton has said we are all rotten scum, including me apparently :hi:
Unfortunately Klompton once he is set in a position NOTHING will sway him, he has never admitted being wrong about anything even when he clearly is, that is just one sign of his arrogance, so far he hasn't replied to my PM, another sign of the big A. We are talking about the biggest resident ego on the forum. No he is a good poster most of the time but I rate Senya and Burt Bienstock way higher and I do not even agree with everything they say but oh boy are they good or what and i myself am no slouch either, I don't know as much about greb as Klompton but i know a hell of a lot more about the likes of Les Darcy, Young Griffo and many of the fighters from the bare knuckle days, in fact i would know a hundred times more about Australian boxing history than he does and ten thousand times more about Australia than he does. :yep :rasta:bart

 

Im not disparaging of Darcy I just think there are a lot of questions about him that never got answered while he was fighting at home with every single advantage. Stating that very simple fact is like a slap in the face to Greg because he holds Darcy on a pedestal. But, Darcy came here and ducked every difficult match that was offered him. There is so much romanticising about him its become ridiculous. He would have had fights here had he taken the ones offered him but unlike the Americans that went to Australia and had to jump immediately into fights with him without acclimating themselves he refused to face the guys he claimed he was coming here to fight (Gibbons, etc). All these conspiracy theories about him being murdered by us, dying of a broken heart, the ridiculous Fulton stories, etc. Thats all just malarky. When you look at the circumstances of his career you realize that had he actually fought in the USA we would know a lot more about him. Since he didnt he has a lot of question marks IMO. He beat some big names over there but every single one of them had been beaten earlier by Gibbons who was conceded over hear as the greatest fighter P4P in the world and as the true champion if he could ever get a shot at McCoy (who he had also beaten). For every guy that came back to the USA singing the praises of Darcy there were two who said he was overrated, would lose to Gibbons, or came back talking about fixed fights and homecooking. The other point is all this hoakum about how Darcy would have come here and run the gammut of MWs beating them all. Darcy didnt have to make the MW limit in Australia, they made their limit 160, it wasnt made 160 here until years after Darcy was dead and when he arrived in the USA he was hog fat and predicted himself that he was growing (weight wise) into a HW. Some didnt think he could successfully get down to 158 and be strong (his biggest assett). Im not going to get into this debate with greg again beyond this because weve been there and done that and its simply not that important or interesting to me to go over guys like Darcy, Sands, etc because he greatly inflates their importance in the history of the sport. With all that being said I think Darcy COULD have been great I just dont think he proved it. He, like other fighters who died before their time, had potential that went unrealized and some have taken that to mean that it categorically WOULD have been realized but the boxing landscape is littered with guys who showed potential and had some good wins but either couldnt maintain that, or when they travelled here with glossy records failed miserably. IMO the jury is out on Darcy and unfortunately it will never return.

 

Steventhis thread is about Mcgrains List of top 50 middleweights, les Darcy certainly is in the top 50 based on what he did not what he may have done, I only hold him as high as you do Greb, I don't compare his record to Greb's, he may or may not have had a better one than Harry if he had lived and fought until 36 years of age. I do wholeheartedly dismiss any claim that he was a dodger of Gibbons or anyone else, fact is The Australian government destroyed most of his chances, they would agree to fight so and so only to have the fight banned by authorities. He wanted first to fight McCoy and unify the title, you can argue this belt and the McCoy thing all you like but that will get us nowhere. Of course Mike Gibbons and les would have destroyed McCoy we both agree he was little more than a bum with a punch. But to the point of this thread Steven.... Darcy's resume is far superior to one Bert Lytell who was ranked way above Darcy and Fullmer and so many other fighters with way better resumes than Bert's... just read my above posts on Lytell and I am sure you will agree with me here, I have studies this guy in detail today and frankly I would have big trouble ranking Bert between 90 and 100th on a top 100 list let alone these guys James Toney, Fred Apostolini, Georgie Abrahams, Marcel Cerdan, Tony Zale, Frank Klaus, Jack Dillon.

Tier VI: Reggie Johnson, Les Darcey, Mike McCallum

Tier VII: Vince Dundee, Cocoa Kid, Ken Overlin, Eddie Booker, Tommy Gibbons, Randy Turpin, Marcel Thil, Archie Moore, Billy Conn,

Tier VIII: Ezzard Charles, Michael Nunn, Sumba Kalambay, Gene Fulmer, Philadelphia Jack O’Brien, Nino Benvenuti, Jeff Smith, Kid McCoy.

 

As for some of the other stuff i don't agree with half of that but I will just leave your opinions on Darcy to whatever you want to believe, you and I have provided newspaper reports but you cannot deny there was a smear campaign run by the Aussie PM, Snowy Baker and Huge Deal McIntosh.... and yes he did trust O'Sullivan for a time but the man was worse than useless, he got Les a couple of fights without even bothering to ask Darcy what he wanted to do. To say Darcy would be afraid of Mike Gibbons is silly and just insulting. As it is les was already dying, he just didn't know it yet, there was nothing the medicine of the time that could have prevented his blood poisoning... I also agree that any stories of Yankees murdering Les by poison is pure BS,,....... Some bloke thought it a bit of a joke to include this in a later poem.. problem is it stuck, and later used as an excuse for the death of Phar lap. Les was very much a victim of the war, persecuted by Billy Hughes the PM and the moment les turned 21 he joined the US army, he wasn't a coward... a coward doesn't sign to fight a McGoorty or a Chip... and a coward doesn't sign to fight 20 rounds with the likes of a Bob Whitelaw (who is aged mid twenties and the finest welter in the country) when aged just 16, to suggest otherwise doesn't make an iota of sense...

as for him having favouritism in Australia may sound ok on the surface but it just wasn't the case and I know you cannot prove this or most of the other claims you made above, what you can have is an opinion die to lack of facts and i for one will not try to take that right away from you. I respect much of your work but not all of it, you are wrong sometimes, admit that and we may well get along... we actually do agree on many other things about boxing history. Please don't think I spend all my time on Darcy, I have many fighters and boxing subjects I do a lot of work on... I have been researching the life and times of James Figg, Jack Broughton, Young Griffo, Larry Foley, Battling Nelson, Tony Zale, Sugar Ray Robinson and currently I am investigating the so called greatest boxers of all time the "Murderers Row" (I am being facetious) just to disprove some claims of how great they supposedly are, I have noticed at least one post you made recently where you seriously questioned some of these guys. we are not that different but will always admit a mistake when I find I was wrong, even if it is about the great Les Darcy.

 

The posts i made on Bert Lytell and the research that went into that mega post was rather tiring at times but also enlightening, I learned a lot and my doubts about the "murderers row" guys grow.... It was sometimes tedious but seeing as though McGrain ranked him so high it was a task someone had to undertake.... I didn't set out to make McGrain look bad or to diss Lytell, it could have turned out that i may have made McGrains case for him and if that happens when I cover the other guys then so be it, to me myths belong to religion, facts belong to science and history is a type of science not a religion.

Yours truly Greg Fred Luland aka McGoorty.

 

Having read your posts on him,I would say disparaging is an accurate description of them. You know more about him than I do,so maybe your negativity towards him is justified I don't know. Darcy probably has that aura that you touched on,the "if only aura", I call it the" James Dean Syndrome".