The top 2 all-time in a division facing each other

I personally wouldn’t have them 1 and 2, but Carbajal-Chiquita is one of the more plausible examples in the modern era.

At the time he fought Lopez, there was an argument (probably H2H rather than resume) that Rosendo Alvarez was the second best strawweight ever.

 

So is this thread about actual matchups of all time greats or matchups between two fighters who were clearly the 2 best fighters in the same division at the time that they met?

 

There is an argument that McGovern and Dixon were the two greatest feathers pre Pep. Whatever you think of Fleischer’s ratings, he had them #1 at feather and bantam respectively, while having a policy of only ranking a fighter in a single division.

Prior to Chavez, Pryor and Cervantes may well have been #1 and #2 at 140.

Starting to clutch at straws a bit. Charles and Moore is still the obvious front runner.

 

Holyield vs Qawi ...in my opinion.

 

Roy Jones and Joe Calzaghe are the 2 best ever at 168

 

Good shout. They were ranked 1 and 2 when the Ring did their division by division all time ratings in the 90s.

 

Do you know where I can find them? Should be an interesting read

 

http://boxrec.com/media/index.php/Division-By-Division_-_The_Greatest_Fighters_of_All-Time

The May 1994 lists are the ones I was referring to. The magazine itself is a good enough read if you can get hold of it, and gives a bit of context for some of the more curious picks. Like all ratings, they are a product of their time. Carbajal #1 at 108 made sense when he was the Fighter of the Year coming off the Fight of the Year win over Chiquita, but looks out of place after Gonzalez winning the series.

The 1975 lists throw up Wilde-Villa as a #1 vs #2 match-up. I'm surprised at Villa ranking so highly by that point, although any list that has Jack O'Brien #1 at 175 and Ezzard Charles nowhere to be seen probably fails the crack pipe test anyway.

Accepting the "limitations" of the 1975 list, it throws up some interesting examples of highly ranked ATGs fighting each other. #1, #3 and #5 at bantam all fought each other, as did #2 and #4 at feather, #2 and #3 at lightweight, #2 and #3 at welter, #3 and #4 at middle and #3 and #4 at heavyweight. The supreme overlord of 175 (O'Brien) also fought the #1 middleweight. I'm not sure if this is a reflection of how things look if you are working with 40 fewer years of boxing history, or if the ratings fell into the trap of grouping together fighters who fought each other.

 

Cheer man, that's some good entertainment for a few days then

I've already got a few thread ideas using this.