Top 35 All Time reveal - Boxing Survey Series

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I didn’t have Lopez in my 15 but I completely understand it: if you look at this list with only the Original 8 divisions (or whatever you want to call them) then anyone between two fo them (or below the fly limit) is eligible. Just like they would be to fight for that division’s championship in the days of eight divisions.

Hell, some of these flyweights spent as much or more time at bantam anyway. And probably get credit for some of their accomplishments above fly in ranking them ... so why not below fly? This exercise by its parameters boxes us into eight divisions and anything below the flyweight limit under those constraints is, by definition, a flyweight.

If not for the Sanchez result — say he had never stepped up and retired undefeated at 122 — I damned sure would have had Wilfredo Gomez in my featherweight rankings. I did have him in my P4P 25.

 

The only solution would be to throw out the high and low vote for each fighter, which basically nullifies someone’s opinion. If it were done that way, I wouldn’t participate — Sandy Saddler is my No. 1 featherweight. He stopped everyone else’s No. 1 feather 3 out of 4 times they met so I feel like I can make a pretty substantial case. If you throw out my vote for him, throw out all my votes and just erase my entries.

 

That one I could live with.

It would be like someone putting Bob Foster in at number 1.

 

You would have put Gomez in FW? If he'd have never fought there? What?

 

The system is what the system is, I don't feel angry about the result, just intrigued.

But as Rummy said, all in its a pretty good list.

 

Yes, because if we’re only considering eight weight classes then anyone above 118 and 126 or below is a featherweight.

So he did.

 

not sure I get this logic? But, everyone has a right to their opinion. I don’t see how you can rate a guy at 126 who never really fought the best at that weight....fortunately we have Sanchez and Nelson and personally I feel like Lockridge deserved the decision (but maybe that was SFW?) Gomez was found to come up short at FW, I imagine most guys who didn’t find success at or attempt to, did not for a reason.

 

Because before there was a super bantamweight division, anyone who weighed above 118 and at 126 or below was a featherweight. And we’re choosing guys in those ‘original’ weight classes only so the ‘tweeners’ count in there.

Did you notice that some of the heavyweights who got votes were actually ... cruiserweights? So they shouldn’t count, right? Sorry Dempsey, Rocky, you didn’t weigh enough.

Have you never seen discussions on here about whether Dempsey and Marciano are among the greatest cruiserweights of all time? I have. And they never once fought in that division because it didn’t exist in their day.

So if we’re saying there’s only eight weight divisions, I don’t think the intent is to eliminate anyone who competed in a junior/super division.

 

I think they come into it in the p4p 25 rather than attempting to shoehorn them into weight classes they never fought in. That's my view anyway...

 

Well we should have picked EVERY division if we’re going to do it that way — otherwise the eight divisions encompass all the junior divisions in between like they did in the old days.

Sugar Ray Robinson fought a lot at junior middleweight. We not going to count those fights when he wasn’t over 154 when looking at his middleweight resume? Look at some of Henry Armstrong’s weights — let’s wipe those fights off the books, too.

We shouldn’t count any of those if we’re going to create gaps in weight that are some kind of zone where fighters don’t exist.

(And don’t get me started on Jake LaMotta, who fought most of his career above 160 but still gets rated there because he made that weight a few times for title fights — including some against a guy who wasn’t a middleweight.)

 

Well, maybe Rumsfeld will do a separate junior and super weight class one as well (think this may have been mentioned in one of the earlier threads as a possibility?) in which case Ricardo Lopez will be making my Strawweight and Junior Fly lists.

 

I need to ask Rummy if we can do a recount on anyone who voted for LaMotta at middleweight — his best win here he weighed 160 1/2, which is light heavyweight in his day, and it was over Ray Robinson at 144 1/2, so he was a welterweight.

That result should not be considered for historic purposes unless we’re rating Jake at light heavy. And Ray’s win in the rematch cannot count as a middleweight win either since Ray was below 147.

In fact, Ray’s next three wins over Jake, Sugar was a junior middle and we’re not counting junior divisions so those fights also should not be considered.