Thank you for that! On this note, once I get through the 9 lists, I'm going to do a much longer and more in-depth look at all of the results from the entire survey (as well as having some fun with some of the elite point tallies throughout, by sorting the data in various ways). I had always planned to do that, but McGrain and you have already provided me with a lot of thought-provoking themes that I may try and explore more thoroughly than I otherwise would have. And that's just after 1 single reveal. So you and others - please do continue with the healthy debates here regarding the results. And on that note, I'm hoping to have the Bantamweight reveal done in several hours.
But surely that doesn't matter, because he was a middleweight by his era, if there was a super middleweight, he would fight there, but that would be like saying that if they introduce a super heavyweight, that Tyson Fury wasn't really a heavyweight, because he fought heavyweights.
Carlos Zarate above Herman and Harada makes me feel a bit sick, but overall, that's a great list, i'd say forum nailed it.
It's amazing how thin a resume Zarate actually has when you look at it, in terms of opponents ranked when he faced them.
Which do you take greater issue with? Zarate at 5? Or Pintor outside the Top 15? And are you @McGrain and @lufcrazy saying that the most 'objectionable' aspect of these tallies is Zarate?
Yes, nowhere i'm afraid, he doesn't belong at bantamweight at all. Didn't make my top fifty. In fairness, categorisation at that time was really difficult, but i'm confident that under his own rules, Dixon was a featherweight, reflected in the huge swathe of featherweight title matches he fought at. At bantam, he fought in one title contest (off the top of my head).
He was a beast to be fair. And with Herman, you have to really think about what you do with those losses of his, especially in terms of him being a top 5 ATG at the weight.
Zarate top 5. I think both Carlos and Lupe are top 10-15 guys Normally I'm quite opinionated when it comes to stuff like this. But below 135, I kinda just curb that coz I know there's people who know so much more than me, an opinion I could heavily disagree with could just be a result of someone knowing a lot more about the guy than I do. But I did score Pintor-Zarate for Pintor, and so I think Pintor should definitely rate higher than Zarate. My list has definitely changed since the survey, and that's only coz I was thinking about guys like Sahaprom, Donaire, Rafa etc and wondering how they'd fit into a top 20 (they don't imo) and that lead to just redoing the entire list. It's ended up looking like: #20. Johnny Coulon #19. Lou Salica #18. Bud Taylor #17. Sixto Escobar #16. Jeff Chandler #15. Joe Lynch #14. Rafael Herrera #13. Chucho Castillo #12. Carlos Zarate #11. Lionel Rose #10. Lupe Pintor #9. Panama Al Brown #8. Memphis Pal Moore #7. Kid Williams #6. Terry McGovern #5. Pete Herman #4. Fighting Harada #3. Manuel Ortiz #2. Eder Jofre #1. Ruben Olivares
The problem with Dixon is the championship was split into different weights that all fought under the banner of featherweight. Like 114 pound titles, 118-120 pound titles etc. It wasn't really until Harry Forbes that people classed the two divisions as having two different names. Such a murky era. I mean there's times where someone would lose a title fight, but retain a claim at the same title but a lower weight limit. In the pre 1900s I can actually understand any and all positions on Dixon as a BW.