Top 35 All Time reveal - Boxing Survey Series

Wait til featherweight comes out and Sandy Saddler is No. 2 to a guy he completely wiped the floor with three times out of four.

 

There's nothing controversial about Pep being ranked above Saddler. It's no more controversial than Jofre being ranked above Harada despite Harada beating him twice.

 

It’s not controversial because people have been conditioned by the ‘Willie Pep broke his back, he was a shell of himself’ narrative. But Saddler was clearly the better featherweight and he proved it head to head.

 

Well, that's a matter of debate of course... but Pep dominated the division for years before Saddler came along. The strength of what he achieved up to that point is enough to rank him no. 1 irrespective of the Saddler fights. In that way, it's a similar case to the Jofre-Harada thing.

 

Or he just had his number. I’ve mentioned it before, but it bears repeating. At one point, Saddler had a stretch of 5 fights where he went 1-4. The one win he managed? You guessed it, Willie Pep. Surely that says something about how they matched up with each other.

That was their fourth fight. 3 months before the 3rd fight Saddler lost to Del Flanagan. 4 months before the first he lost to Chico Rosa. Any of these guys better than Pep? Nope, just bigger.

Saddler’s best overall run was between the 1st and 3rd Pep fights. He went 28-1 (22 KOs) and picked up the title at 130 during that stretch. So, if any of their matchups could be distinguished as the one where both were at their respective best, it would’ve been the second fight. The one where Pep beat him and gave him his only loss during that 29 fight run where he won both the Feather and Super Feather title

I don’t even buy into the plane crash narrative with Pep. It’s clearly overblown to make for a better story and further mythologize him. I still rate Pep well ahead of his conqueror. I just think Saddler was an awful matchup for him most of the time, but I also think Willie would, and did, fare better than Saddler against the rest of the field.

Particularly in a different era where Saddler wouldn’t have gotten away with all of his blatant fouling methods.

 

Another very strong list!

I might personally argue the placement in some cases (Is Sal Sanchez really that many places higher than Eusebio Pedroza and should he even be the highest ranked of his fellow countrymen? Should Henry Armstrong be quite as high as that in this list?) but the names that are there seem the rignt ones to me.

 

As the weights are increasing so far my top ten is better matching these results

At FLW:
I didn't have Villa, Genaro, LaBarba, Kingpetch or Lopez in my top ten. But Villa was in my top 15.

At BW:
I didn't have McGovern or Zarate in my top ten. But Zarate was in my top 15.

At FW:
I have the same top ten, I just have a slightly different order.

Gives me some food for thought definitely.

 

Willie Pep the run away choice for divisional GOAT so far.

 

It's the strongest top ten so far, definitely.

 

Adjusted my lists as a result of this. Still no love in my lists for Lopez or LaBarba but everyone else is getting a mention.

 

How did you not have Genaro, Villa or Labarba in your top ten at fly? None of them?