Floyd Mayweather Vs Sugar Ray Leonard who wins prime for prime

It’s arguable prime for prime. But we’re looking here at the specific version who Floyd fought.

 

Have you any idea how many great fighters there’s been, across all divisions, throughout the entire history of the sport?

Rank him when he’s retired.

He’s doing great right now. But I’ve seen lists that don’t have James Toney and Mike McCallum ranked that highly.

 

We wouldn’t expect anything less from you.

 

No, he's arguably the best boxer of this century based on his record.

But he isn't top 20 all time.

 

If he ain't top 20, who are those in front of him ?

 

20 off the top of my head and not in order. I will probably miss out a few names who should be top 20 all time.

Based on my own opinion and also those of people I respect:

Greb
Robinson
Ali
Charles
Pep
Henry Armstrong
Ray Leonard
Whittaker
Chavez Sr
Hagler
Hearns
Harada
Louis
Fitzsimmons
Benny Leonard
Jofre
Ross
Walcott
Archie Moore
Langford

 

Pac is the only only eight-division world champion in the history of boxing, that alone makes him greater than half of those on your list.
He's top 10 all time with ease.
Like I already said, he even has a case for being the GOAT, although personally I wouldn't go as far as calling him that.

 

No he's not, simply because we have even more impressive careers throughout the 150 years of boxing history:

Harry Greb
Sam Langford
Sugar Ray Robinson
Ezzard Charles
Henry Armstrong
Bob Fitzsimmons
Benny Leonard
Roberto Duran
Willie Pep
Archie Moore
Sugar Ray Leonard
Muhammad Ali
Joe Louis

Who do you think has worse resume than Pac among them?

 

No it doesn’t.

Although that is incredibly impressive, the title against Marg wasn’t legit, and there obviously weren’t 17 divisions back in the day, which are all close together.

Whilst you certainly have to take into account what a fighter accomplished, you also have to analyse their skill sets and look at who they fought and at one point etc.

There’s an awful lot of criteria to look at

You can’t just wipe out half of those lists above and put Manny in the top 10, just on the grounds that nobody else on the list won titles in 8 divisions.

That’s absurd.

You can’t just compare numbers/statistics.

Oscar De La Hoya won titles in 6 weight classes. So by your logic, he’d be in the top 10 somewhere. Yet personally, I’d rank Mike McCallum higher, despite the fact that he won titles in 3 divisions.

What about the fighters who fought at the higher weights?

Even if some of them had fought in the modern era, it would only have been possible for some of them to have won titles in 1-2 divisions.

Manny was great. But when you’re comparing modern day fighters with older fighters, as well as fighters from different divisions, you have to make certain allowances.

 

This is disingenuous.

8 divisions in a world of multi-divisions, multiple titles, promoter and judge faves/bias versus genuine champions where there was one champion, one title, 8 original weights isn't all that an achievement IMO.

Fitz, Ross, Greb, Langford, Armstrong, SRR, Duran, Jofre, Pep, Charles, Ali would all rate higher than Pac-Man for me. There's a few more that I would venture before Pac.

I certainly wouldn't use 8 divisions considering the sorry state that boxing politricks is in now to justify anything as then arguably Roy Jones' rise from MW to HW titlist trumps anything in terms of weight climbing that Pac-Man is likely to do at an elite level.

 

Fitzsimmons is not even in my top 100, similar to John L. Sullivan. Way too ancient to even be considered IMO.
I see SRR, Langford, Greb, Armstrong, Pep, Moore as greater than Pac.
As for the rest, it's very debatable whether they are greater than Pac.
Leonard, Louis, SRL and Ali certainly aren't IMO.

 

Fitzsimmons fought against the same competition that Langford fought. He beat Philly Jack O'Brien who was all-time great LHW during Langford's era. You're simply being disrespectful to the era you don't know much about.

 

No I'm not. He was born in the mid 1800s, for ****s sake. His prime was in the late 1800s.
He doesn't even belong in the discussion. He'd get beat by amateurs nowadays.
Anyone who's prime was pre 1900 is not even worth mentioning in a TBE debate

 

On what grounds would Manny rank higher than Ali and Ray Leonard?