Is GGG a top 10 Middleweight of all time

1 historian ranking Jeff Smith top 50 @ MW is 1 more than you've cited who doesn't ;-) To be fair, I agree with you top 50 lists are hard to come by, so I accept I should have worded my original statement as follows "fighters who would have a good chance of being in any credible, well-researched top 50 MW lists".

I think you may have misunderstood my question (more on that in a minute), I wasn't asking you to post your top 20 MWs, but thanks for doing so. I acknowledge it can take courage to do so. Incidentally, I suspect you may apply ranking criteria inconsistently. You started this thread by claiming GGG is a top 10 MW largely because of the number of ranked contenders he beat, as well as suffering no prime losses. SRL's record @ MW is 2-1-1, with 1 win & the draw arguably being losses. You mentioned you factor in fights contested at 154lbs into your MW ranking, in which case SRL would be 3-2-1 officially. Clearly, number of ranked opponents beaten wouldn't get him anywhere close to a top 10. The same applies to a lesser extent to Fitzsimmons & RJJ, though I accept they were H2H monsters in their eras, which may factor into your ranking. With respect, it appears to me that you chose your names, then flex your ranking criteria to justify them. I apply consistent criteria, analyse the contenders and then rank according to my interpretation of their careers against that consistent criteria.

What I actually asked was for you to rank the top 20 combined wins of GGG, Williams, Ketchel & Gibbons in order, based on where you'd rank the fighters they beat all time at 160lbs. E.g., here's mine:

1. Greb - MG
2. Burley - HW
3. Burley - HW
4. Burley - HW
5. Dillon - MG
6. Dillon - MG
7. Papke - SK
8. Papke - SK
9. Papke - SK
10. Lloyd Marshall - HW
11. Lloyd Marshall - HW
12. Philadelphia Jack O'Brien - SK
13. Philadelphia Jack O'Brien - SK
14. Mike O'Dowd - MG
15. Bert Lytell - HW
16. Jeff Smith - MG
17. Jeff Smith - MG
18. Jeff Smith - MG
19. Eddie Booker - HW
20. Jack Chase - HW

I've often done something similar to this when trying to decide between 2 or more fighters I feel are closely ranked (yes, I'm a saddo with too much time on my hands) - I apply 20 points to the best win, 19 to the 2nd best win, and so on until 1 point to the 20th best win. In this instance this gives us - Williams = 84 points; Gibbons = 70; Ketchel = 56; GGG = 0

I don't consider this kind of analysis the absolute determining factor in independence, as you can see from my earlier post specifying that I rank Gibbons and Ketchel ahead of Williams. Put simply, Williams had more fights against ATG/boderline ATG MWs so he had more chances to win & he did lose more during his prime. However, I found analysis similar to the above a useful way to compare the depth of win resumes, which is one input into how I rank fighters.

My question to you was, and is again now, do you care to give the same analysis as the above a go? i.e. rank the top 20 combined wins of GGG, Ketchel, Williams & Gibbons in order based on where the fighters they beat would rank in your all time MW list? If you do, I'll happily do the Maths on the points for you.

 

To me, it's hard to say because the Middleweights had names such as:
Robinson
Monson
Hagler
Benvenuti
Hopkins
Hearns
Greb
Jones Jr,
Benn
Tiger
Griffith
Ceferino Garcia
Stanley Ketchell
Papke
Olson
Alvarez
Toney
Kalambay
Flowers
Walker

and those are champions only. If you add Holman Williams, Juan Roldan, Hurricane Carter.......I just don't know.

 

I prefer to rank fighters in their era, and in the case of limited film the following ways.

1 ) Over all record paying close attention to ranked ring magazine contenders fought and how they won. I'm mindful of the ages
of the fighters. This is neutral and can be used in ANY era that has such rankings.

2 ) The losses, who were they against and how many with the with * vs questionable calls where say 60% or more go the official loser via the newspaper / internet web writers where they say the wrong guy won. I prefer to further expose bad decisions up with punch stats preferably with the blow by blow stats per round. Sometimes the punch stats are better than the official scores themselves! Even if I agree with the call of the official winner. Of course you score a knockdown 10-8.

3 ) Since they all must weight in at 160 pounds or less, you can compare them head to head. Some past the eyes test other don't.

It's harder to rank men where the is no film of their most significant victories, which is what you are asking!

 

Harder to rank men with no film of their most significant victories. So you dont rank or limit the ranking of fighters with no film of their most significant victories. Ok, that goes some way to explaining your apparent bias to more modern fighters, though doesnt explain your ranking of Greb.

I'm still not sure how you could have SRL as a top 10 MW using your criteria, unless A) H2H (your no.3 criteria) is significantly more important than number of ranked contenders beaten (your no. 1 criteria) and 2) You think SRL is a H2H beast at MW.

Your stated ranking criteria isnt that different to mine, except neither the availability of footage or H2H across vastly different eras factor into mine. The consistent application of our criteria appears to differ substantially, though.

 

On Greb there are tons of ranked fights and many matches vs hall of fame level opponents. I know all about them.

I have seen his opponents in action but not with Greb. He must have been something to face and beat so many ranked men! He beat at least 20 opponents who would have been or are ranked. More than just about any middle weight. One theory on Greb films is that his films are edited out of existence / not available for the general public. Maybe, maybe not. He was filmed six times, so where are they? The quaintly of the films in the 1915-1930 are still good to this day. I hope one day to see some footage of his most famous fights vs. Walker and Tunney. Training film emerged of Greb fairly recently that was tucked away in archives of a film library. This has been discovered so there is hope of a fight film.

 

Grebs greatness is something we can agree on

 

Sorry to harp on a solitary point that, in the grand scheme, merely orbits the greater discussion here, but I would not describe Ketchel as slovenly at 170 pounds. If you consider the fact that Ketchel had his career cut short in his early to mid twenties, when Golovkin was himself weighing below 160 as an amateur, I would say they are similar enough in weight to compare.

I tire of going on and on about this myself oftentimes, but I view the whole weight debate as being given to wild exaggeration. This is speculative on my end, but I think it's a conscious or subconscious effort to invalidate H2H.

To be clear, I'm not blind to the changes in the sport, and I won't deny that there are middleweights today that would not have been middleweights 60 years ago- I'm really just reiterating that these should always be taken case by case. If boxing were put in a capsule or had been abolished in the 60's, you would still get certain fighters fighting out of their natural weight classes; the very sport encourages it! Grown men don't come in eight or even sixteen standard sizes.

People give largely unsubstantiated claims about present fighters' weights and it's often taken as truth because it aligns with what many already choose to believe. Worse yet, these are then repeated, which is seen to verify these falsehoods.

 

Ketchel often weighted in at 155 or around that mark. This is what he was vs. Jack Johnson though box rec erroneously reports 170. He lost or drew to all of his name oppomets save the past his prime O'brien.

His ring record and ranked men that he fought if full of losses and draw. On film, he's awful. I don't get why he thought of thought of today. To me he is the most over rated old timer.

 

As someone who has predicted the incorrect outcome of an actual fight on substantially more than 1 occasion, H2H (by which I mean my predicted outcome of fights that didnt happen) largely doesnt factor into my rankings, which are virtually entirely based on fights that actually happened. I may factor in my perceived H2H evaluation as a tie breaker to separate 2 boxers from a similar era.

H2H across vastly different eras doesnt factor at all in my ranking criteria. There are too many variables to confidently predict the outcome and too many inconsistencies. I've read of fighters being up to 29lbs heavier in the ring than what they weighed in at (Zurdo at 204lbs) and have spoken to a fighter off the record who told me they were 16lbs heavier on the night. Add vastly different in the ring fighting weights to improvements in sports science, less fights/longer camps, PEDs, different rule sets, different number of rounds fights are contested over, etc., and the perceived H2H outcome of a fight between two boxers active in vastly different eras seems, well to be frank, completely meaningless to a discussion about a fighters standing from an historical perspective.

If someone wants to make the point that if Ketchel were transported via time machine straight out of a 1908 ring into a 2013 ring to face GGG, they think he would lose, then fair enough, I strongly suspect they'd be right. That wont factor into my rankings, though.

 

Yes, if I spend months method acting to get into the role of a complete idiot with the intelligence of a gnat, he is a top 10 middleweight of all time.

 

Getting back to you. This is difficult due to the lack of film on the below men.

Greb Burley, Dillon, Papke, Jack O'Brien, Mike O'Dowd, Bert Lytell, Jeff Smith , Eddie booker and Jack Chase.

 

No problem if you dont feel confident enough in your knowledge to answer.
I dont accept lack of footage as a reason to duck the question on where these fighters rank in your MW list though, given you rank Greb at 1.

 

I'm rewarding you with the Heath Ledger award.

 

Again, I say look at how many top ranked guys he beat. Many of those guys are on film. In total, Greb faced 16 Hall of Famers. His record here is 32–11–5 against these men ...in the hall of fame. That is why I view him as #1, not to mention a boat load of contenders! I can not make my point of view much clearer.

 

I agree with your high ranking of Greb.

Your ranking Greb at 1 is proof you dont need film of a fighter to rank him.

Theres no shame in not feeling knowledgeable enough on the best fighters William's, Gibbons and Ketchel beat to rank them compared to GGG's best wins.