Art"the dart"Kettles, Tom"the Bomb" Bethea,Freddie Pendleton, Saol Mamby, Holly Mims not great but had some good wins Bob Stallings,Ross Purity,Marion Wilson,George"Scrapiron"Johnson,
Battling Battalino is the epitome of this. Basically had a .500 record in non-title fights, but successfully defended his title against 3 HOFers (Kid Chocolate, Fidel LaBarba, Freddie Miller), whupped the reigning bantam champ Panama Al Brown in an over-the-weight fight, and also scored wins over Andre Routis (to win the title), and former champs Al Singer and Bushy Graham (both by quick KOs), among others. Never was beaten in a title fight. If you only looked at his resume and title reign, you'd think Battalino was easily one of the top 10 featherweight champs of all time.
59-18 Cesar Soto comes to mind as well. Beat the unholy **** out of Jose Luis Castillo in two lopsided rounds.
Mantequilla - Bunny Sterling what a great "boxer" he was never gets a mention these days, Beat Dyamite Billy Douglas and Luis Rodriguez in a canter, Also beat Tom Bogs on Toms home ground (which was akin to beating Sven ottke ! ) Also Drew with Tony Mundine in Tony's Aussie backyard, For a short while was the Rings Mags no 1 Middleweight contender Bunny's Problem was the 15 round distence, most of his losses at his peak came about from fading in rounds 13-15, Finnegan Boutier Mundine would probaly of not got the Decisions over 12 todays rounds ( i still recall Boutier Falling on Bunny and Landing with all his weight with his knee in bunny's throat !) Its nice to see Bunny get a mention, i am sure he could of acheived a lot more over the 12 rounds modern distence if he had come along a little later. One can add Kevin Finnegan to this catagory, A great Boxer when on Form, but Did slip intoJourneyman Mode and just went through the motions at Times, But wins over Wildman Lucas, Boutier, Sibson and Tonna showed his worth, he had three great fights with Minter, nearly stopping Minter in the second fight, Also might of Joined Boogaloo and the Worm with an Ambush victory over Hagler if not for Cuts ( apperently Even on Points after 8 rounds, but Finnegan won the last two and closing like a train ) On his day a match for any Middle
George Dixon's verfied record isn't particularly astounding (65-30-48), but he's certainly one of the top 50 fighters in history, and one of the most accomplished featherweights of all time. Joe Brown's record (101-46-13) isn't incredible, but he makes my top ten list at 135lbs.
Pendleton was very good, not great. You could go back in history and find a lot of these guys, less from the modern era because the sport has changed so much.
The term great kind of rules out a bad record IMO. I immediately thought of Augustus and Pendleton, but neither is great of course.
floyd patterson Sam langford Max schmeling jack jonhson Alot of the old timers really when loosing on the way up was expected
Hmmm. For some reason Joe Frazier pops into my head. His loss to George Foreman is one of the most Damaging losses ever in boxing. Whenever Joe is brought up, people always seem to remember the foreman fights. Based on that fight everyone andd there grandmother criticize him for only being famous for fighting Ali. Its a shamee. I am not as old as most of you here, so i cant go as far back as you guys.