Is Sugar Ray Robinson Pound for Pound number 1?

Robinson, Langford, Greb, Armstrong, and Charles IMO are the only guys who could be argued for the #1 spot.

I personally do have Robinson at #1. He looks as impressive as anyone else on film, despite the fact that very, very little is in his prime. A reasonable case could be made for him rating as the best Welterweight and Middleweight of all time. He's got one of the best resumes in the history of the sport, and he maintained great consistentcy against such competition.

His prime run was something like 130-3-2. One of the losses happening when he was outweighed by 16lbs against LaMotta, the other being his 5th fight in 4 weeks against Turpin, and the last when he was overcome by the heat after clearly getting the better of the Lightheavyweight champion of the world. Of course, he's got 5 wins over LaMotta and avenged the loss to Turpin as well. In that span he also beat Kid Gavilan 2x, Fritzie Zivic 2x, Tommy Bell 2x, Henry Armstrong, Bobo Olsen, Sammy Angott 3x, Rocky Graziano, California Jackie Wilson, Georgie Abrams, Steve Belloise, etc. That's just flat out amazing.

Add to that his great longevity and the fact that he was never knocked out in his 200+ fight career, and I think his is the strongest case for #1.

 

Henry armstrong, Sam Langford, if pacman beats cotto and mayweather, harry greb, ray learnard and roberto duran can give robinson an arguement for that title

 

Robinson could do it all, He is the original P4P best. Other fighters that are close IMO would be Armstrong, Pep, Duran, Greb, Langford.

 

Angelo Dundee and Carmine Basilio both think that Willie Pep is the greatest p4p fighter. Although there was no love lost between Carmine and SRR.

 

Only Greb can legitimately challenge him. I would have a hard time calling Duran or Armstrong as the best ever. Niether are better than robinson. Langford and Ezzard both have better resumes than Duran and in order to be called the best ever, your resume has to be top 5 of all times, Duran's resume isn't even top 10 IMO.

 

Robinson was more dominant than armstrong and he has the deeper resume. He only lost 3 times in his first 135 fights, Armstrong had losses throughout every stage in his career. Even though he had a great run at welterweight, make no mistake about it , alot of those guys he was fighting were unranked by ring magazine.

Langford again has too many losses at every stage of his career and hes been stopped. Yeah he fought all the way up to heavyweight, but he just wasn't as consistent as robinson. 91-0 and as amatuer and then 127-1-1 as a pro is downright scary. Sue he lost at the end of his career a bunch of time, but that doesnt matter, he was well over 36.

Robinson fought from 135-175 and was never knocked out and beat several guys bigger than him.

Calling Armstrong or Langford as the greatest boxer ever just doesnt roll of my tongue. Only greb can challenge him but he has no film of his fights.

I personally rank Ezzard above Armstrong, and it doesnt matter to me if Armstrogn won more belts. Ezzard has the better resume, you box to fight, not win championships, thats just an afterprize. Ezzard's resume is more impressive than Armstrong's.

 

he is a great candidate and the evidence leans heavily in his favor. Others i would consider for this top honor are: Benny leonard, Greb, Gans, Hagler, Joe Gans, Pep, Roy Jones certainly and quite possibly Duran

 

The easiest answer is that you can't be said to be wrong having Robinson at nr. 1. The only blotch on his record is not having met and beat Burley, C. Kid etc.

 

Who's burley? No one even knows who he is!