Winston Churchill is rated the greatest briton of all time maybe we can say Abe Lincoln was the greatest American, but who do we say is the greatest person in boxing is it Ali for the work he did to further his race, Tunney for his work in the navy and general life, or Jeffries, Marciano, Sugar Ray Robinson we here a lot about the assholes in this sport who are the really good guys, always faithfull to their wives, who maybe fought for their country the guys who were really courageous.
Ross is a superb answer, how about Willie Pep always seemed a fun guy to be arund always joking. What about Arguello despite hi personal problems was always a true gentleman and handled himself with honour and dignity
Barney Ross what a great man, but on the other side of the coin what about Max Schmelling. Schmeling was branded as a Nazi by many boxing fans, but the reality was much more ambiguous. In 1928, he hired Joe Jacobs, a Jew, to be his manager, and he would point to this fact for the rest of his life in defending himself against charges of Nazi sympathy. And in 1938, during the Kristallnacht, Schmeling hid two teenage sons of a Jewish friend in his Berlin hotel room, protecting them at great risk to himself. (The two boys, Henry and Werner Lewin, were eventually smuggled out of Germany with Schmeling's help.) But while Schmeling was not the perfect Nazi, as he was sometimes portrayed during the era of the Third Reich, neither was he an opponent of the regime, as he has often been described in recent years. Schmelling was also a paratrooper and suffered injuries fighting for his country although he may not have agreed with the regime, he also befreinded Joe Louis in later years and would pay some of Joes medical expenses and funeral bills and of course he became a very wealthy man after buying the german rights to Coca Cola. There have been some great men in boxing.
There are more stories about Schmeling like this. He not only had a Jew as his manager but he was also married to a czechen wife, Anny Ondra, who was a famous actress during her days. Hitler tried to force Schmeling to get rid of Jacobs and he wanted him to divorce his wife. Schmeling stood to both until the end. His wife died 1987 and they sayed ogether until then - Schmeling died in 2005, 7 month shy of his 100th birthday. He is definitly one of the greatest persons in boxing history and the greatest boxing persona to come out of Germany. A biography abou him is worth reading, he was that kind of people who had success with everything he did - he had various successful businesses before taking over Coca-Cola Germany. And he had the rare gift of always having a good connection with the people in power while staying true to his own principles.