Thy are constantly changing but at the moment it looks like this: 1. Langford, Greb, Armstrong, Robinson 2. Charles 3. Fitzsimmons, Walker, Duran 4. Pep 5. B. Leonard, Canzoneri, Ross, Moore 6. Gans, McLarnin, Ali 7. Walcott, Louis, Monzon 8. Napoles, R. Leonard, Whitaker 9. Jofre, Burley, Williams 0. Wilde, Tunney, Chavez I'm pretty happy with the first 5 but I think the other 5 need some work to do. I don't go past 10 btw. It's hard enough.
By hard work First, I did compile what I want to go by. That's a combination of resume (record + quality of opposition at the time fought), longevity (not just years but also fights), dominance (not just the way RJJ dominated his opposition but also when a fighter wins close fights over a long time and beats every or nearly every top contender there) and accomplishments (like beeing the first one to do something, record defences, weightjumping and so on). And then there is my own bias and subjectivity. For example Burley. He could very well be a bit higher based on my criterias but I just think he shouldn't be. I have some doubts about him. That's why he is lower. Next step was to write down every fighter I could think of beeing worthy. Those were about double the number than those that actually are on these lists. Then I started to group them. First bigger groups and than narrowed it down by comparing the fighters. Those who are comparable by my standards ended up in similar groups. Than I compared the groups with each other and gave them numbers.
Hey Macca! Your list is nearly identical to mine. I just put monzon in ahead of peppy. (leonard only just gets in as well,great great fighter,but such a short career.)
I said I would justify a few places, I cant be arsed doing it. But I like that Whittaker pick. Whittaker on film is argueably the best boxing machine that ever lived, brilliant offence and defence. Good workrate, best jab I have ever seen. Only thing is he lacks power, which I think can be made up for by his amazing skillset. In a H2H or an ability favoured P4P list he should rank very highly, as for reasons outlined before, I think he is an excellant fighter and boxer. And very hard to beat.
Elaborate then, it'd be appreciated. No one else in this thread has backed up there feelings with anything approaching a articulate post. So, shoot.
I'd have Joe Louis above Muhammad Ali on p4p list, to be honest (and on HW list of course). But I'm not sure he'd make my top 10. I dont think the "muliti-weight success" argument is a good one - against heavyweights, especially. What really counts is beating good and great fighters, top fighters, dominating them, and not losing many to lesser ones. Whether this is done in one division or in ten divisions shouldn't matter, IMO.
for me his placement is based on the same thing everyone's is on my list: resume and skill set. ali's resume-frazier, foreman, liston (top 10 heavies), patterson, norton (potential top 20 heavies), top 10 contenders chuvalo, shavers, bonavena, quarry. names that look good on his resume but aren't great in context are moore and williams. in his prime and slightly, he beat every opponent he ever faced until holmes and berbick got to him. resume is among the best all time of heavies and the modern era with 5 potential top 20 heavies, 3 of which he beat by knockout ali's skill set: chin-all time great chin and one of the best at heavy ever. faced i think 12 of ring's all time best 100 punchers and was never truly knocked out. recovery powers were in human speed-at worst second fastest hands of all time (i have him ahead of patterson in that regard) and the fastest feet of any heavy ever. probably the fastest feet since benny leonard adaptability-able to adapt and do enough to win against virtually any style. moved when he had to (folley, frazier 2), out thought he had to (foreman), went toe to toe when he had to (last round of norton 2) and spoiled when he had to (shavers). essentially found a way to beat almost every man he ever fought and he fought the widest range of fighters of any heavy since louis power-underrated. not tremendous but very solid, especially in his first career. able to stun solid chins like liston and later frazier. knocked out the very rugged bonavena, as well as lyle and foreman. his precision punching was behind TKO's of cooper x 2, quarry x 2 and williams defense-virtually unhitable in his prime. by 1967, in his prime years he rarely took a clean hit despite having his hands down. brilliant reflexes and underrated anticipation made his a heavyweight locche at times loses significant points for having no in game, no body punching and rarely putting proper leverage into his punches overall, h2h and resume wise likely the best heavyweight who ever lived. dominated the 1960s and 1970s, the best 20 years of heavyweight boxing. his fights from 1963-1967 showed possibly the greatest fighting machine since sugar ray robinson. i feel he certainly warrants a top 5 position
Robinson Greb Langford Armstrong Charles Duran Ali Walker B Leonard R Leonard My top 10 would be roughly this, i've got to laugh at people making out ali is a terrible pick for a top 10 placing, fair enough if you don't have him their yourself but his resume and ability certainly make it a reasonable placing