The Greatest Title Reign In Boxing History?

ali , louis , robinson , hagler , monzon , come to mind.
i guess there are more but i never considered the length of a title reign , for reasons such as : holmes had a lengthy reign , but his opposition was weak. he avoided the 70's greatest fighters when they were prime or close to it .
calzaghe avoided almost every dangerous fighter.
hopkins picked on smaller opponents throughout his career , baring tarver , whom was drained for their fight. his middleweight era was one of the weakest ever , why care about the length of his reign at such an era , and still he was .. you know what he still is.
moore was the lightheavyweight champion , and charles and walcott were not. so what ? make it even worse : harold johnson was and charles and walcott were not.
so wasn't sam langford , not at hw , not at lightheavyweight , not at mw , so what ?
but i guess there were some worthy lengthy reigns that i still do not remind fast and some that i never knew.

 

Benny Leonard reign as the lightweigh king was incredible. Dominated the lightweight class for almost a decade against arguably the best class in it's rich history.

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Wins over Dundee, Welsh, Britton, Kilbane, Kansas, Tendler, White, and Bartfield. Won't even mention him moving up to face two of the best WW of all time and coming up just short. 10/10

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Obviously, his prime weight where he exhibited some of the best boxing skills ever seen. Not a lot of footage of him, but from what can be seen of him he was the total package.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfQwLykgKGE[/ame]

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The the most notable loss was his DQ loss to Britton as he hit him on the canvas after knocking him down. As reported Britton was well ahead in the fight and most likely would have gotten the decision victory. But this has nothing to do with exploits at the weight we're referring so back on topic lol. His notable losses were to Dundee, Callahan, Ritchie, Welsh, (*McLarnin*) in highly contested bouts which were before he even became champion (except Ritchie). He also avenged all loses except McLarnin which was the last fight of his career.

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Dominated the division for almost a decade and held the crowned for 7 years before being battered by McLarnin in his last fight. Also, as stated, faced arguably the best talent in quality and quantity the division has ever seen. I say his longevity rates at the top.

 

Im not suggesting it was the greatest title reign in history but ive seen a few threads like this before and never see Eusebio Pedroza getting a mention. A fine champion who fits all the criteria IMO

 

Carlos Monzon IMO

1.Quality of Opposition beaten at the weight
Not the best quality of opposition (compared to other reigns) IMO, still very good. Wins over Benvenuti, Griffith and Napoles stick out.

Benvenuti - reigning Middleweight champion. Was thought to be a good champion who could continue for a good few years. Was definitly regarded as the best in the world at that time. A top 30 Middleweight.

Napoles - The Welterweight champion of the world, in his prime although moving up. The real significance of this win is that it established Monzon as definitly the best of his era by beating his only other realistic rival IMO.

Griffith - Despite past his prime Griffith was still a better than World Class fighter IMO. He is a top 20 MW definitly. Monzon beat him twice.

After these great wins, Monzon then has the wins over the second tier opponents like Briscoe and Valdez, both guys were just below great but better than the ordinary contenders. Monzon beat Valdez twice.

Then Monzon has the contenders which bolster any record. The likes of Bouttier, Licata, Moyer & Boggs all add to it. These guys were definitly not as good as say Griffith but they were the top cntenders of the time and pretty good.

2.Quality of Performances at the weight

This is where Monzon impresses the most IMO. His wins over Napoles, Benvenuti and the first Griffith fight were all completly dominant wins over great fighters. No other champion can claim to be so dominant over 3 ATGs IMO.

His beating of Valdez whilst past his prime is further testament to his performances as he beat the only other rival to his honours, in one sided fashion. The win over Briscoe where he has some trouble, actually shows his greatness as he recovers from the trouble and fights back to win, again dominant.

At times especially later in is career Monzon didnt look at hsi best against the lesser opponents he defended against but he still domiannted these lesser opponents. Early in his career he was brutalising these opponents but as his career progressed he was less urgent when fighting these types.

3.Examination of Losses

None as Champion.


4.Longevity

Monzon had complete and utter controll of the Middleweight division for 3 1/2 years and was stripped of half his title. His controll as undisputed champ covered 9 defences, and he was completly domiannt. After he was stripped he had 3 further defences before unifying the title against Valdez then sucessfully defending it.

Overrall that is 14 defences over 7 years. With the top class mixed in throughout.

 

Bernard Hopkins easily. He fought all the champions around the globe

 

delete

 

This. :good

 

Good post you convinced me. :good

 

Not my first pick (that is Monzon)

But Pep's title reign is very underrated, this was a post I wrote a while back about it.

Pep was far more consistent and had a long sucessful reign. Pep's reign is only surpassed by Pedroza in length of reign by a couple of months. Throw in his second reign and you arguably have the best and most dominant reign ever in the Featherweights, in fact that aint arguable.

The thing about Pep's reign that people always over look is the competition he faced but you have to consider the division at the time.

There was no unified champ so 2 titles existed NY and NBA. It was abit of a roundabout with Chalky Wright, Joey Archibald and Harry Jaffa for the NY title. The NBA title had Scalzo Lemos and Jackie Wilson competing.

After Pep won the title he added stability to the NY title and defended it four times after beating Chalky Wright, who was considered the best at the weight and favoured to beat Pep, for the title. He beat Bartolo, Wright again and Terranova before unifieing the title by beating Bartolo again.

During Pep's domination as NY Champ the NBA champion was Terranova who beat Callura twice for the title. Then Terranova lost his title to Bartolo who had lost to Willie Pep within a year earlier. Pep then beat Terranova. Bartolo made three defences before trying to unifie with Pep and losing.

After clearing up the ABC's Pep was unified champ and had wins over top contenders Jock Leslie and Humberto Sierra, before losing to Saddler. After regaining from Saddler he went on to make three defences all against top ranked contenders Compo, Riley (Who had beaten Saddler) and Famechon. He then lost the title back to Saddler.

Overrall that reign is amazing it spans a 8 year period (Nov1942-Sept 1950) of which only for five months was Pep not Champion. It included unifieing the title and with 9 sucessful defences over 2 reigns.

Add in his Non-title bouts during the period and you have a near complete domination of an 8 year period. Most of it after suffering in a plane crash.
Here is a list of his Ring magazine ranked opponents Pep fought, this was compiled by Mannasa (in Bold is HOFers), bear in mind there is afew Lightweights in there aswell.

Spider Armstrong
Pedro Hernandez x2
Bobby Ivy
Vince Dell'Orto x2
Bill Speary x2
Allie Stolz
Sal Bartolo x3
Jackie Wilson x2
Willie Roache x2
Willie Joyce
Lulu Constantino
Joey Peralta
Charley Lewis x3
Phil Terranova
Jackie Graves
Lefty LaChance x2
Humberto Sierra x2
Jock Leslie
Miguel Avacedo
Teddy Davis x3
Paddy DeMarco
Eddie Compo
Harold Dade
Charley Riley
Ray Famechon
Bobby Bell x2
Carlos Chavez
Eddie Chavez
Baby Neff Ortiz
Rodolfo Gonzales
Gil Cadilli

Chalky Wright x4
Manuel Ortiz
Sandy Saddler

 

Can't believe Louis hasn't been mentioned yet and that he wasn't an alternative in the poll.

 

Carlos "The Super Champion" Monzon

 

Louis isn't on the list?

 

No Louis??


I think in some cases longtive is a bit over used.

Armstrong was able to put in nearly 27 fights in a year in his short welterweight rein.