Who are your top ten all-time welters determined by both quantity and quality of work in the division. Go.
1. Robinson 2. [Clear daylight] 3. Leonard 4. Armstrong 5. Napoles 6. Gavilan 7. Griffith 8. Britton 9. Walker 10. Hearns Outside top 10: -Walcott -Lewis -Ross -McLarnin -Basilio -Trinidad -Mayweather
1 Robinson 2 Armstrong 3 Ray Leonard 4 Napoles 5 Hearns 6 Gavilan 7 Britton 8 Ross 9 Walker 10 Burley Maybe mine is a bit more 'gut-feeling' than achievement-based. Just missing out: Duran, McLarnin, Griffith, Mayweather.
1 Ray Robinson #2 Ray Leonard,#3 T.Hearns #4 J. Napoles #5 H.Armstrong, #6 D.Curry # 7 E.Griffith#8 K,Gavilan # 9 R.Duran(based on his potential at that weight,he defeats a few in front of him) #10 P.Cuevas( he doesn't get the credit he deserves) De loy hoya, Whitaker,Trinidad probably could beat a few of the top ten, and just outside to me, but I wouldn't have a problem with anyone trading one of my top ten for any of those 3, the 1st 3 are unchangeable in my opinion.
I love Tommy Hearns but I think top 3 is a bit high. I also forgot about Donald Curry! I'd have him in the top 20 but there's an argument to put him in the top 10. I think his reputation suffers because of the nature of his defeat to Lloyd Honegan and because of his failures at higher weights but between early 1983 and early 1986, he proved himself to be an outstanding WW champion.
Nice to see a question not involving bloody heavyweights for a change. The old is it head to head or are the rankings based on accomplishments at the weight always rears its ugly head on these kind of threads. Someone like Hearns is much higher H 2 H than he is on actual accomplishments at the weight. You could make an argument that Leonard and Armstrong did more at 147 than Robinson as far as actual accomplishments. Despite that I am gunna rate em on a combination of H2H and accomplishments which is an inexact way to do it but in the end, so what ... 1.Robinson 2.Leonard 3.Armstrong ( 19 defenses ) 4.Gavilan 5.Napoles 6.Griffith 7.Walker 8.Hearns 9.Duran 10.Rodriguez 11.Curry 12.Trinidad-De La Hoya-Mayweather-Starling.
1) Robinson 2) Duran 3) Armstrong 4) Griffith 5) Leonard 6) Hearns 7) Basilio 8) Napoles 9) Gavilan 10) Rodriguez
10 - Ted "Kid" Lewis 09 - Floyd Mayweather 08 - Tommy Hearns 07 - Kid Gavilan 06 - Henry Armstrong 05 - Emile Griffith 04 - Jose Napoles 03 - Jack Britton 02 - Ray Leonard 01 - Sugar Ray
I've never made a top ten of any kind but I don't think Hearn's would up as high as 5/6 in mine... Far too fragile. He possessed just about every other quality necessary to succeed in boxing, but durability matters when you start splitting hairs like this in ranking the very best ten fighters of all time in a particular weight class.