1. Mathew Saad Muhammad - Legendary. Nuff said 2. Dwight Quawi - Tough guy who put incredible pressure on fighters. 3. Eddie Mustafa Muhammad - The most gifted of the lot. He should have gotten the nod against Galindez. Too lzay to be considered the top guy, but he could have beaten anyone on the list on a good night. 4. Marvin Johnson - Pops could compete with anybody as long as his chin held up. 5. Victor Galindez - Great fighter, just not the best 6. Yaqui Lopez - Good enough to everybody, except the guys ahead of him on this list 7. John Conteh - Probably underrated in my book. The only times I saw him were in his losses to Saad. 8. Mate Parlov - He was a beltholder, but thats about it. He doesn't do it for me. 9. Mike Rossman - Not that impressed. 10. James Scott - Jerry Martin should be ahead of him. He was a hype job.
I loved watching these guys on regular TV. Qawi actaully came along after these guys kind of used each other up, so it's hard to rank him. Yes he beat them, but who knows what would happen had they been in their prime. Eddie Gregory impressed me in the fights I saw him, especially in the Johnson fight. He just didn't have the focus of a champion. That excursion into the HW division really cost him. I was always a fan of Marvin Johnson. He was just the ultimate blue-collar fighter who gave his best whether winning or losing, and seems like a genuinely good guy.
I'll be the first to agree with you that Eddie was the most talented of all of the late 70's lightheavies, but no he DIDN"T deserve the decision vs Galindez. Eddie himself admitted that in an interview in one of the big boxing magazines when he said that "I wasn't ready for a Galindez"..Galindez had a few disputed decision victories when he was defending the crown, but the fight with Mustafa wasn't one of them.
Eddie was just plain magnificent against Johnson..one of the classiest performances I've ever seen from anybody.
I think Conteh could have been the best of the lot if his out of the ring problems hadn't have caught up.He beat Lopez with one hand,and was good enough first time round to give Saad Muhammad all the trouble he could handle even though he was past his prime and heavily into cocaine.
Conteh beat Yaqui with just one hand..what would he have done on top of that had he had two healthy mitts?
He broke his right hand while crashing his car and by now was managing himself,which was a bit of a disaster.He took the Lopez fight in Copenhagen and virtually didn't use his right hand over the whole of the 15 rounds.Some effort against a quality fighter.
No, Quawi fought him with a very poor gameplan. Mustafa gave him a good fight, dispite being ill prepared. Spinks would have to go to war with a prime Saad or Johnson. Conteh was a very good technician. No cakewalk for Spinks by any stretch... Funny a couple of later fighters were included. interestingly enough Bob Foster just missed all these guys... Add him in and Spinks is in trouble!
While I do believe Scott was "exposed" to an extent by Martin, I think calling him an outright "hype job" is a bit too extreme, considering he had clear and decisive wins over two other names on this list. BTW, your avatar is really creeping me out. :scaredas:
To be fair though, I'm not sure Lopez was yet at his own peak. He was still comparatively inexperienced at the world class level, which enabled Conteh to bluff and intimidate him early and get off to a big early lead.