The 50 Greatest Bantamweights of All Time

Hello. See below or the list, organised by tiers. Note that if one fighter is listed first in his individual tier, and one fighter is listed last, this does not mean the first fight is "ranked" ahead of the first fighter at this time. Rather, it means they are "about even".

If you want to see a fighter moved up (or down) a tier, the argument should be that he is there or thereabouts in terms of the other fighters in that tier.

Prioritised in each fighter's ranking is resume. How is second, but no that far behind; head to head is a distant last for whatever else is going on.

Most importantly - who is missing? But if you feel very strongly about a fighter moving cells, speak on that too. Note that no tier holds more than 10 fighters so if you want someone into III (from either direction) suggest someone to be removed too.

Much love.



TIER I

Eder Jofre. Manuel Ortiz, Ruben Olivares.

TIER II

Fighting Harada, Rafael Herrera, Chucho Castillo, Pete Herman, Lionel Rose , Panama Al Brown, Carlos Zarate.

TIER III

Lupe Pintor, Sixto Escobar, Johnny Coulon, Joe Lynch, Lou Salica, Pete Sanstol, Alphonse Halimi, Memphis Pal Moore, Jeff Chandler, Kid Williams

TIER IV

Frankie Burns, Orlando Canizales, Terry McGovern, Jose Medel, Vic Toweel, Robert Cohen, Jimmy Carruthers, Bud Taylor, Rafael Marquez.

TIER V

Rodolfo Martinez, Joe Becerra, Pedlar Palmer, Teddy Baldock, Newsboy Brown, Mario D’Agata, Alfonso Zamora, Joe Bowker

TIER VI

Bushy Graham, Abe Goldstein, Charley Phil R0senberg, Jimmy Walsh, Owen Moran.

TIER VII

Piero Rollo, Hozumi Hasegawa,Veeraphol Sahaprom, Enrique Pinder, Alan Rudkin, Bernardo Carraballo, Miguel Lora, Jesus Pimentel.

 

OK gents one at a time, feel free to come back on anything, nothing's set in stone.

Lora is the big win I guess; Gaby and Martinez his 2 and 3 (whichever way round you like i'd suggest; after this things are very, very woolly are they not? I do like him, but if we take Enrique Pinder, who is in the bottom Tier (and you can take whoever you like), he has wins over both Chucho and Herrera, who are both in line for the top ten. I can't see that he clearly belongs above anyone from that tier.

Yes, this is intriguing; the problem is he big time made my featherweight list, and the old featherweight limit is the modern bantamweight limit, kinda. I can't cough up two lines of recognition for one fight as i'm sure you would agree this is unfair. My own take is that the bantamweight title wasn't really properly recognised at this time, which is why the first two great bantamweights were more widely recognised as fly and then featherweights. For this reason, Dixon no make it.

Very very close for being in I think. It's not clear to me who he would replace but I think he has a strong argument. I'd definitely say that he's not clearly behind anyone in the bottom tier; he needs one more strong defence to close the book on it for me. I'll have a re-think though I reckon.

I'd have Lujan above Davila personally, for obvious reasons plus Davila's win over Martinez is kind of compromised given where it occurs.

Who would be his #2 victim? Maybe Zurlo? And he has more than 20 losses against 50 wins...

Stay was too short I think; just a handful of fights and for that you need Haradaesque opposition which he just doesn't have.

Third best win?

 

He did defend it, and I think on balance he could easily be argued one tier up.

Second best win?

McGovern's problem is longevity. He was probably in the division for a year. In that time he went only 1-0 in title matches and his #3 opponent might be John Ritchie. Certainly nothing wrong with that but I don't know that it separates him from the guys he's in with now.

This might be true but after Davila, Vazquez and Zaragoza, what does he have?

I think he's on the brink.

Does anyone have a feeling about who he would replace?