Without a doubt that is the worst so called pound for pound head to head list I have ever had the misfortune to read. Robinson, Ali and Frazier are the only fighters who held a world title before 1970 on the list and there are seven heavyweights out of twelve fighters. Ken Norton and Tyson Fury wtf ? Cheers All.
1.Robinson 2.Armstrong 3.Duran 4.Charles 5.Greb 6.Langford 7.Ali 8.Louis 9.Pep 10.Sugar Ray Leonard 11.Fitzsimmons 12.Archie Moore 13.Harada 14.Jofre 15.Benny Leonard 16.Napoles 17.Olivares 18.Canzoneri 19.Whitaker 20.Roy Jones jr 21. Pac-Man and Mayweather It’s by no means perfect but that’s a rough idea. Cheers.
I'm trying to look at this as logically and objectively as I can. To be a top 20 p4p H2H fighter you must at least be in the top 2 of your own weight class and preferably no. 1. Bearing in mind that there are 17 weight classes and you've placed Pryor at no. 12, that means you've already rated him above the top H2H guy in about 5 weight classes. As a rough list, I'd have to pick 17 fighters, one from each weight class plus 3 extras: Heavyweight: one from Ali, Holmes, Lewis, Liston? Cruiserweight: either Holyfield or Usyk Light heavyweight: Ezzard Charles Super middleweight: Roy Jones Middleweight: one from Monzon, Hagler, Greb (see Robinson at WW) Junior middle: either Hearns or McCallum Welterweight: Sugar Ray Robinson Junior welter: one from Barney Ross, Jose Napoles, Julio Cesar Chavez, Aaron Pryor (among others). Lightweight: one from Benny Leonard, Henry Armstrong, Roberto Duran Junior Lightweight: either Alexis Arguello or Floyd Mayweather Jnr Featherweight: Willie Pep Junior Featherweight: Wilfrdo Gomez Bantamweight: one from Manuel Ortiz, Eder Jofre and Ruben Olivares Junior Bantamweight: either Gilberto Roman or Khaosai Galaxy Flyweight: one from Jimmy Wilde, Fighting Harada and Masao Ohba (among others) Junior Flyweight: Jung Koo Chang Strawweight: Ricardo Lopez That was me eliminating some pretty great fighters and I could only get it down to 34. Note that there's some very stiff competition in Pryor's weight class for H2H no. 1 (Jose Napoles being a really obvious example). Based on the above and just that alone (which doesn't even factor in weight jumping), Pryor couldn't feasibly make my top 20 H2H.
You also have to factor on guys who are amazing H2H at MULTIPLE weights. Charles for example, imo is top 5 at 160, below 200 and #1. Doesn't that mean he should get extra points over Pryor, assuming that both are #1 in a division? Look at Henry Armstrong, top 3 at 135 and 126, as well as awesome at 147. Surely that's worth more than being #1 in one division.
Yeah, I said at the end of the post that my logic didn't factor in weight jumping so when you add that, the argument against Pryor being top 20 is pretty iron clad in my view.
I’d say my h2h p4p list looks something like this: 1 SRR 2 Harry Greb 3 Henry Armstrong 4 Muhammad Ali 5 Roberto Duran 6 Ezzard Charles 7 Joe Louis 8 Sam Langford 9 Willie Pep 10 Sugar Ray Leonard 11 Joe Gans 12 Carlos Monzon 13 Benny Leonard 14 Archie Moore 15 Roy Jones Jr
