I was meant to include Hill, tbh. But it doesn't need reassessment, his resume is what it is. I just listed 5 names.
I don't know what their in ring weights were. What I do know is he had a 6 inch height and 10 inch reach advantage. Duran was a natural lightweight Hearns was not
Certainly Mayweather for me. Although Hearns is one of those guys who probably has to rank lower than a few people he was 'better' than because he was unfortunate to have some truly astonishing contemporaries to contend with. Hearns has the better 'big name' wins in the shape of Benitez and Duran. The two greatest marquee names on Mayweather's record are probably De la Hoya and Pacquiao. In an all-time list De la Hoya is just about comparable with Benitez (Wilfred the greater talent, Oscar the more lengthy and consistent championship performer) and Pacquiao would definitely rank ahead of Benitez, but the timing of Mayweather's wins over them take a bit of the shine off. A 1982 Benitez was a clearly better fighter than a 2007 De la Hoya, and Hearn's display against him was better than Mayweather's against Oscar, too. The same probably applies to a 2015 Pacquiao and Mayweather's performance there, too. Mayweather won both fights cleanly enough but didn't really produce performances which you'd put amongst his very best, whereas Hearns was on top of his game (in different ways) against Benitez and Duran. Outside of that, I think Mayweather has the deeper pool of good / very good wins against quality opposition, obviously embellished by his tremendous longevity. Despite winning titles in five weights, Hearns' problem is that he never established himself as the best in any of them, be that by winning a unification bout, beating the consensus top man at the weight, reigning for a while etc. Leonard put paid to that ambition at Welter. At Light-Middle, there was the looming shadow of McCallum. Hagler stopped him from being an undisputed champion at Middle, and by the time he won a 160 lb strap the title was fragmented and he had that upset loss to Barkley in his first defence. Ironically, though he was past his best and / or above his best weight at both 168 and 175, he perhaps has the best claims in these divisions. Obviously the very shaky win over Kinchen for the WBO belt did very little to suggest he was top dog at 168 at the time, but he probably should have unified Leonard's WBC title in their rematch to be fair, so with a different set of judges he might have had a decent claim (albeit brief) to be the division's best in 1989. He might well have beaten all the other Light-Heavy champions when he made his first splash at 175 to bash Andries up for the WBC, but Andries wasn't rated highly enough for that, and it was only a pit-stop there for Tommy in any case. His second title at 175 is more compelling, as Hill was unbeaten and arguably (I'll stress that - arguably) the pick of the titlists there at the time...But even if he was, he hadn't proved it as unifications with Moorer, Williams etc. had never happened, and there'd been no lineage to pick up since Spinks had left the division. In any case, once again Barkley usurped him in his first defence. No such problems for Mayweather, who clearly established himself as the top man at 130 after he'd beaten Corrales, and certainly held that distinction at least a couple of times at 147, too. You can argue that he wasn't necessarily faced with the awesome opponents Hearns had to contend with to achieve these feats, but he beat a hell of a lot of very good fighters and maintained it over an extremely long time, with no shock defeats or extremely shaky, perhaps fortunate performances, the kind which occasionally spotted up Tommy's record (not that there's any shame in that). Hearns had the greater 'highest' moments. Mayweather had a fair few more high ones underneath that, however, without experiencing the occasional low moments which Hearns did. I think Mayweather's achievements stand as being greater, and his immense consistency and ability to produce his best across so many weights (whereas Hearns was a little more inconsistent across the board) swing it in his favour.
Same weight, it was the era of same day weigh-ins. In fact, Duran was a pound heavier . Their was no cheating the scales by weighing end 24 hrs prior to the fight.
I'm not actually on any meds. Therefore I can't be off them. Yes my post was designed to be taken seriously.
Tommy has better wins. This is a case where fighting the best means more than handpicking at the right time. A more iconic fighter who had great wins and battles and also is linked with 3 other greats. Floyd is not really linked.
The wins are greater than Floyd and the dominance. Floyd has the undefeated thing, which he worked hard to construct. Is Marciano greater than Ali? He was undefeated but Ali fought so many greats.
I never mentioned Floyd being undefeated. That doesn't really enhance his legacy. In fact everyone I rate as greater than Floyd has been defeated in their career. What sets Floyd apart if the length of time he spent on top of the boxing world. The cherry picking argument only goes so far when he's been the number 1 fighter in 4 out of 5 divisions over a period of 18 years. Almost all that time he was P4P number 1 and a favourite against anyone his weight.
Quite debatable indeed but more to the point Hearns fought in a massively more competitive era, wasn't afraid of anyone (unlike mayweather), and didn't try to eek out advantages through sad clauses and caveats (unlike Mayweather). The last two points make him 'greater' inarguably.
