Not in terms of just boxing ability. But who do you think lived an interesting life outside the ring as well, overall persona? Mines are the typical: Jack Johnson, John L Sullivan, Jim Jefferies. Who had an underrated story but was never documented into a film or ken burns doc? I know stanley ketchel was facinating, i've heard of a few british bare knuckle champs here and there.
read a book years ago called "Black Ajax" about Tom Molyneux, a former US slave who became a sensation in Regency London (early 1800s) fighting Tom Cribb twice for the bare-knuckle world title. Feted and adored -- not least by the upper class white girls who couldn't get enough of him -- he wound up drunk and broke when he was no longer useful (hard to believe, I know) but lived an amazing life while his star shone bright.
Not so much because of his personality out of the ring, but because - 1) He never won a world title, despite beating multiple word champions; and 2) Today he is underrated, or more likely, just overlooked - mine is Packey McFarland. I kind of feel like I recognise his greatness, whilst even in the Classic section of this forum filled with some fine & knowledgeable boxing fans, he's often overlooked. For reasons I can't quite articulate, that makes him my favourite of this era (though of boxers who had at least a significant portion of their career up to 1919, I rank Greb, Langford, Fitzsimmons, B.Leonard & Gans higher). During Rummy's top boxers of the decade thread, I ranked McFarland #2 in the 1900's, whilst he didn't make the collective top 10. I've ranked him #5 in the 1910s & based on a cursory glance at the votes of others, I think he will be missing from the top 10 there, too. Here is a post I made a while ago on a thread titled "Is Packey McFarland underrated?": Without question, yes. Criminally underated. In 113 fights he lost once, if at all (some reports suggest it was a different McFarland), when he was a 16 year old child. Over 100 fights with 1/no losses and hardly mentioned today, he must have fought poor opposition, right? Think again. He went 1-0-2 with my no.9 all time LW, Freddie Welsh and is generally considered to be on the better end of both draws. He twice beat my no. 5 all time WW, Jack Britton. Absurdly, after a 2 year retirement, he came back to beat my no.6 MW, Mike Gibbons. To be balanced, much of the film of that fight survives today and to my eye, Gibbons appears to shade the fight in the remaining footage. From memory, there are also mixed reports about what weight it was contested at, which wasn't the full MW limit. So, over 100 fights, 1/no loss, got the better of top 10 all time greats at LW, WW and MW, his 2nd tier wins must be lacking, right? Nope. Owen Moran (shame on me for describing the brilliant Owen Moran as a "2nd tier win"), Benny Yanger, Jimmy Duffy, Leach Cross x 2, Matt Wells, Harlem Tommy Murphy x 3, Dick Hyland and Jimmy Britt. Reports of his fights regularly used terms like "bemused" and "dominated". It wasn't just that he always won, he seemed to often appear on a different level, to some very good fighters. Top 15 pfp imo.
Battling Siki. Sure wasn't the stay in and read a book type...... met his demise face down in a street in Hell's Kitchen courtesy of two bullets in back of his head aged 28 !