It's a tough one I feel like his wins are better then Floyd's individually but Floyd has more good wins overall so depends on what you value more.
Above Duran, Leonard, Ali, and Pacquiao. We all know that after a few names of really old fighters, nobody here can concretely justify putting Floyd lower and everyone is just running off hunches and biased metrics.
SRR Greb Langford Armstrong Charles Fitzsimmons Duran B. Leonard Louis Ali Pep Walker Gans McFarland Ross Wilde SRL Mayweather Pacquiao Tunney #18
Top 31-50. Though his talent is plainly evident , and anyone with two eyes that can see, and have a deep understanding of what their looking at from a pure skill level standpoint, one must give him his flowers , especially at Jr. lightweight where I have no issue with anyone ranking him with the very best in history at that weight limit. But as he climbed the latter and went up in weight, he became much more selective about who he fought, and when he fought them. He doesn't have that one great win. (Some see Deloyhoya and Mosley as great wins, I saw fighters at least 10 yrs past prime. Also Cotto , and Judah, were past prime ) Hatton and Alvarez were and are overrated. Marquez's best fighting was done at featherweight, and he went up in weight only for the great payday . Same with Pac tbh, also Pac was damaged goods, with his violent ko loss to Marquez and and close calls with Tim Bradley. Mayweather Jr. was no doubt talented. But theirs quite a few of his wins at welterweight that can be seen as simple record padding, looking for the past prime big names but not the big challenges like Paul Williams , Shawn Porter, or Derick Alexander that would've been serious threats. He proved to be a brilliant businessman and self promoter. That does count for something.
helluva list fr: I automatically place the 4 kings above Pac and Floyd, where would you put hagler and hearns?
My provisional (31 downwards needs more in depth analysis) 21-50 is: 21. McGovern 22. Moore 23. Whitaker 24. Jofre 25. Ryan 26. Monzon 27. Spinks 28. RJJ 29. Burley 30. Conn 31. BJW 32. Hagler 33. Naploes 34. Griffiths 35. Canzernori 36. Canto 37. Perez 38. Sadler 39. Bivins 40. Hopkins 41. Hearns 42. T.Gibbons 43. H. Williams 44. Olivares 45. Harada 46. JCC 47. M. Gibbons 48. Ketchel 49. Arguello 50. Saldivar
In the 1940's...he'd be lucky to be a 4 round prelim guy...he's got no power....all the crap that he pulled in the ring would not have worked back then...
I only do individual comparisons and same era comparisons. I have Mayweather at number 1 since Duran gained relevance.
For Ali, he's out on a limb as the top heavyweight. The issue here is that he got choppy results through the 70s. You could say Ali in the 60s mirrored Mayweather's results at 130 and 135. But Ali lost the biggest fight of his career (to Frazier), struggled in the three Norton fights (a good but not great opponent) and burned out in the second half of the seventies. Mayweather basically dominated from 147 to 154 and took a bunch of hof and pfp scalps (Pac was pfp 2 behind Floyd, Mosley was 3, Marquez was either top 3 or top 2, and Canelo was top 10 and went on to be pfp 1). Mayweather should be ahead of Ali. It's considered blasphemy to put anyone except maybe Greb above Robinson. I might do a thread comparing Robinson and Mayweather's resumes if I find the motivation. I think it would be pretty competitive.
I'd love to read it I agree with your logic about Ali but I'd like to see another perspective about Robinson vs Mayweather besides what you typically see in classics.
