My favourite out of the above is Eubank. This might be a strange opinion to many, but I see a lot of Sugar Ray Leonard in Eubank. Both tactially very smart, comparable chins, and came from behind and showed their toughness during many fights. Eubank's win over Watson has some similarites to Leonard's first win over Hearns. They both pulled it out inside the distance when defeat was knocking their doors. The biggest things they have in common is their ring generalship and economical approach.
It's certainly not unreasonable to treat him as British, though he wore the American colours to the ring and obtained citizenship there.
well he beat a past prime eubank, but he wasn't that far past prime. prime nigel benn would have stood a great chance, but then prime calzaghe would too. 50/50 both fights probably . don't know enough about fitzsimmons to comment.
JOE CALZAGHE! THIS LIST OR ANY OTHER LIST. Benn and Sibson were too limited. He would have boxed their ears off. Eubank. The beating he gave Chris in 1997 would have been similar to a beating he would have given him in his prime. Graham would have been an ugly fight, but Calzaghe prevails. Calzaghe would be too fast for Minter and would cut him up like Hagler did.
Joe isn't a middleweight, he's a small light heavyweight. Technically he doesn't really belong in this thread.All of the other fighters competed at world level weighing 160, while he never did.
benn was limited? ask his victims ! graham calzaghe would have been ugly ? herol graham was one of the easiest on the eye british boxers of my lifetime, how does that work ?
Another name that we could throw into the mix is Jem Mace since he held the British middleweight title and fought under 160 lbs for most of his heavyweight career.
You see similarities between Sugar Ray Leonard and Eubank ?? Ray Leonard fought the best of his era and beat them, Eubank is on record as saying he would never have fought the top americans because he would have been beaten .... Eubank was a good fighter who had domestic level fights, he never had world level fights, he was in classics with Benn and Watson, Watson beat Benn easy, MCcallum (world level) fighter destroyed Watson with ease .... Now the argument that 'A' beats 'B' so he must beat 'C', is a ridiculous argument in boxing but Eubank and Benn never faced Roy Jones, Toney, Nunn or MCcallum. MCcallum beat Graham and Watson, Jackson beat Graham proving that at the very highest level these British guys couldnt compete at the highest level of the sport ....... Full respect to Benn for beating Barclay and MCclellan, these 2 wins mean that Nigel was the best out of these guys .......... As for Joe Calzaghe, Lacey and Kessler are nobodies, Hop was 43 and took him close, so for me Nigel Benn is the Best Middle of the last 20 years .... I only know what everyone knows about Bob Fitzsimmons so i'd rather deal with the modern era in this thread
Terry Downes. I can see him giving problems to some of the fighters listed above. He did own wins over Giardello, Robinson and Pender among others.