It's been almost seven years now since the old list was posted and stickied above. In that time, some of the men to make the list have improved their standing, and some new men have made names for themselves. Is it time for a new list that more accurately reflects the current consensus view? Should bottom of the list names like George Foreman, Jung Koo Chang, or Nicolino Locche make way for names like Wladimir Klitschko, Roman Gonzalez, or Vasyl Lomachenko? Should middle of the pack names like Hopkins, Mayweather, and Pacquiao be moved up?
Excellent idea. Just from the guys you listed i feel Hopkins moves down and Pac gets undersold. Foreman stays ahead of Wlad. Some can Laugh all they want but Loma is the real deal and i think he will go down as a true ATG by the time his days are over.
That may be true but outside of the amateurs he hasn't achieved much yet, I wouldn't put him on a top 100 list this soon. What'd be more interesting is if you didn't limit your list to just modern Queensbury Rules boxing, what if you included the old bare knuckle fighters, the Muay Thai boxers, Burmese and Laoatian boxing, kickboxing etc? What kind of crazy list could you come up with?
He is currently #12, right below Roberto Duran and above Gene Tunney Really it's not as absurd as George Foreman #26 and Joe Louis #3. Even your beloved Lennox Lewis is on the list. According to this forum I overrate Heavyweights
McGrain put a crazy level of effort into his list, with a write up on each fighter explaining the position, and he put a year of solid research into it.
And Roman. In seriousness, with early gloved, and even more so with bareknuckle, there are serious gaps in information, with ancient, it's basically myth and legend, with some lists. Glaukos posted one where a champion fought a ghost.
As for including bareknuckle, I like the idea, but that alone is probably doubling your work, since the info just isn't as out there. Eve then you could only really go as far back as Tom Johnson and Humphries. Guys like Death and George Ring were said to be the best of their day, but all you have is that someone said that about them, and maybe one or two vague reports against an opponent you know even less about. Even worse Nathaniel Peartree, he may well have been the best heavyweight pre-Broughton, but all we have is Godfrey's writings from decades later, and mentions of him seconding someone and going to a funeral. It's just impossible to rate with so little.
We really should consider removing all fighters who drew the color line and giving them a separate but not entirely equal wing.