All time top 10 LHW rankings

It's interesting how much Philadelphia Jack O'Brien's stock has fallen comparing old rankings to what most people post.

 

Good point. And where does Langford it in?

 

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That's the issue. Head to head I would pick very few above him.

 

While I have Charles firmly at 1, Moore firmly at 2.... and Greb and Tunney generally next..... I'm sorry but nobody looked better than Jones did at this weight. H2H, I honestly think he might be everybody at this weight. So while his accomplishments may not justify him being 5, h2h is important in my factoring.

 

Carpentier won the white strang of Heavyweight world championship (vs. Gunboat Smith) and was IBU champion, while he was also awarded as boxer of the year (pound for pound) before his Dempsey fight, was in every of the when existed weight-classes active and top 3 in the Heavyweight of that decade.
I rank him in my top 35, like Choyinsky, Fitzsimmons, Frazier, Carnera and (Sailor) Sharkey.

Tunney had overall more than twice as many wins, but only one defeat. It is always recommendet about Lewis, that he is besides Tunney and Marciano one of three who retired as champion (while now is it Klitschko too, actual was it Bowe as well), especially when who resigned, because that is the most outrageous of Lewis career.

 

I have him around 25 (or 26) in my Heavyweight rankings too.

 

1.Tunney
2.Charles
Top two pretty interchangeable imo.
3.Moore
4.Foster
5.Langford
6.Spinks
7.Greb
8.Conn
9.Loughran
10.Johnson


Lewis
Fitzsimmons
Dillon
Saad Muhammad
Rosenbloom
Qawi
Mustapha Muhammad
Jones
Galindez
Conteh
I would probably change this tomorrow.

 

1. Ezzard Charles
2. Archie Moore
3. Harry Greb
4. Michael Spinks
5. Gene Tunney
6. Billy Conn
7. Jimmy Bivens
8. Tommy Loughran
9.John Henry Lewis
10. Harold Johnson

 

He's at number 17 on my list:
11. Jones Jr
12. Choynski
13. H Johnson
14. Stribling
15. Burns
16. Bivins
17. O’Brien
18. Rosenbloom
19. Saad Muhammad
20. J H Lewis

 

Kind of disappointed I didn't get a shedload of abuse for putting Tommy Burns at number 15 all time LHW.

 

Well he beat O Brien when both scaled within175lbs,so in theory he could legitimately have claimed the lvy title.

 

I guess it's a philosophical distinction between achievement and h2h and which you consider more important. I don't consider h2h unless two great fighters in the same division did actually fight (i.e. Charles and Moore). Otherwise, it moves from being about actual accomplishments to fantasy.

We'll never know whether Jones could have beaten some of these great light heavies from the past. But we do know that although he was the best of his era and unified the light heavyweight title, he didn't face his biggest rival at the weight. That's problematic to me. I do think Jones is (just) a legitimate top 10 light heavyweight but I can't rank him any higher than 10 because he refused (whatever his reasoning) to fight Michalczewski. On top of that, he didn't meet Bernard Hopkins when it really mattered (around 2002). Again, why he didn't fight him is irrelevant.

But based on this behaviour, had he been in a different era competing with the likes of Spinks or Foster or Moore or Charles, it's not a certainty that he would have even agreed to fight them, let alone beat them. That attitude hurts Jones's overall standing in this division and p4p, in my opinion.