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.
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.
For years, right up until now, I would’ve bet good money that Jersey Joe Walcott was an ATG light heavyweight; so reading these lists I’m thinking, wth-why isn’t anyone listing Jersey Joe?! I’d better set these rookies straight! So I go and check his record and sure as ****, he wasn’t a light heavyweight. Anybody else ever have something stuck in your head that you know is right but turns out to be wrong?
I'm not blaming Jones solely for that fight not coming off and they were probably the two biggest egos in world boxing at that time. But Jones never struck me as trying too hard to make that fight either. And at the end of a career when taking stock of a fighter's legacy, it counts.
I know. My current top 10 looks pretty different to that one I posted in this thread. And yes, Charles is now no. 1 in it.
This was 10 of the to 15 I did for Rummy's divisions thread. 1. Ezzard Charles 2. Archie Moore 3. Gene Tunney 4. Tommy Loughran 5. Michael Spinks 6. Bob Foster 7. Maxie Rosenbloom 8. Jimmy Bivins 9. Harry Greb 10. Harold Johnson It'll change again no doubt.
