I often hear people on here talk about the depth and greatness of the bantamweight division...Yet I seldom if ever see guys like Jofre/Olivares/Dixon/Brown crack anyones top 20 (let alone top 10)...So why don't the bantams factor into most peoples ATG lists...the seem to be very slimly represented. What is the highest that you rate one of them?
I think its because most of us are.sizist and realize that smaller people are less deserving of reward. In seriousness a lot of those guys have names that are not European or North American and people don't bother to check how good they are. Its an out of sight out of mind issue.
As a rough rule it seems to be that the most common sizes have the biggest talent pools. So a pound-for-pound list would predictably consist mostly of boxers between 135lbs (people have put on weight these days, but we're talking about the golden era) and 175lbs. And also I may have heard it alluded to that smaller boxers have shorter careers, although I haven't looked into that. Perhaps some great fighters started as bantamweights but filled out before they could do much at the weight - either because they were growing, like Duran, or just put on weight with age, like M. Ortiz. And of course LittleRed's point above me to an extent. A combination of factors. Still lots of talent at 118lbs though.
Yeah to be honest I have been a bit ignorant towards the smaller guys, namely 118 and below. That is Flea Man territory and I do enjoy reading his stuff on it. I'm more of a 126 and up boxing historian
Yeah, I would be interested to hear what Flea's take is, as well as how many/who below Feather should warrant consideration as potential top 20 ATG's?
Definitely. Hell I have a hard time fitting many FWs in the top 20. I think I only have Pep and Armstrong in the top 20 as far as FW champs go. But to be fair I don't have many heavies in there either.
Honestly there's just too many names. Too many mainstream people to feature in a top 20 from the higher weights. The lw and lhw divisions alone are tremendously deep whereas the bw and fw are really no more deep than some of the ******* divisions. Rightly or wrongly they weren't always as prestigious and those who ruled didnt always rule with the most glory or for the longest of times. I think more than that though is they tens to be the last divisions people study. HW usually drags you in and then it's MW before going through the WW, LW and LHW divisions. Very few would feel qualified discussing bw greatness and fewer still discussing flyweight greatness. Doesnt make the fighters less deserving, it does mean though that they are less known.
It'd be rather cool to make a list...Sort of a sequence of names and fights through a divisions history that helped people START. The biggest gaps in my boxing knowledge begin when I just dont know where or who to start with.
Jofre and Dixon are there or thereabouts. My theory is incrimental. Basically, the greatest p4p fighters tend to dominate multiple weight divisions or at least beat up a great fighter(s) at the weight division above. The leap from bantam to feather seems to be a very tough one. So we see that Olivares can't step up and beat Arguello, Lopez, Pedroza or even dominate Chacon. Beating one of these first three for the title unlocks the upper reaches but he can't do it. Zarate, perhaps the most dominant of all bantam champions comes undone one up versus Gomez. Harada cannot beat Famechon. Jofre is in the mix for this kind of ranking based upon his exploits at feather. Unfortunately, he shared an era with Harada which took some of the polish off him. Dixon scrapes in here and there based upon his multi-weight dealings, but neither he or Jofre can be clearly ranked in the 20. The great lightweights who jumped - Duran, Whitaker - and the great welterweights who jumped - Robinson, Leonard, Griffith - absolutely excelled when they did so. My suspicion is that bantamweight is a very singular weight. If you're small enough to make a career out of fighting at that weight you will struggle versus bigger men. Secondly, there are only ever a handful of fighters at any given weight that will be qualified for top 20 p4p honours. So really, it only takes two or three of those fighters to have certain circumstances relative to their careers and how they translate into p4p honours for a weight division to be all but excluded. I don't think a failure to rank them in these kind of lists is anything as sinister as bias, rather a reaction to the reality of what occured in those fighters careers and a difficulty in men of a certain physical stature moving up through the weight divisions.
McG makes an ace point about favoring those who jump weights. And why not? Especially when taking on HOF opposition along the way/dominating.
