ATG: Rank these Five Living Legends, Spinks, Hagler, Holyfield, Hopkins and Jones

Buddy was a good fighter and a good cornerman.

He kept saying to Tarver: “What’s wrong Antonio!?”

Tarver just kept saying: “Nothin”

Tarver threw away the last 2-3 rounds.

It was a very close, but clear win for Roy.

 

This is hard. Much harder than the last thread which I actually found quite easy.

Jones and Hagler are a clear top two for me.

I find Spinks, Holyfield and Hopkins much harder to rank.

I'm going to say Hopkins, Spinks, Holyfield.

Jones
Hagler
Spinks
Hopkins
Holyfield.

Jones and Hagler are both in my top 10 of all time actually.

The next 3 I've found it hard to split due how close I rank their achievements and resumes. In terms of what they did in their first divisions, there's not a lot in it as all were undisputed dominant champions. Spinks beating Holmes is a better "second weight class" victory than either of the other two achieved and that's the kind of narrow margin required here.

Splitting Hopkins and Holyfield is incredibly difficult, and for then I come down to my personal belief that Holyfield was a natural HW whilst Hopkins was a natural MW so I give him a bit less credit for his second division as I do the others.

But it's incredibly close and hard to split them.

Top two are miles clear for me.

 

Holyfield is the only one who was unequivocally great in two weight classes.

Just saying!

 

That's possibly true, although for what it's worth I think you could say that Jones is great at 168 as well as the more obvious 175.

I appreciate that Super-Middle isn't an old, or particularly deep division (especially compared to a couple of the other additional weight classes such as Light-Welter or Super-Feather), and that Jones wasn't there for all that long. But the way he completely outclassed a 1994 Toney - the closest thing the division has had to a pound for pound number one - as well as the sheer ease, arrogance and power with which he swatted aside his five challengers at 168 arguably still entitles Jones to a top three spot in the division. You can put Calzaghe and Ward ahead of him on record, given their numbers and unifications, but neither of them consistently and absolutely belted the living daylights out of their opposition in the manner Jones did.

Doesn't matter too much and it's only a minor quibble, though.