Best British fighters in the original 8 weight classes

Just so you all know, Vano-Irons' thread on the best fighters in the original 8 divisions played no part whatsoever in the creation of this. None. At all. Never. :bart

Right then, seeing as this is - to all intents and purposes - the British forum, we'll pick only British pugs instead this time around. Same format (not copied) with one fighter for each division plus three honourable mentions. Northern paddies included. I'll start us off.

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: Lewis. Mentions to Fitz, Farr and Cooper.

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Mentions to Len Harvey, Chris Finnegan and Fitz.

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. Mentions to Jock McAvoy, Minter and Turpin with one-off extra mentions for Bert Gilroy and Kev Finnegan. Lots to choose from here.

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Eddie Thomas, Stracey and Colin Jones.

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. Mentions to Berg, Charnley and Buchanan. I might lose my nerve and change it to Kenny in a bit though.

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. Mentions to Moran, Winstone and H...h...h...oh **** it. Makes me feel ill to say his name.

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. Mentions to Joe Bowker, Johnny Caldwell and Rudkin.

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: Wilde.

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and Rinty Monaghan. This is a stacked division though, probably the hardest to narrow down.

 

I nearly put Peter in instead of Rinty; it's tight between those two and Paterson. I think Kane was arguably the most talented - if least refined - of the three but the hardest to work out too; the war, his injured right hand and making the weight all conspired to bring him down while he was still improving as far as I can tell. The likes of Brown, Allen, Dower, Magri, McAuley etc are probably a rung or two lower down. Great division though in the context of British boxing history.

I wouldn't argue putting Lynch at the top of the pile. I like him h2h over Jimmy, I think, but Wilde is a bit of a conundrum sometimes in terms of his ranking.

Cheers.

I meant narrowing it down to just 3/4 fighters rather than the top one though. Like I said, flyweight's been a great division for us over the years, and Wilde as the nailed on top fly is far from concrete even only in British terms. He's hard to figure out for more than one reason if you look at him in a little bit of depth; the pros and cons complicate each other. He routinely flattened men twice his size, but most of the ones we know about outside of Tancy Lee, Zulu Kid and Joe Lynch weren't very distinguished, plus Lynch was a bantam, thus Jimmy's flyweight tenure is affected if not his p4p ranking. Obversely in his defence, fighting as a flyweight in that particular era means that his opponent's records - and possibly his own - are likely incomplete. Plus he looks good on film and was well past it when Villa and Herman, great fighters themselves, took him to the cleaners.

Ranking him isn't an easy task. Benny Lynch has a good argument to be ranked above him, as has been said.

Welsh has a shout to be ranked over Buchanan imo but he seems to divide opinion at times. I think that their abilities were perhaps on a similarish level, Buchanan maybe having a slight edge depending on your train of thought, but Welsh fought in a deeper era, his record having both the jewels and scars to show for it. He had greater longevity too. Would've been a great fight between them I think.