Best middleweight of all time ?

I consider Tunney one of the best fighters ever in any era also very well ahead of his time and he had very close fights with Greb who I think is proof and embodiment of fighters of his era could hold their own un any era. What Greb was doing was like if Monzon beat Foster or Hagler bloodied Spinks to a decision win and lost the rematch. This was a brawler, but a very highly skilled brawler with rough house tactics and fought with one blind eye and broken arm. Greb undeniably is the best. While Fitzimmons did similar, I just don't hold the HWs he beat in the same regard as Tunney tho Tunney was a lhw when they faced. Tunney was that good.

1. Greb
2. Monzon
3. Hagler
4. Robinson
5. Fitzimmons

 

Monzon
Hagler
Robinson
Hopkins

 

Hagler or Hopkins .#FullStop

 

I`m pretty sure McGrains list had Robinson at the top based on who looked the best fighter on film as opposed to who was the greatest career wise at MW, could be wrong but that was my take on it.

:good

 

Hagler or Sugar Ray Robinson

 

hagler then robinson but its a real coin toss with monzon and greb also there or there abouts

 

I could be argued that the welterweight Robinson was the greatest Middleweight ever. If you examine SRR's entire middleweight career, however, an argument could be made to put Monzon and/or Hagler above SRR.
I tend to think of SRR/Monzon/Hagler as too close to call at middle. The rest of the greats, including Greb, Ketchall, Langford et al. can legitimately be used to fill out the top 10 in almost any reasonable order. Middleweight is the division with the greatest talent overall because it's the size of the average man (at least in the past. Now people eat too much). So there have been lots of great middleweights and lots of wonderful middleweight mythical matchups.

 

He was not passing through. He spent many, many years at middleweight.

 

Jermain Taylor

 

Greb beat lots of top HW contenders too like Meehan 2x, Brennan 4x, Norfolk, Miske, Gunboat Smith, etc

All of these MW resumes are a similar level, some arguably better, yet most these guys aren't even listed in peoples top 10's.

Fred Apostoli - Steele, Thil, Corbett, Risko, Kreiger, Bettina, Abrams, Brouillard

Freddie Steele - Apostoli, Overlin, Garcia, Gans, Dundee, Lesnevich, Risko, Gorilla Jones, Kreiger

Ken Overlin - Ezzard Charles, Apostoli, Hostak, Garcia, Belloise, Balsamo, Matthews, Seelig

Teddy Yarosz - Archie Moore, Billy Conn, Overlin, Marshall, Kreiger, Risko, Dundee, Gainer, Latzo, Brouillard

How anybody can even mention Hopkins name in these discussions when overlooking guys like the ones listed above or Burley, Gibbons, Williams, O'Dowd, etc is just sad. Billy Soose, Georgie Abrams, Joey Giardello, Cocoa Kid all could have accomplished what Hopkins did if they fought in the same era.

 

edit --

 

Hopkins is criminally under-rated in both a historical sense, and a H2H one on the classical forum.

 

Robinson is not number one at MW, no way Jose'.

 

Stanley Ketchel has to be at top or near it. He was old timer, so I know a lot of people might dismiss him, but he beat all the best of time in middleweight division, and ko's lightheavy champ. His knock down of Jack Johnson was legit, and he was still only 24 when he died. Writers like Nat Fliesher who saw him ranked him at top.