Best of all time: Pound for Pound

Sense has prevaled.

 

There in lies a problem, :good

 

china chin? he's been knocked out twice in 56 fights

 

1) Henry Armstrong
2) SRR
3) Roy Jones Jr.
4) Mayweather Jr.
5) Duran

I'm going by pound-4-pound and generally do not include heavyweights in the discussion as they've only ever fought at 1 weight. I like to know how fighters do when they fight guys out of their weight class to make that decision. So keep in mind that this list is void of any heavies for discussion.

I won't say Ali and such shouldn't be considered, I just choose not to include heavyweights by personal preference. If I was including heavyweights, Ali would be in the top 5 as he showed a wide array of skills that would have made him successful at lower weights.

With Heavyweights move Ali to #3 and everybody else down a slot. Some of you old timers can probably put together a more complete list.

 

But he hasn't beaten almost every live challenger. In 4 of the 5 weight classes he has been in and won a title, after he won it, he has defeated a total of 1 Ring rated challenger from that weight class after winning the title there. He never fought the other champions from those weight classes, or the other top 10 contenders.

Also, it truly depends on how much weight you put on his 6 titles in 5 weight classes. I don't put much stock in THAT particular accomplishment. I put much more in his 3 Lineal/Ring titles. In this day an age, fighters who choose not defend their titles can easily pick up "Titles in weight classes" because they are not championships. They simply win a belt, then vacate it and move up to the next division and fight any one of the 4 titlists they can beat. Collecting titles isn't that hard really, many fighters are doing it now, especially since the adding the WBO only further waters down the division.

It is now convenient for fans of his to run out this accomplishment because he is one of the only fighters to have done this AND gone unbeaten. But there are a slew of accomplishments that can be had in boxing, records that can be broken, and the context of what he did this in isn't nearly as great as Armstrong holding 3 Lineal titles AT THE SAME TIME. Or somebody unifying a tough division, or Foreman coming back and winning a HW title after his 40's. All accomplishments aren't created equal, and you can' t just run one up the flagpole and think that it's a trump card. DLH has what, like 8 titles in 6 weight classes? He isn't unbeaten, but he has 3 Lineal/Ring titles as well AND he has fought far tougher competition than Mayweather.

 

Yeah i understand, .

 

That's why I left that statement at the end about old timers making a more complete list. To be perfectly honest, I don't know of Harry Greb... looks like I need to go look up some footage.

As for Mayweather above Duran, I just feel Mayweather has been more successful in his multiple-weight campaign and he has never been defeated. I would still like to see Duran vs Mayweather at 135 to settle the issue, but unfortunately that isn't possible. =( More of a gut instinct decision than anything... can't go wrong with either guy in my opinion. I do rank both of them higher than SRL however.

Looks like I got some boxing research to do on Harry Greb, hehe =) :bbb Would anybody like to offer me an education on the accomplishments of Harry Greb? The name sounds vaguely familiar but I know nothing about him.

 

1. Sugar Ray Robinson
2. Muhammad Ali
3. Henry Armstrong
4. Roberto Duran
5. Willie Pep

 

Its so ****ing hard to make a realistic and subjective arguement for some of the older fighters (Greb, pep, Armstrong, saddler etc) as I havent seen enough of their fights

 

Good points here. Well I guess we'll have to see if Mayweather adds a couple more big names to his resume. Perhaps I was jumping the gun a bit... but I do see Floyd surpassing Duran when it's all said and done.

So hard to judge the today athlete vs yesterday. All things being equal, who knows how these older guys would be doing with modern food, training techniques, and fitness.

 

Or how today's fighters would do fighting 100 times, only one titles per weight class, 15 round fights, and sometimes fighting a guy 3-4 times so he knows you really well. Both era's leave questions about how each era would do in the others time frame. It's interesting.