Ahead of Hearns, Leonard, Pea, Mickey Walker, Griffith http://www.boxrec.com/ratings.php?country=&sex=m&division=Welterweight&status=E&SUBMIT=Go
I don't think we will get any "true" assessment of the man until a few years when passions die down. Right now he sucked the worst in history or he was the best. I'm sure that rating is just a "hats off" to the guy.
There's not that much hats off in the world to rank him over Hearns, SRL and Pea Whitaker, that's criminal.:deal
Oh **** it, I'm going to do this one in proper General Forum fashion. Prime Oscar stops Lil Floyd, decisions Hearns and Leonard and Napoles. Wide decision. Oscar stops an overated Duran on bodyshots.:smoke
The topic of BoxRec's rankings keeps coming up. BoxRec's rankings are based on an algorithm (mathematical formula) that calculates the quality of each win based on the resume of the beaten fighter, the duration of the fight, the margin of victory and several other variables. The info is just fed into a computer and rankings are spewed out the other end. It doesn't consider other intangibles, or special circumstances. Therefore, it's not really meant to be like RING's list, or your list, however you compile it. The algorithmic approach works very well for chess rankings, reasonably well for Tennis, but quite poorly for boxing. In chess and in tennis, this kind of thing works better because generally, if A can beat B, and B can beat C, then A can beat C. In boxing, that's often NOT the case. It should be treated in that light. It's not meant to be taken as a serious measure of greatness.
Boxrec's 5 greatists Welterweights of all time 1. Jose Napoles (Cuba) 2. Oscar De La Hoya (U.S.) 3. Thomas Hearns (U.S.) 4. Emile Griffith (U.S. Virgin Islands) 5. 'Sugar' Ray Leonard (U.S.) Looks right to me.
I would pick prime Oscar over little Floyd. But Hearns and Leonard ? Not unless the moon was a deep shade of blue !
Quite right, I am being far too generous as Oscar would stop those two glass jawed yokels inside 7 rounds.