British Boxing's Greatest Ever Weight Division

I remember when we were doing the MW lists, the top 6 or 7 were pretty solid but once you got down to 8,9, 10 it was a bit of a struggle. However, I doubt any weight class has had 10 solid fighters over the years.

I think it 20 odd years we might look back at the current and coming era as a golden age for British light welters, depending on how our prospects turn out. Hatton, Witter, Khan, Gavin and Heffron. Let's hope Gavin and Heffron turn out alright :bbb

 

Lightweight ain't bad either.

Welsh
Watt
Buchanan
Berg
Boza-Edwards (?)
Charnley

Anyone I'm missing???

 

The Eubank-Benn-Watson-Collins era of Middleweight/Super Middlweight rivalry is still considered the Golden age of British boxing and many of the best fights on British soil have included those guys. Throw in Turpin, Minter, Graham and more recently Calzaghe and Froch those weight bands have a good shout.

In Kell brook its good to see a quality welterweight knocking on the door of world level, a division some of our best fighters have fought like Ted kid Lewis (fought most divisions!), Lloyd Honeyghan, J H Stracey and my pick for best fighter not 2 win a world strap Kirkland Laing.

 

Light Heavy's decent:

Conteh
Mills
Woods
Andries
Finnegan

 

edit: oops!

 

Decent but not much more. Conteh is the only one in the class of the top names in other divisions.

 

And Fitz is you count him as British. He seems to 'bump up' quite a few divisions, but I guess that's testament to how much of a freak he was

 

I think he made top 3 (certainly top 5) in middle/ lt heavy and heavy when we did the lists.

 

Would you include Calzaghe based on the Hopkins fight? Or not enough there to add him?

I like Fly and Feather as our best thus far.

 

Probably somewhere, can't remember where I slotted him in when I did my light-heavy list.

Including Calzaghe doesn't speak volumes for the division does it

 

I'd add Calzaghe, that fight is enough to join the lower end of the Brit ratings IMHO but he doesn't really add too much to the division when compared to the other weights.

 

I have him at no.12 on my alltime P4P list. An awkward proposition in any era.

 

No. Was just a thought

 

Featherweight

Jim Driscoll
Owen Moran
Howard Winstone
'Prince' Naseem Hamed
Joe Bowker
Pedlar Palmer
Scott Harrison
Paul Ingle
Steve Robinson

Bantamweight

Owen Moran
Joe Bowker
Pedlar Palmer
Walter McGowan
Alan Rudkin
Johnny Caldwell
Duke McKenzie

Flyweight

Jimmy Wilde
Benny Lynch
Peter Kane
Rinty Monaghan
Jackie Paterson
Walter McGowan
Duke McKenzie
Charlie Magri

The best three I think

 

Featherweight.