1963 Ring Welterweight Rankings Emile Griffith, Champion Luis Manuel Rodriguez Jose Stable Brian Curvis Ralph Dupas Garland (Rip) Randall Luis Federico Thompson Curtis Cokes Gaspar Ortega Dick Turner Stan Harrington 2013 Welterweight Rankings Title Vacant Floyd Mayweather Jr. Juan Manuel Marquez Robert Guerrero Manny Pacquiao Kell Brook Paul Malignaggi Jan Zaveck Timothy Bradley Victor Ortiz Devon Alexander What year do you think the division was stronger? If you took all those fighters and made an overall top ten which year would have more fighters in the top ten? What would your top five welterweights be out of both of these years?
LMR beats all of those, let's be real. He was Griffith's welterweight superior and Cokes was possibly LMR's. Plenty of footage of LMR on my channel now. Just watch him. Guerrero has used a pretty dirty rough house style since moving up. Griffith would (quite possibly literally) bum him to ****. Arguably the strongest welter ever. As for Guerrero boxing/punch picking at range as he did at his best at 135 (Katsidis) that won't work against this calibre of scientist. Malignaggi Zaveck Ortiz I've only really comparing them to the best guys though....ridiculous thing is I've got a few LFT fights and watched one about anweek ago and yet I can't place him at the mo'. Will get back on that with a fresh head in the morning. JMM Vs Gaspar Ortega would be an incredible watch. Really would. Ortega banging it out with Marquez, pushing him back and JMM doing what he does, with the lack of legs he's shown for the majority of his fights post-130. Is Marquez gonna' spark Ortega? Is he gonna' be able to evade him all night? Mehhhhhhhhhh Floyd Vs Dupas would be very interesting. I'll take Floyd to have the best chance against that field and would slot in well to the top 5, although as all these men found, he'd pick up losses here and there with their schedules. Love Cokes but think Floyd could use his superior footspeed and movement and land the crisper blows, but Cokes had two better hands than I think Floyd has seen, in terms of cultured application and variety. Hard to pick. Not sure what Pacquiao has left but at his welterweight best (Cotto) he'd likely have enough to beat most of those guys. He did have incredible hand and foot speed, could absorb a dig well, was a sharp hitter and fairly unorthodox. Pretty unique welterweight stylist when you take into account his intangibles.
Stable, Curvis and Thompson were all class fighters as well.Curvis is a particularly underrated Brit imo, even compared to someone like Charnley from the same era. I don't see anything in Pac at welter that says he'd beat them, though i wouldn't totally write him off either.I think with what he has show to have left since moving to Welter his time of being good would have been short if you stuck him into an unforgiving early 60s schedule, might get a win against a couple of contenders or so , or be fortunate enough to get a title shot(where he'd get smashed by Griffith or el feo) then the wear and tear and losses would start to pile up. Pac and mayweather would do much better against the 140 all-time field than the welter one imo.
The answer is obviously 1963. Just read the Boxrec insight on this guy "Rip" Randall, seems a pretty good fighter from those days...... Damn...
Say whatever you want about Paulie, but that was a great performance....I think he is a tad underrated tbh, he proved to be a warrior in other fights as well, like the one with Cotto.
