Does anyone still have Dempsey as a top ten heavy? Top 15?

The 1942 Ring Annual Rankings have Jimmy Bivins the #1 contender at both light-heavyweight and heavyweight. Billy Conn, who fought Louis at 174 in 1941, was the #1 heavyweight contender in 1941.

I think there are other cases in which men were ranked in more than one division. Archie Moore I believe was the light-heavyweight champion in 1955 and also the #1 heavyweight contender. I think this was true of Robinson in 1950 also at welter and middle.

"I personally treat the fight as belonging only to the division in which a title would be contested"

You are also pushing this into an either-or situation. I question that. I don't think something like LaMotta-Wilson is a fight in either division. It is a cross-divisional or intra-divisional fight. A big man fighting a little man.

By the way, in which division(s) do the Armstrong-Feldman and Armstrong-Ambers fights belong?

 

I understand your viewpoint.

Out of interest, have you completed all time rankings in the original 8 (or any) weight divisions?

I have & I collated data before making the rankings to help me. It's a bit more complicated than this, but essentially the 4 areas of data I collated were - 1) Lineal world title record (W-L-D) and how long title held; 2 Overall record at that weight (W-L-D); 3) Best wins; 4) Number of prime loses & to whom.

As part of this analysis, I had to decide on criteria as to what weight division a fight occurred in. I won't claim to be 100% that my criteria captured every fight in history & placed it in the weight division that made the most sense, but I did apply it consistently. My criteria was:

1) Any fight for a world title occurred in the weight division(s) the title was being contested at, irrespective of the fighters weight;

2) In non-title fights the heavier man determines the weight division. A 210lbs man beating a 160lbs man is a win in fight contested at HW. I accept that your view is it is a victory over a MW, which it is, but the fight was contested at HW and clearly can't contribute to the 210lbs fighters MW resume. The size of the smaller beaten man would certainly limit the impact on the HW's resume. If the 160lbs man had won, it would have counted to his HW resume, by my view. I only ranked the original 8 x weight divisions, so didn't include an intra-divisional division ;-)

3) In non-title fights I made allowances for slightly over the weight contests. A non-title fight between 2 boxers each weighing 161lbs seems better attributed to their MW record than LHW. My cut off for HW (pre-CW era) was 180lbs+. LHW was >164lbs & <180lbs, and so on.

In your examples, applying my criteria, assuming LaMotta wasn't over 164lbs, his fights vs Wilson & SRR were contested at MW. Indeed, in the "best wins" column of my spreadsheet at MW, all 5 x LaMotta wins are cited as contributing to SRR's MW resume, even though he may have been a WW for one or more of them. So, to summarise, it sems we both consider all of SRR's wins over LaMotta as contributing to his MW resume, but, whereas I consider LaMotta's win over SRR as contributing to his MW resume (with SRR's weight factored in to the scale of the win), you consider as contributing to his intra-divisional resume.

There are no right or wrong answers, just different interpretations on how to view things, as you've previously said.

Hopefully, given the aforementioned process I went through, to arrive at all time rankings in the 8 x divisional rankings, I devised a criteria that I could consistently apply to qualify each fight as belonging to a specific weight division (or divisions, as was the case in your rare Armstrong vs Feldman example). Hence my interest in whether you had gone through the process of compiling your own divisional rankings, and if so, what criteria you used for allocating wins to a weight division(s).

 

I don't know about welters, but Rocky Jones was moved into the light-heavyweight rankings when he defeated heavyweight Roland LaStarza in 1952.

 

Have I completed all time rankings--only top tens, and it was a while ago. To do it your way, finding the weights for each fight, would take a great deal of time and might yield surprising results. For example, Greb could end up the top p4p man and yet not be the top middleweight as so many of his top wins are over bigger men. The same might be true of Walker.

as for your criteria--"How long title held"--excellent, but there should be consideration of just sitting on the title without defending it. Those years should be knocked out, unless the reason is beyond the control of the boxer, like a war. Overall record at that weight (lots of work, here). Best wins (of course). Prime losses and to whom (of course)

"210 lb. man fighting 160 lb. man"

I might not even give the big fellow a numerical credit for winning this one. He is fighting too far down out of his division. If the little guy wins, he deserves a lot of resume credit. I can see giving him credit at middle because the other guy is at least as heavy as a middleweight. I might be standing alone here, but this guy does weigh 160 lbs (plus an extra 50) so the little guy is beating a man beyond his division weight. I can see giving credit for beating a man who is beyond his division weight in evaluating him at that weight. Much more so than giving a heavyweight credit for beating a middleweight who is nowhere near his division weight.

 

With regards to your opening paragraph, you're correct on both points.

Time to compile - It took me several months to compile my top 20's in the original 8 weights divisions, averaging several hours of research and analysis each week. It'd have been mind-numbingly boring for some, but I enjoyed it & like having all my notes to refer back to.

Surprising results - I have Greb 2# p4p, 2 at MW (though having completed a similar exercise for Rummy's top 25 by decade boxers, I was so impressed taking another close look at Greb that I suspect I'd have him 1 at MW if I were to revaluate my rankings again now) and 3 at LHW. Considering I didn't factor in any of his fights contested at MW into his LHW ranking, and vice versa, this is an indicator of how insanely deep his resume is. A few even better examples of the sort of results I think you're referring to, I have:

Bob Fitzsimmons #6 p4p, 14 @ MW
Henry Armstrong #4 p4p, 16 @ LW (10 @ FW & #4 at WW)
Mickey Walker between 10-12 p4p (I'm yet to finalise my p4p list, but it's 98% of the way there), 15 @ WW. I have Jackie Fields 10 @ WW, but he doesn't come close to even entering into consideration for my top 50 p4p.

Significance of length of title reign - I agree with you, it is only 1 indicator & I viewed in context. The purpose of capturing this data was in some circumstances it provides an indicator of how long a fighter was the best in the world in that weight division. Those 2 things (i.e. being lineal champ & being the best in the world) aren't always exactly corelated, so as you suggest, context needs applying, which I attempted to do with my rankings.

 

I found an old bound copy of the Ring Magazines in a used book store years ago so have the monthly ratings for 1952.

 

The December issue had the ratings to October 18. Here are the light-heavies:

Champion--Joey Maxim
1--Archie Moore
2--Harold Johnson
3--Harry Matthews
4--Jake LaMotta
5--Yolande Pompey
6--Danny Nardico
7--Jimmy Slade
8--Joey DeJohn
9--Randy Turpin (who was also ranked #1 contender at middle)
10-Bob Satterfield

The January issue had the ratings to November 18.

Champion--Joey Maxim
1--Archie Moore
2--Harold Johnson
3--Harry Matthews
4--Yolande Pompey
5--Jake LaMotta
6--Danny Nardico
7--Jimmy Slade
8--Randy Turpin
9--Rocky Jones
10-Tommy Harrison

Rocky Jones defeated Roland LaStarza on October 9. I hadn't noticed the dates, but it was the next month when he moved into the ratings. He had no fights in the interim.

I checked with boxrec. Satterfield had been rated 4th but was stopped by Harold Johnson on October 6 and dropped to 10th. He was then inactive and dropped from the rankings.

Joey DeJohn lost to Norman Hayes on November 12 and was dropped from the rankings.

Tommy Harrison defeated heavies Charley Norkus on October 20 and Jimmy Bivins on November 3 which earned him the #10 ranking at light-heavyweight. (Harrison weighed 177 to 191 1/4 for Norkus, and weighed 178 1/2 to 185 for Bivins). Rocky Jones had defeated Harrison in his fight previous to fighting LaStarza.

LaStarza was rated 4th at heavyweight in the November issue. He dropped to 8th in the December issue after losing to Jones.

 

I am not accusing you of bias. Only with giving two options when there should be three, in my judgment.

 

Fleischer did comment on the changes. Here is what he wrote:

"Jimmy Bivins' defeat at the hands of Tommy Harrison put Bivins in last place among the heavyweights. Harrison, a light-heavyweight, also beat Charley Norkus and lost a questionable decision to Rocky Jones, victor over Roland LaStarza. Based on their recent performances, Harrison has been allotted tenth position among the world rated light-heavyweights, and Jones ninth."

My interpretation of this is that Harrison earned his ranking at light-heavyweight by beating two heavyweights plus a strong losing performance against Jones. Jones got his by beating Harrison and LaStarza. Fleischer didn't comment on it, but DeJohn lost his light-heavyweight ranking because of a loss to the #7 ranked middleweight. That makes sense to me. Losing to a lighter man should count against you. I am going to look through these ratings and see if anyone lost to a bigger man but held his ranking.

*This is Fleischer's comment on LaStarza and Bucceroni in the March issue after Dan upset Roland:

"Although Dan Bucceroni beat Roland LaStarza, Roland still is the fourth best heavyweight based on the record of those below him and Bucceroni has advanced into the fourth contender spot in his division."

Bucceroni had been rated 7th at light-heavyweight. Beating LaStarza moved him up to fourth.

The March issue also had this interesting bit:

"Though Rocky Castellani was stopped by Ernie Durando he was so far ahead, winning all by himself, that he indicated superiority over his conqueror, hence Castellani is rated one notch above Durando with Walter Cartier, who was halted by American welterweight king, Kid Gavilan, being dropped to seventh position."

Interesting thinking. Fleischer felt Gavilan would not be the true world champion until he defeated the Euro champion, Charles Humez. He recognized the Kid when Humez moved up to middle.

On the Castellani fight, I have never seen a film of the fight, but off box rec, Castellani was knocked down in the sixth and seventh. When he arose in the seventh, the referee stopped the fight, I assume judging that Rocky was in no condition to defend himself. Rocky's manager then physically attacked the referee.

 

As far as awarding merit to men beating smaller guys eg
Johnson v
Ketchel 35lbs
O Brien 43lbs
Burns 27lbs
Weights approx
Jeffries v
Corbett 27lbs
Fitz 47lbs
Fitz 39lbs
Choynski 42lbs
Should we have a cut off limit when the disparity is over a certain distance?
Or should we perhaps give due merit if the opponent is above a certain weight say170lbs ,and technically nearly a heavyweight ?

Dempsey gets some stick for facing smaller guys, as does Tunney,I mentioned Tunney's lhvy foes myself,but neither had tremendous weight advantages such as those enjoyed by the 2 older champs I named. If we are setting our own criteria, then I suppose there is no hard and fast, right or wrongs here?

Who decides when fights qualify as title fights and in which division is another can of worms,for which perhaps we should just agree to let the relevant organizations decide,personally, though they weren't infallible, I'd give more gravitas to the Rings ratings than the various alphabet money grabbers,who now,presumably with the demise of the Ring have a clear field to produce whatever nonsense they want.

 

We should note when heavyweight champions such a Jack Johnson were knocked down " listed " 170 pound man ( I say he was 155 ) in Ketchel, news draw with 162.5 pound men, in O'brien some siding with O'brien, and drew with a man that has a journeyman's record Jim Batting Johnson in a match where not one judge side for him, but did so for Battling Jim.

We should note a 1st round KO loss to Jack Dempsey and his struggles with cruiser weight sized men and we should note the same for Joe Louis who lost to and was knocked down by similar men and in one case knocked out. We'll make that two.

That is if we are honest in our rankings which does not diminish what they accomplished. Sorry to old time fans, this is the truth and the truth should be good enough.

Could you image this happened to Ali, Holmes, Lewis, Klitschko and even Fury today?! Not a chance.

JT, I would like to see your ratings. Feel free to PM them to me