For my 5,000th post : My Pound-for-Pound Top 50 Fighters of All-Time..

I take your viewpoints. He was a great fighter no doubt.

Criteria wise I currently judge off an equal split between resume, legacy and h2h.

My number 1 is fitz, I believe he has the best legacy of any boxer in history.

At number 2 I have langford who's resume impresses me more than any other.

Number 3 is robinson who I believe is the most skilled fighter we've ever had.

After that come greb, louis and armstrong.

Then I have ali, pep and charles who can be in any order with duran bringin up the rear at ten.

I put more emphasis on legacy than a lot of people do and I can appreciate criticism I get in return but i'm happy with my 3 point system as it stands.

Charles is my goat at lhw and louis is my goat at hw.

I just can't see past a 12 year reign with 25 championship defences.

Now as much as I respect your opinion I refuse to let you change my mind regarding criteria selection for the second time in little over a week! I'm putting my foot down on this one and taking the option of respectfully disagreeing, especially on the claim that louis is not in charles' league.

 

You are a moron....fighters are either fighters or they are not. I am not differentiating between those who wear 8 oz gloves and those that use 4 oz.

 

what do you mean by 'legacy'? what the fighter gave to the sport?

 

Thats a great list. Going to look for some footage on a few of those fighters. Namely Fitzsimmons, because I like Moore and hes above him.

Being honest theres a lot I'm unfamiliar with but theres nothing wrong with learning.

 

:goodGreat job,Dinamita.There are some that I personally disagree with,but that's simple semantics and unimportant due to your research and effort,and you obviously have much more knowledge of the oldtimers than I do.Though none of us have seen Harry Greb fight(as far as I know),he has the greatest resume out there and your points about him are correct.I salute your taking the time and putting in the work to make such a terrific list(and read,obviously):good

 

me?

it's really hard to put into words but it's the intangibles. resume is what they've done on paper, h2h is the manner in which they've done it and legacy is everything else.

for example

louis's legacy is being the most dominant heavyweight in history, charles's is beating greats in 3 traditional divisions, langford's is holding victories over men form joe gans to harry wills and a fuk load inbetween.

legacy is to me the things that aren't quantifiable you know, the beauty is in the eye of the beholder kind of thing. for fitz i think his legacy is the greatest, Mw-HW-LHW losing only to the great Jeffries is phenomenal and awe inspiring.

i know my explanation is kind of hazy but it's hard to say because everyone's legacy will be different apart from a few similar fighters (i.e. monzon and hagler) etc.

do ya get me?



so when I make my list i basically compare two fighters and say "he has a better resume and legacy, he goes above" or "he has better legacy and h2h, he goes above" and I do that for them all. a simple best of 3 system I know but it seems to work for me. all 3 get weighted equally and the list just kind of makes itself. (obvious ommissions not withstanding but i think that's something every list will get criticized for)

 

oh, so you mean achievements.

charles > louis for resume, head to head and achievements.

but i guess you mean manner of victory when you say head to head? in that case, louis could have the edge there. louis also has the edge in terms of legacy as it's generally conceived.

 

yes that's exactly what i mean so louis gets the best of 3 when pitted against charles which is why i place him higher.

as i said, my system isn't perfect but it'll do for now. it's not like I'm a boxing historian or anything

 

well, i'm not so sure. charles has resume, and louis has manner of victory. when it comes to achievements, i'd go for charles. he is the greatest of all time in his best division, and top twenty at heavyweight too. not to mention, he beat guys who are in their divisional all-time top tens, in two divisions for sure, maybe three.

all of that aside... do you not think that charles' resume outweighs louis' to the extent that any minor edge that louis may have in the other two criteria gets negated? or is it as simple as whoever gets the nod in 2/3?

 

that simple.

i have it

legacy=louis
resume=charles
h2h=louis

therefore louis>charles.

making it more complicated would require me to put a lot more time into it and it's something I'm not willing to do. it took me a full day ranking my top 50 just using this system so god knows how long it would take with a more complex system.

I too have charles goat at lhw and top 20 at HW, not ranked down to 25 at MW but I could well have him there as well. his resume is clearly far better than louis's. I think Louis is as near to a perfect fighting machine we've seen apar from robinson and I think Charles legacy is very very good, still I think it pales in comparison to being the champion for 12 years running and clearing out 2 generations of heavyweights.

Perhaps if charles didn't have that disastrous 1943 year i might have him better H2H and legacy wise, but it is what it is.

how much time do you put into ranking fighters yourself? it took me ages doing my top 50 with something as simplistic as best of 3.

 

ok, that's where we disagree then.

1943 wasn't disastrous... bivins and marshall were really good fighters. when you face everyone in one of the toughest eras ever, you're bound to lose sometimes. that's why it's amazing that charles went eight years nigh-on unbeaten after those losses. for me, achievements and resume are inextricably linked. a fighter could go unbeaten for fifty years, but that isn't an achievement in and of itself (i'm not saying louis did this, his run was great).

i don't put time into ranking fighters. i think the best way to do it is to learn as much about the sport as you'd care to, decide whether you want to rank fighters based on what they actually did, or fantasy head-to-head prowess, and then make a list drawing on everything you know, reasoning as best you can. i don't think lists derived from formulae do justice to the richness of the sport. this isn't just the case in boxing!

 

compared to his prime career i think 1943 was very bad. especially suffering a knockout loss which wouldn't happen agaion until walcott.

but i guess we look for different things, had he rematched successfully i'd be less harsh on it i believe.

still charles is a true great and belongs in every list maker's top 10 IMO.

as for the formula, i'm a maths teacher, i can't help it. maths is my thing lol

 

he rematched bivins and marshall several times successfully.

fair enough about the formula. let's see your top twenty or so then.