Greatest fighter?

Great post.
I'm firmly in the "Armstrong is the greatest" camp and youv'e summed up the reasoning pretty well here. Good job.

 

IMO, there's enough footage of early fighters that look good to suggest the talent was there. Fitz had an awkward unique style even at the time, and when you consider the footage we have, it's almost what you'd pick to make a fighter look as bad as possible.

A fight with a speedster, that degrades as Fitz comes into it, with only version of the KO being a mess, and the end of a fight when he's 46 and exhausted in stupid heat, though in the latter I think you can still see the toughness of a great fighter.

 

Greg
Robinson
Langford
Walker
Armstrong
Sanchez

 

Roy Jones, Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao are the greatest fighters in my lifetime. Anyone before that don’t count. Ha.

 

Love to see the respect for Battling Jim Johnson. A man who is #4 on my H2H list.

 

Greb
Robinson
Armstrong
Pep
Duran

 

I reconcile this in my mind as Armstrong being the most accomplished — which can translate to greatest — but I’d still say Robinson was the best fighter of all time.

Roy Jr. ranks is the most gifted, and he did not waste those gifts. He may have taken the art to a higher level than anyone else ever attained.

 

I have him at no. 6 or 7 but I guess the gap between the lower half of the top 10 and the upper half of the top 20 really isn't that big. Anywhere from 6 to 15 seems fair. I wouldn't have him top 5 myself but I wouldn't have him lower top 20 either.

One logic argument for placing Duran well inside the top 10 is that anyone who is considered the no. 1 all time in one of the original 8 weight divisions should almost certainly be a contender for the top 10. Duran is many people's no. 1 lightweight so just on the strength of that alone he's likely to be part of the conversation. When you then factor in his WW win over SRL and his two remarkable comebacks in '83 and '89, the argument becomes more persuasive. Of course, you can counter that with the No Mas surrender and the years where he was overweight and losing to the likes of Kirkland Laing but anything Duran did past his prime should probably count in his favour, not against him.

But between June 1972 and June 1980 those eight prime years have to put him in the top 10 conversation in my view.

 

My question would be this Chris - Saldivar defended the Featherweight crown what, 9 times? Hamed well into double figures of one title or another as well as being a JF champ. How many times did Hank defend the Featherweight title? Did he clean out the division that much pre title? Not saying he didn't but asking the big Q's. Saldivar would be plenty of rungs ahead of Hank in Featherweight rankings tho he'd certainly be above Hamed. Hank would be an easy top ten welter but i'd say he is 10-20 in the other two divisions to be fair.

As ridiculous as his achievements are the one knock might be that he burnt oh so bright (brighter than anyone ever over such a short period for sure) but not for all that long.

Great post by the way. Hank gets too short a thrift in these final tier discussions. He's top 5 and certainly in the discussion for top place.

 

Yeah, longevity is the only real knock in comparison with someone like Sugar Ray. In fact, almost everyone I have in my top 10 except Hank had sustained success over a long period.

But the short, intense period of those achievements is part of what makes him so special. He's unique in that way.

 

Absolutely. What he did was unique.

 

It depends on criteria.
I think when McGrain did his lists he admitted Armstrong was one of the few really great ones to suffer a bit under his ranking criteria.
Under a different criteria, I think Armstrong comes in very high at both lightweight and welterweight.

 

When i get time i will dig deeper and post back mate.

 

He is simply the best I have ever seen on film, he is the best Ltweight of all time, Beat a top ten Welterweight of all time in his prime, Gave a top 3 MIddleweight of all time all he could handle( Hagler), and beat men 30 lbs heavier in his late 30's that were younger, taller, stronger, and talented.( Moore and Barkley)

He also beat Camacho and Panzienza in his 40's 2 solid to great fighters in their own right.( although he did not get the decision he should have)

I think he is top 5. He has the fights and the longevity as well as the titles, and I have never seen such a perfect blend of offense and defense.