Greatest middle weight boxer of all time?

Hagler
Monzon
GGG
Hopkins

But my favourite, Julian Jackson !!

 

im slowly going into a state of mind that monzon is so overated. big jab, large right hand but would never survive any of the other middles of the eras before or after. sat in the perfect zone of old, 47's/54's moving up.

also those versions of moyer, benvenuti, napoles, griffith etc. were relics of a former time. but he was good looking and so imprintable that he was given the keys.

 

Greb
Hagler
SRR
Monzon

Order in rotation, but that's the current configuration.

 

Roy Jones
Robinson
Hagler
Hopkins
Monzon

 

Yes, but he never outgrew the division, and his finale was the Flowers rematch. So yes, while he did monstrous work north of MW (and Tunney's only completely undisputed win over Greb was their fifth and final match), he NEVER left 160 never to return, he never outgrew that division.

His final successful defense at 160 was Walker, where his legs were observed to no longer be what they once were, yet even Mickey did not dispute that Harry was the winner. Greb-Walker has titanic P4P ramifications, along the lines of Montreal and Hagler on behalf of Duran.

 

with bias....RJJ

 

i think Hagler vs Jones at 160 is like the coming of winter; Hagler grinds him down with soul crushing inevitability.

 

1) Jones couldn't hurt Marv

2) One of MMH's knockout punches was his long right jab. (Hagler actually had a longer reach than RJJ.)

 

ok so the ****ed up thing is that i think jones at 190 could have given ali a helluva fight...so how ****ed up is that?

 

Sure, but he only had a few fights at the weight. He barely ever made 160.
And he likely moved up because he struggled to make weight. Jorge Castro, Gerald McClellan and Julian Jackson were plenty of challenges for anyone.

I think when ranking the greatest at any weight, we should take into account their body of work and not who we think would win head to head. Clearly Hopkins had the better resume at 160 even tho Jones had his number.

 

I'm not putting Greb on the list because I've never seen any footage of him. And despite having an amazing record I still like to judge a fighter with my own eyes and sadly I can't do that with Greb.

So the cream of the crop are....

Monzon
Hagler
Hopkins
SRR

 

Keep in mind that Michael Spinks weighed 170 for David Sears, just two bouts before Holmes I, and Jinx had Mackie Shilstone as his personal trainer. (Mackie also conditioned RJJ for Ruiz.) Because of that, Shilstone's "Lose Your Love Handles" is in my library.

There was briefly talk of Michael dropping back down to 170 for a HW Champion vs MW Champion match, but Marv quickly shut it off, saying "When I train, my weight goes right down."

I believe Hagler had the greatest chin of all time. Not only did he absorb monster shots, but AFTER his career, he learned Italian, became an action movie star in Italy, and completely ditched his heavy Newark accent for an Italian one. This is crazy neurological virtuosity.

At 175 or 190, I think Qawi gives any version of Ali headaches. The best counterjab I've ever seen could throw Muhammad off his rhythm, he was a master ring cutter, and an outside boxer by nature who had to learn to fight inside. With Ali, he wouldn't try to fight inside, and at 5'6-1/2" he'd be under Muhammad's punches.

How great a defensive fighter was Dwight? He was a mouth breather, a habit Quenzell McCall and Wesley Mouzon arrived to late to break, yet he never got his jaw fractured despite never taking a backwards step. (In their first couple of bouts, Johnny Davis had some early success hopping Dwight backwards with monstrous hooks. Qawi had an excellent rivalry with the Davis brothers. Michael Spinks also had to deal with them. Nobody came closer to defeating the Jinx at LHW than Eddie Davis, whose Kryptonite was actually Marvin Johnson, a monstrous puncher.)

 

He's technically before my time - I was still a tyke when he fought Leonard - but IMO he's undeniable. And that's my unvarnished opinion even accounting for Masshole bias.