Although the supermiddleweight division is a relativley new creation there have been many great fighters whose best weight was under 168 lbs before the division was established. My top 10. 1. Bob Fitzsimmons 2. Harry Greb 3. Tommy Burns 4. Billy Conn 5. Sam Langford (low bewcause most of his best work was above 168 lbs) 6. Tommy Loughran 7. Jack Dillon 8. Jeff Clark 9. Frank Childs 10. Jack Delaney Honourable mention for electric potential, Bob Satterfield I have probably missed a few.
Very interesting stuff. I would be tempted to move Conn above burns and I think perhaps Lloyd Marshall should be on this list, probably above Loughran, certainly above Jack Dillon, with maybe LaMotta rounding off a ten?
Lloyd Marshall scaled about 165 lbs. in his prime, e. g. when he stopped Ezzard. Charles himself merits consideration too, though his peak was at lhw, where he definitely was better. The same goes for Ageless Archie. In fact a number of the murderers row fighters like Chase and Booker fought their way from mw to lhw, but then it's a question if they were good enough to make a top ten list. Pleased to see Delaneys name, would like to see his name a little higher. In the same era Slattery, McTigue and Rosenbloom did a lot of good work around 165, but I guess they fall just short of the top ten even if Slattery is a favorite of mine. Dick Tigers achievement of winning and defending the lhw crown at 167-168 lbs should get him a place on the list, but then he might be disqualified by the fact that he was even greater as a middleweight. And Burns has no place on this list at all methinks, but then I am allergic to mythologized fighters of the pre-dempsey era. If you necessarily want a guy from that era I feel Choynski would be a better choice.
LaMotta. Maybe not top ten but I think that if a SMW class were established during his time he would have ruled for a long time.
Lloyd Marshall would have been great there as mentioned before also Joe Choynski normally weighed little over 160lbs so he could make the list. Tiger Flowers normally weighed around 167lbs so he would be perfect for smw also Jack Delaney has two wins over Flowers and a draw with Loughran at this weight. Carpentier has some good wins there and he always seemed small at light heavy maybe not top ten but worth a mention. Edit: Just realised that Delaney is your number 10.
