Greatest win was his last win

I think it's Charles. Ezzard was closest to his prime in comparison to the others who, while aging well, weren't at their peak anymore. Charles wasn't either, but he was only like 32 and was champion recently. I also rate Charles above Moore and Walcott P4P and as a heavyweight

 

Packey McFarland's return fight against Mike Gibbons is also a good example, although judging from the film I've seen it appears that Gibbons got the better of it. Regardless, Packey did come back and technically beat the best middleweight in the world.

 

I already beat you to it

 

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There were a lot of reporters who thought Gibbons won and others who thought a draw would be fair. I don't at all agree with either you or Mr. Price that McFarland "technically beat" Gibbons.

 

I was thinking Gene Tunney but had forgotten he defended against Tom Heaney after the ‘long count’ win over Dempsey, which is his most famous win if not his greatest.

Alas.

 

Price-less!

 

Not an easy question to answer.

A lot of close but no cigar examples - including Braddock’s last fight victory over Tommy Farr - Farr coming off a spirited 15 round decision loss to Louis I think.

Otherwise, albeit sorta morbid, you can look for fighters on the rise, generally beating incrementally better opp., whose lives were then suddenly cut short.

Les Darcy’s last fight was a KO win over George Chip - so I guess it depends how you rate that win as compared to his prior victories.

 

Hate to be morbid, but Benny Kid Paret’s last win was a split decision over Emile Griffith for the welterweight championship.

He lost to Gene Fulmer in a try for the middleweight title in his next fight, then tragically died from damage suffered against Emile in a rematch where Griffith stopped him to regain the welterweight crown.

 

Of course it goes without saying that Larry Holmes, at 52, beat 65-2-3 Eric Esch in Larry’s final bout.

 

Fair enough, that's a reasonable viewpoint, I don't consider it the same as a win in a decision fight or a newspaper win where the vast majority of reporters all scored for one fighter, either.

Btw, just for the record, I didn't say that I consider that McFarland "technically" beat Gibbons, Nosferatu did. I said - "If you consider newspaper wins (i.e. where the majority of the published press scores favour one fighter)".

Boxrec lists it as a McFarland win, with 14 x reporters scoring for McFarland, 8 for Gibbons & 4 as a draw. A slender majority of those cited scored for McFarland, so I'm unsure what it was I posted that you disagree with.

That said, I'm still curious, do you not consider this fight as "technically" a McFarland win because:

1) You discount all newspaper decision fights as no-decision bouts?
2) You think Boxrec is either in error or incomplete in how it lists the newspaper reporters as having scored this fight?
3) 14-8-4 isn't conclusive enough for you to consider it a win. If this is the answer, a supplementary question if you may please - what proportion of reporters would need to score a fight to the same fighter before you consider they had "technically" won?
4) Some other reason?

 

I would say Marciano beating Moore, Lennox beating Vitali and Tunney beating Heeney, merely as they all retired as the champion and never returned to the competitive squared circle.

Leaving the sport at the top, healthy, wealthy and wise is to be applauded.

 

Agree in principle but none of those were really their best win. Just a good way to go out.

Now Archie Moore beating Mike DiBiase, that’s a different matter entirely. The adopted father of “Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase was a national AAU champion (in wrestling) and was the NWA Brass Knuckles champion at one point!

 

What the hell happened to Spencer after that bout?

 

3 plus what I see on the film. I don't care to research the accuracy of 14-8-4, but the variety of opinions expressed by the reporters at ringside leaves plenty of room to think that if there had been three experienced voting officials or just one referee deciding the fight that they may have decided the fight for Gibbons. As you know, there have been many decisions in fights over the years where the ringside officials' opinion differed with that of the journalists.