Well he deserved it. Only beaten once in his prime by much heavier hall of famer sammy angott. Beat Sandy Saddler when past his prime going 1-1 with him in the only non controversial endings, started out 128-0, incredible longevity, incredible featherweight title reign, beat oustanding competition, beat oustanding comeptition at higher weights, on film he has the greatest defensive skills and pure boxing skills we have ever seen and his combinations are a thing of beauty, h2h at his best i favor him over anyone his weight.
One of Armstrong, Langford, Greb and Robinson should be #1. I have Langford, but Greb is entirely reasonable depending on criteria. I will say it's a shame to have a "best ever" that you can't look at, bt that is hardly fair.
Here it is for me: Tier I Greb, Langford, Amrstrong & Robinson - how you arrange these four is a matter of how you weigh their acheivments. All 4 have locked down cases to appear at #1 Tier II Walker, Charles, Pep - because of the extraordinary natures of their achievments and skillsets cases can be made, but you have to work at it. Because of the monsters that lurk above in teir I, when a guy has one of these boys at #1 it often means they are working from a unique set of criteria and/or speculative criteria (head to head is the eternal example). But it is reasonable to have each of these three at #1, though I personally want why he is above each of the four in teir I addressed in some detail. Tier III Moore, Duran, Fitzsimmons, Ali - these are the final four where a case can be made, and the case is not a strong one. Again, you'll normally have speculative or personalised criteria, but now i'm also looking for bias and sweeping generalisations as regards the competitiors from tier I and II.
mcgrain i remeber ur drunken rant a few weeks back where u had walker as a firm number one haha. its strange what a sober mind can do for u. as for the thread i have greb at 4
How can anyone with multiple wins and no losses to the like of Moore and Burley simply be in the second tier? Ezzard is a shoo in for being in the first tier, regardless of his place ahead of or behind the first tiers mentioned.
one reason some people dont rank Pep # 1 is because he was a featherweight. people don't like really small weight classes, especially that low. they refuse to rate a fighter below 130lb at # 1. How many times do you hear people talk of flyweight or straweight division?
Honestly going by film, resume, longevity, dominance, you can easily rate pep # 1 of all time. He has all the baggage.