Hardest greats to rank all time?

Bernard Hopkins is a hard one. Not sure how high to place him in any particular division but also feel that p4p he’s very high.

 

Jimmy Wilde is one name for me. He almost has a consensus as being the greatest flyweight ever, yet the amount of people who really know his career is exceptionally small. This means there is a vagueness to his stature that doesn't exist for many other legends.

 

For me its Oscar De La Hoya so manny controversial decisions. Wins that should have been losses and losses that should have been wins, fought everyone of his era but i have no clue where to place him all time.

 

Rocky Marciano is one for me, wasn’t the strongest era in the heavyweight division, but I always have a feeling he would find himself competitive in most eras probably okay different weight division however, but I never quite know where to rank him.

Harry Greb, just because I’ve never and probably will never get a chance to see any footage of him, the stories make him sound almost mythical sometimes.

Aaron Pryor is another struggle for me, mainly because bar AA he never fought a world renowned fighter in his prime and the era was decent, but there always a feeling that Pryor had more than we did see.

There are so many though that’s it is hard to evaluate.

 

ALL of them,

because it's IMPOSSIBLE to place any Numerical Order with perfect accuracy.

Was Greb greater than SRR, was either of them greater than Ali or Louis.

was Charles as great as the above, or was JJW actually better than them ALL.

Was Lloyd Marshal perhaps the best of all-time and on it goes.

Impossible.

"Among the Best", One of the Greatest... arguably the Best or Certainly one of them.

far more Respectful to the Thousands of Great Fighters Worldwide for a 150 Years of Boxing as we know it!

 

Riddick Bowe IMO.
He was one the 23 heavyweights who won undisputed title and one of the few to be beat a great fighter in his prime.
But his unwillingness to train or fight anybody who would fight him makes me wonder if he deserve an elite ranking.
Definitely a deserving member of the hall of fame, but top 10 heavyweight???
I mean take Holyfield away and look at his résume.........

 

Sullivan and Greb.

 

Was thinking that

 

Joe Calzaghe is someone that comes to mind cause of his opposition for a while. Manny Pacquiao because of the steroid suspicion. GGG as well cause while he is great he hasn't had a lot of fights vs top opposition.

Another one is Riddick Bowe.

 

I rank him highly P4P, but not as the greatest flyweight of all time. I don't have a strong opinion, but think Wolgast and Canto probably rank ahead at Fly

He was 100Ibs soaking wet.

 

You guys waste a lot of time trying to rank fighters all-time, whether within their divisions or on a P4P basis. I find such diversions unsatisfying because there never is a right answer. We'll never know. When I was just getting into boxing, my appreciation of history was really immature. I always fretted that someone would come along who might considered to be better than my then favorite old-timers. For example, for a long time, I disliked Ali because I feared that he would overtake Jack Johnson, Jack Dempsey, and Joe Louis as the best heavyweight ever. My favorite then was JJ. I guess I have less imagination than I once had. Now, I have a lot more fun appreciating them all within the context of the eras in which they fought rather than agonizing whether James J Corbett could beat George Foreman, for instance. I do have an opinion about that, however!

I suppose such discussions are a good learning tool. It might have been more fun for me back then if there was a boxing forum on which to bounce things around.

 

Agree. Though i don't think it would have happened at the time. In 1992, Bowe reached his peak and was much more complete than Lewis.
By 1996, I think the Bowe of the 2 golota fight would have been really killed by the Emmanuel steward Lewis.