How good was Barney Ross

Right behind Fife.

I just don’t think the purple dinosaur has the hand speed to keep up with the Mayberry Mauler.

 

Pep actually had a surprising number of KOs/stoppages vs. elite fighters of his day, such as Chalky Wright, Jock Leslie (the only fighter to KO Saddler), & Charley Riley (who went the distance w/ Saddler). I think people today underestimate his power b/c of the way Saddler marched through his punches.

 

A lock-in for top 20 all time

 

Not at all. Asking for other people’s opinions on a well-known fighter doesn’t mean you don’t know anything about them - you might just want other people’s perspectives to compare to your own.

 

I think he’s the third best of the 1930s, after Armstrong and Louis.

I think Henry Armstrong would always have beaten Ross and although it has been said that Ross seemed to age overnight when he fought Hank, I’m not so sure. I think he just met a fighter with a style that he couldn’t match and who was peaking.

His wins over Canzoneri were super close by most accounts but he got the nod both times and rightly gets the credit for them. I’d consider Canzoneri the next best fighter of the decade after Ross so those are monumental wins.

He has a better record than Louis in the decade in terms of quality of opposition but Louis was such an awesome fighter and hitting his absolute peak in the late 1930s (which carrried over into the early 1940s), and it was one of the finest peaks in history. I’d say it’s highly arguable either way but I’d place Louis just above him for the 1930s (and clearly above him all-time p4p when you factor in the 1940s as well).

Ross’s lack of power has already been mentioned in this thread so I guess when you compare him with Armstrong and Louis, he’s possibly a less appealing choice than those two due to the respective dynamism of their styles. But his more cerebral styling and lack of power was offset by his punch resistance and the awesome will he showed inside and outside the ring.

He’s a top 20 all time p4p in my book.

 

Yes, he should go to a forum where virtually no one has any opinion or interest in Ross to ask that question. Good point.

 

Fair points.

Ross and Pep have a similar KO % (27% for Pep and 28% for Ross), both over a large enough sample of fights for those percentages to be meaningful.

As I said, I'd guess they had similar power relative to their respective sizes.