How high could you justify rating Jack Britton at Welterweight?

He has some first-class wins

Benny Leonard
Mickey Walker
Ted “Kid” Lewis (won their series of 20 by something like 9-6-5)
Mike O' Dowd
Willie Brennan

Those are just some stand-outs. His record is ludicrously deep, filled with wins over many fighters with good records. He amassed a huge number of fights at or around 147 and fought at the weight for nearly 15 years. Sure he has a good few losses peppered about his record, but the man fought nearly 400 fights over his entire career, with that insane activity things are bound to not go his way every once and a while. It seems like he established himself as the best Welter of his era before running into a young Mickey Walker. He won his series against the other best welterweight of his era, Ted Lewis. He even gave up weight against, and beat Mike O' Dowd, who is an ATG Middleweight. He also beat Benny Leonard, my No. 1 LW and a top 10 P4P all time fighter. Leonard was giving up weight, but he managed a draw against Lewis, and beat solid Welterweight contender Soldier Bartfield several times. And yes, Mickey Walker was green when he lost a newspaper decision, but Britton was 36 years old and had a lot of wear and tear.

Honestly, just comparing resumes and what they accomplished in their era, should Leonard, Gavilan, Napoles, Griffith or Rodriguez be rated over Jack Britton? How high could you justify rating Britton?

 

I would. He beat Mike Gibbons (another forgotten fighter I consider an All Time Great) as well as the ATG middleweight, Harry Greb. Along with quite a few other good fighters.

 

Who do you have above him and why?

 

Only report I've read said O' Dowd won, and boxrec lists it as a win for O' Dowd. I also read an article once a while back that stated something like "it looked like O' Dowd got the better of it", though I don't know what sources the writer of that article was going off of.

 

But do you think Leonard's resume at 147 is clearly better? Duran, Hearns and Benetiz are his best wins. How much better are they than Leonard, Walker, and Lewis? What about Britton's activity, the sheer number of fights (and wins) he picked up at the weight against mostly good to great opposition? Or his longevity? I've been giving honest consideration to placing Britton second only to Robinson.