My All-Time 60 Best British Fighters

I'd have Naz just inside the top ten probably, or just outside.

Who was the only guy to beat Wilfredo Vasquez in the preceding eight years?

 

I shouldn't really be getting involved in this and your entitled to your opinion, no offence taken. I've got to ask though, how much do you know about the opposition my dad fought apart from the 3 title fights, McGowan and Caldwell?

 

You can find the quality easy, switch McCauley and Duke for Al and Walter for one thing.

Don't you see the rather obvious and significant gulf in ability and technical skill when you watch McGowan and Rudkin fight, compared to those guys.Genuinely excellent fighters competitive at the very top level in some of the deepest era's of their respective weightclasses.

McAuley and McKenzie(and MAgri) were dubious champions that exploited the IBF/WBO proliferations and were never really the best at their weight, nor did they show close to the same skills as the other two lighter weight men.

The Finnegan's should be at least on the lower tiers on talent alone, even if they were too inconsistent to rate too high.Both have better wins,good performances in losses to genuinely great comp and talent than Woodhall, Robin Reid, Witter etc

I'd say the only british fighters who had a significant prime during the last 20 years who should be in a top 50 are Lewis, Calzaghe, Benn Eubank and probably Hatton towards the bottom on accomplishment much as it pains me to say it.

 

1990-2010

Lewis**
Hamed*
Calzaghe

1970 - 1989

John Conteh
Ken Buchanan
Lloyd Honeyghan

1950-1969

Randy Turpin*
Freddie Mills
Howard Winstone


1930-1949

Benny Lynch
Jackie Brown
Peter Kane

1911-29

Ted Lewis**
Jim Driscoll**
Freddie Welsh*

** Def P4P 100, *maybe

worthy mentions and included in a top 20

Berg, Cooper, Charnley, McAvoy and Len Harvey

 

Turpin and Hamed would have no chance of making my top 100! Your brackets are top-notch though :good

Burger; Khan and Haye would have a hard chance cracking the top 50. Frpch is going the right way about establishing himself as a top British fighter IMO.

 

It's an interesting debate, if I get time this weekend I'll try and knock a top 50 up of my own.

Watch it be full of glaring mistakes and full of bias :hey

I don't think Froch has too much to do to get himself inside the top 30 or so..... if he gets by Ward and Johnson it'll be 6-1 at world class, with plenty of options to choose from moving forward.

I'm surprised you've got Hamed as high as you have, considering that a lot of his opponents were the ''never been stopped former champion'' types. The one genuinely elite fighter he faced soundly whipped him. And he was probably the easiest matchup of the three Mexicans of the day.

 

no joe bowker or digger stanley




just joking its a good list BUT

HERBIE HIDE made youre list

 

I don't really know where to start but here goes.
I think you are giving too much credit to fighters who held diluted titles and defended against so so challengers and not enough to fighters who fought at a time when there was only one champ.
It's pretty obvious that most fighters on that list wouldn't be world champs if it wasn't for diluted titles and that includes some big names. There are fighters on that list that wouldn't even have gotten title shots if there was only one champ. There are fighters on that list, "world" champions that didn't even fight the best fighter of their time.That's not to say that they weren't good fighters but when you say that winning a "title" and defending against a string of British challengers is better than proving your quality against the World no1 I can't agree with that reasoning. My dad was rated in the World top 5, real top 5 for 7 years and kept that rating by fighting other top fighters. Just because fights of my dad's against the likes of Pierre Vetroff, Edmundo Esparza, Raul Vega, Felipe Gonzalez and many others weren't for "world" abc titles doesn't mean they weren't good fighters. Them fights today would easily pass as "world" title fights in fact after beating Felipe Gonzalez and Edmundo Esparza in the space of 3 weeks dad was awarded the Ring fighter of the month award because those fights had value. Gonzalez by the way was 1 of only 2 men to go the distance with Olivares in Olivares' first 50 odd fights. He knocked out future World champion Chucho Castillo in his next fight. Esparza held a win on points in Japan over ATG Fighting Harada. Manny Elias who dad fought later on held Eder Jofre to a draw in Brazil. Jofre is considered by many to be the greatest bantam of them all only ever losing to Fighting Harada.
To win a Lonsdale belt dad had to beat former World bantam claimant John Caldwell, WBC Flyweight champ Walter McGowan and future British featherweight champ Evan Armstrong. The two wins on his second belt were both against world rated Johnny Clark the first of which took place after dad had been stopped by Olivares. This was supposed to be a changing of the guard but dad gave Clark 6 years was battered for the first 5 rounds and come back to stop Clark in 11. Mickey Duff was already in negotiations to get Olivares over for Clark for the undisputed title but dad upset the applecart. Dad finished off his career with a win over Clark once again, this time on points. Clark went on to claim the British and European titles, he was on the brink of getting a shot at Rafael Herrera when he had to retire with a detatched retina. If Clark was fighting today I've no doubt he would be a "world" champion.
He lost a European title fight in Barcelona to Ben Ali (world rated for 10 years at fly and bantam) but never even got a title shot. This fight by the way was a robbery and every newspaper of the day backs this up. Think of Robin Reid Sven Ottke and you'll get the idea. Franco Zurlo who he won the European title against was a world rated fighter for years to come afterwards. Augustin Senin who relieved him of the title in 71 in Bilbao retired with a 42-0-1 record.
The Revie fight was a mistake, Harry Levine was looking for an opponent at short notice for Revie and dad took the fight. Revie was just too big and awkward on the night but the fight was pretty close. Incidentally Armstrong knocked Revie out for the feather title.
Anyway this isn't sour grapes or anything I'm just trying to express how I see things with all these split titles. Think about this, Benn, Watson, Eubank and Graham were all campaigning at middleweight at the same time. If it wasn't for split titles there is a good chance that not all of them would of even become British Champ. Look at the super 6 now. Instead of holding a title and fighting a string of challengers the top Super middles though not all of them are fighting each other and they are all picking up losses apart fro Ward. If it wasn't for split titles some of those top names would be fighting it out for the European title and not achieving it.
I'm just trying to point out the affect the split title has had on standards for the British and European titles.
I am not trying to knock any fighter's achievements here just trying to put things in perspective as I see it. A title is only as good as the fella's who are fighting for it.

 

Very good list, my biggest gripe are the low placements of McGowan and Rudkin they should be top 20.

 

Frightening statistics :deal

 

No Dave Charnley or Jock McAvoy?

 

The obvious ones that would be in my top 15 are:

No.9 Owen Moran

No.12 John Conteh

N0.4 Ken Buchanan




Here's a list from a poster on BBC 606. The guy who put it together is an encyclopedia of British boxing. He didn't include Fitz, his reasoning on this was Fitz learned his craft outside the UK and never fougt in a British ring.


1) Ted 'Kid' Lewis; 2) Jimmy Wilde; 3) Lennox Lewis; 4) Ken Buchanan; 5) Joe Calzaghe; 6) Jim Driscoll; 7) Owen Moran; 8 ) Jack 'Kid' Berg; 9) Randolph Turpin; 10 ) Naseem Hamed; 11) Freddie Welsh; 12) Ricky Hatton; 13) Lloyd Honeyghan; 14) John Conteh; 15) Benny Lynch; 16=Nigel Benn; 16=Chris Eubank; 18 ) Jim Watt; 19) Barry McGuigan; 20) Howard Winstone; 21) Dennis Andries; 22) Peter Kane; 23) Cornelius Boza-Edwards; 24) Maurice Hope; 25) Dave Charnley; 26) Jock McAvoy; 27) Walter McGowan; 28 ) Alan Minter; 29) Terry Downes; 30) Len Harvey; 31) Rinty Monaghan; 32) Freddie Mills; 33) Dave McAuley; 34) John H. Stracey; 35) Duke McKenzie; 36) Tommy Farr; 37) David Haye; 38 ) Herol Graham; 39) Teddy Baldock; 40) Jackie Paterson; 41) Charlie Magri; 42) Clinton Woods; 43) Michael Watson; 44) Colin Jones; 45) Paul Hodkinson; 46) Henry Cooper; 47) Kirkland Laing; 48 ) Tony Sibson; 49) Alan Rudkin; 50) Joe Bugner.


The list is a couple of years old so I think Froch could go in at 30 or lower with the potential to make it into the Top 10 if he beats Ward, Kessler and Bute.