my top 10 lightweights of all time

Nobody's saying Canzoneri doesn't deserve to be on the list, don't get off topic. But if you're placing Floyd Mayweather on there, and putting each of the fighters in the order they're in(with guys like Armstrong and Floyd, who did their best work at other weights) then why not Ross over Floyd? Why not Billy Petrolle, who had a much better resume than Floyd?

 

I have a good version of fight II, and I felt it was pretty one sided, Cani just could not get past that left jab of Ross. It seem base on the film, for the most part that Ross put on a great display of boxing ablilty over Cani.

 

Most you mentioned deserve a ranking ahead of Floyd at LW only, though not P4P. Seriously, Floyd belongs nowhere near that list, especially given your reasons for not ranking Ross, and given how many other more proven fighters there were.

 

There are quite a few differences imo.

1. Armstrong is just a flat out better fighter than Mayweather.

2. Ambers is just a flat out better fighter than Castillo (and Corrales).

3. Everyone knows that Armstrong was jobbed against Ambers and should have been 2-0.

4. More than half the boxing fans think Castillo was jobbed in the first fight against Floyd.

5. Even though Floyd won the rematch, he stunk out the joint to do it and showed anything but elite status as a lightweight doing it. Armstrong, in both fights with Ambers asserted his dominance in brutal showings that are some of the best ever seen at lightweight.

Whilst I agree with you that Floyd should get a lot of credit for head to head ability, he certainly didn't display it to me in the fights he had at lightweight. To judge him high h2h, you have to import it from different weight classes. This is obviously not the case with Hank.

 

No, because Dempsey was near the end when TUnney fought him.

However, after Ross beat Canzoneri twice, Canzoneri went on to beat Jimmy McLarnin, Lou Ambers, Kid Chocolate, Baby Arizmendi, Cleto Locatelli, Frankie Klick, Harry Dublinsky, Johnny Jadick and Chuck Woods.

Canzoneri was not in the same state against Ross as Dempsey was when he fought Tunney.

Mind you, I agree that Canzoneri has the better resume at lightweight, but I think Ross is the better lightweight in a head to head sense, and with the wins against Petrolle and Canzoneri, his resume ain't that bad at lightweight either.

 

Williams at number two, nice, but too high I think.

 

Well Conzoneri proved his superiority over LOTS of lightweights, whereas Ross didn't, but taking their resumes as a whole, Ross was the one that showed he could CONSISTENTLY beat the best. Canzoneri has losses to guys Ross would never lose to. Ross was VERY hard to beat in a h2h sense. He didn't spend enough time at lightweight in particular to prove this, but he did prove it over the course of his career, and as such I think it's a far assumption to make that he would have carried his h2h skills and his incorrigibility into any lightweight contest.

But in any case, Ross is a monty for top 10 at lightweight, unless of course you consider two wins against Canzoneri (even if one was really close - a belief I don't necessarily subscribe to mind you after seeing a good 33 minutes of the footage) at lightweight no mean feat.

 

Maybe. I'd have Leonard above Williams and perhaps above Duran too, after all, I do rate him #4 on my pound-for-pound list. Leonard was a virtuoso in his time.

 

33 mins of the second, a couple of minutes from each round.