My Top 100 of all-time

What have Moore and Walker done since 2005 to cause such an elevation? What losses since 05 caused you to drop Carpentier and Langford?

 

great work. Having occasionally done similar ratings i appreciate the methodology and consistency of your ratings. Of course i disagree with a whole heap of your list, we all have our biases! However I was surprised to see we share the same top 13 HW's(different sequence obviously!) and 35 of your top 40. Only Cleveland Williams would I take any issue with.
In your general ratings I think Moore too high, Greb and Fitz too low. I agree with the other posters, Charles over Moore. The only major quib i have is Nonpareil Jack Dempsey, read up on him, he was not nearly as good as the Irish-Americans cracked him up to be, he was good-but not that good.

 

Why didn't you read up on them before you assembled your original rating?

 

A guy can compile a record of 210-31-9 1 NC with 11 title defenses and you don't have him in your top 40?

 

Angott with his three measly defenses is in your top ten; while Old Bones, with his 11 defenses, doesn't even merit an honorable mention?

 

Griffo got the better of McAuliffe, the best Jack could hope if not for circumstances would be a draw, and that'd be very favorable to him. But he was clearly past his best by this point. He had been talking about quiting the ring for some time, and he was so popular with everyone, that the referee simply didn't want to take responsibility for spoiling his perfect record with a loss, because of Jack's staying in the ring longer than he should. Although McAuliffe needed yet another "hint" to realize he was no longer the same fighter he had been before, even if he trained down to perfect shape (getting nearly stopped in the next fight, when the police interfered). Although all the same he attempted a comeback in a year and a half later. Speaking of which, Fleisher in his book about McAuliffe doesn't even mention this comeback, stating that McAulliffe retired for good shortly after Ziegler fight and refused to come back even for big money, except for an exhibition with Lavigne in 1896. But oh well, that's Fleisher with his disdain for facts.

 

I do have one other report that gives the 2nd fight to Griffo though, but it's longer than those two and I'm too lazy to type it here. As is often the case, it's difficult to figure out the winner in a close bout like this, it depends on the writer, what style and criteria he likes better to decide the winner. As an example, 2nd fight between Griffo and Gans (15-round draw). One source says Griffo "simply smothered Gans by his cleverness and in two of the rounds had the colored boy on the edge of the ***** street", the other says "Gans staggered Griffo with a left in the second. ... Gans opened the ninth round fast and hard and had the better of it. In the eleventh Gans looked like a winner. Twice during the round he staggered Griffo". Who to believe about who was better in this bout? The first meeting between them, supposedly Griffo contracted not to put Gans away, and thus held back, yet local source: "Gans hit Griffo much oftener than he was struck himself. Griffo let go several vicious blows, but they all fell short." What to think about this fight as well then? I'm seeing contradictory reports in that time span pretty often, sometimes they claim completely the opposite things, as if the reporters were seeing two different fights.

 

Since we touched this subject. The referee and the people sitting around the ring can sometimes see completely different fights. Some examples:

1960-06-10 Sugar Ray Robinson L-SD15 Paul Pender
Referee 146-144 = +2 Robinson, one of the judges 138-149 = +11 Pender.

1958-03-25 Sugar Ray Robinson W-SD15 Carmen Basilio
Referee 66-69 = +3 Basilio, Judge 72-64 = +8 Robinson.

1942-05-28 Sugar Ray Robinson W-SD10 Marty Servo
Referee 5-3-2 = +2 Servo, judge 9-1 = +8 Robinson.

1952-02-04 Kid Gavialn W-SD15 Bobby Dykes
Referee 140-143 = +3 Dykes, judge 145-139 = +6 Gavilan.

 

But then again, sometimes even two judges sitting at ringside see something that cannot be explained rationally.

1934-05-28 Barney Ross W-SD15 Jimmy McLarnin
The official scoring ws 9-1-5 (Judge Tom O'Rourke) for McLarnin and 11-2-2 (Referee Eddie Forbes) and 13-1-1 (Judge Harold Barnes) for Ross.

One ringside judge +8 McLarnin, another ringside judge +12 Ross, WTF?

 

I agree ref's should not judge fights. I am a qualified IABA and occasionally all 3 or 5 judges see a fight completely differently. I use to think this was wrong but now believe it to be often ok as scoring in boxing is subjective (but not arbitary) and it is quiet ok for judges to look for different qualities in the work of the fighters. That's why there are multiple judges.

 

What signalled that he was clearly past his best by the time of the Griffo fight? Had he shown signs before hand that he was fading? If so what were they? Or did he get old overnight?

He was nearly stopped right after fighting Griffo but he snapped his hand there, so it was injury more than general deterioration that did him in.

 

I'd be willing to go with the more detailed account more often than not, but then again it depends what kind of detail it is. If it's just verbiage then forget it, but if its concise and tracks the fight closely more often than not it would have to be given precedence over other accounts. Depends on the writer's reputation too of course....

Yeah its all pretty problematic, and still so even when we have the fight footage right before our eyes. It often comes down to differences about fundamental values one holds and there's really no altering it. There's enough room for interpretation in the rules and criteria of the sport to come to some pretty wild but not altogether insane conclusions sometimes.