My Top 25 Fighters of the Last 25 Years- what do you think?

OK, before the criticism starts dudes, it is a very difficult thing to try and write a list like this. I have probably forgotten someone obvious as I've wrote this in about 5 minutes, and yeah if I did it again tomorrow, I may put people down in a slightly different order I don't know, this hasn't been slaved over and isn't set in stone, but here it is:

Top 25 Fighters 1983-2008

rated on a combination of NATURAL ABILITY, NAMES ON THE RESUME, ACHIEVEMENTS SUCH AS TITLES WON, and ASSESSMENT OF PEAK PERFORMANCES.

1.Pernell Whitaker

2.Roy Jones Jr

3.Julio Cesar Chavez

4.Evander Holyfield

5.Floyd Mayweather Jr

6.Lennox Lewis

7.Bernard Hopkins

8.Mike Tyson

9.Thomas Hearns
(yes, his 147 peak and fights with SRL and Benitez were before 1983, but his career went on successfully long after 1983, in a way that Leonard and Hagler and Duran's didn't, those three were on the way back down after '83, the best periods of their careers were undoubtedly before '83- except maybe Hagler's, but he didn't fight on long enough after 1983 to be considered for this time period IMO. Hearns on the other hand went on from 1983 to beat Duran, fight Hagler, beat younger naturally bigger guys like DeWitt and the previously undefeated Virgil Hill, get the better of SRL in their 2nd fight, and between 1983 and his retirement, he held the WBC light-middleweight title, WBC middleweight, WBO super-middleweight, and the WBC and WBA light-heavyweight titles, before finishing up as a cruiserweight. If the time period was the best fighters from the last 30 years, then obviously Hearns would be higher than 9th place, but I think his post-1983 career justifies his placing here.)

10.Mike McCallum

11.Oscar De La Hoya

12.Manny Pacquiao

13.Marco Antonio Barrera

14.Erik Morales

15.James Toney

16.Hector Camacho

17.Felix Trinidad

18.Joe Calzaghe

19.Ricardo Lopez

20.Azumah Nelson

21.Shane Mosley

22.Winky Wright

23.Kostya Tszyu

24.Juan Manuel Marquez

25.Johnny Tapia



I could probably write another list of guys I could've had in there that maybe should have been (Curry, Norris, Fenech, Bowe, Rosario, Taylor, Ramirez, etc etc), but this is the list I've came up with and I'm quite happy with it for now. I got serious about boxing in the early 1990s, so I may be a little biased towards 90s fighters, I don't know, it just seems there are more of them here, but this is my honest evaluation on the criteria set out before the list.

Thoughts/opinions??


ps: I didn't include Khaosai Galaxy as I have never actually seen him fight.

 

Lewis was a better heavyweight than Holyfield, but Holyfield was brilliant at cruiserweight, so I give Holyfield the edge p4p as he had more strings to his bow sort of thing. It's close though, I wouldn't argue with you over it, I am a massive Lewis fan. What do you think of the rest of the list?

 

I'm guessing Hopkins would be one, ha ha?? Seriously, cheers Pea, from you that means a lot. Although we disagree on some stuff (Hopkins, Toney, etc), I learn a lot from your posts :good

 

I feel as if my top 9 are definitely the top 9 of the last 25, a solid undebatable top 9 that are clearly better than the rest. After 9, it becomes very debatable I think, so many good fighters that it's difficult to choose between. I wouldn't dispute any order changes within the top 9 or after, but I definitely wouldn't change any of the 9 guys I have as the top 9.

 

Camacho is a very difficult guy to place. I wouldn't argue with your assessment of him, I just think between '83 and '92 he was pretty special.