Packey McFarland retired 70-0 (50kos)

From the top 100 thread:

Records list a single newspaper loss for Packey McFarland to an unknown in 1904, the year of his professional debut. Occasionally described as a fifth round knockout, research has revealed the contest may have been awarded to the otherwise unremarkable Dusty Miller on a foul; McFarland reportedly took his revenge in an unlisted three-round knockout of the single man to beat him. Whatever the detail, he was never beaten again. Fighters of this era fought with great frequency, and McFarland was no different except in that one thing—he did not lose.

Incredibly, this near-perfect record over more than one-hundred fights never brought him a world title, but in meetings with champions of the past or future he was consistently and inarguable the better. In his key year of 1908, he outpointed the future lightweight king Freddie Welsh over ten fast and brilliant rounds before meeting former title claimant Jimmy Britt who he destroyed in six. Britt, who was “outclassed in every department,” had met both Terry McGovern and Joe Gans but labeled Packey the fastest fighter he had ever met. Referee Jack Welch, who had refereed Jack Johnson, Abe Attell and Joe Gans, amongst others, named him “one of the best boxers I ever saw.” Three months later he boxed Welsh to a controversial draw, named a McFarland win in many quarters but a legitimate tie by others, a result the two repeated in London two years later. The London bout was controversial according to the Cincinnati Enquirer’s London correspondent writing that the decision was “hooted from cellar to roof. Never was there such a scene in the club. The decision was unanimously declared the worst ever declared at the club…[E]ven those who wagered on Welsh joined in the demonstration.”

It would be 1912 before he would meet with another champion, this time up at welterweight where he met and bested welterweight title claimant Ray Bronson and then in 1913 Jack Britton, two years before he would lift the 147-pound crown. The wire report notes wryly that whilst McFarland was clearly slipping, finding a fighter to beat him was going to be difficult.

That unknown writer was quite correct. Britton tried again later in the year and once more came up short, and even after two years out of the ring he was able to come back and take the newspaper decision from the active and the great middleweight, Mike Gibbons, settling inexorably any argument concerning which of the two great denied men was the best fighter of the era to go without a title. Between that match and his defeat of Freddie Welsh, McFarland went a listed 20-0-5 and was on the right side of the argument in any meetings deemed to be draws. His victims included Tommy Murphy (credited with wins over Abe Attell and Ad Wolgast), Jimmy Duffy (credited with wins over Freddie Welsh and Ted Kid Lewis), Leach Cross (who beat Joe Rivers and Battling Nelson) and Owen Moran (one of the few men accredited with beating Wolgast and Nelson both).

Sporting an upright stance of varied depth, he owned the most cultured left hand of his era and used it to dominate his competition with a stylist’s joy supplemented by a puncher’s gristle, although it was his speed that really set him apart. So fast at hitting and moving that words like “bewildered” and “uncertain” littered the sports reports of the era in relation to his world-class opposition and that Owen Moran actually laughed at himself whilst he boxed Packey, shaking his head at his own inability to land. Like Roy Jones he seemed to box under different physical laws than that of the opposition—unlike Jones, he got out before the mortals could catch up to him, part of the reason he is listed here, with the truly immortal.

 

Is that Cyberboxing? I believe Senya13 pitched in there.