Per ring magazine rankings what’s the best year on record?

Some time in the early 80`s, when the fab four were at their peek. Hagler wa champ in 1980, Duran beat Leonard in 1980, Hearns beat Cuevas, Benitez was still in his prime, Holmes was world champ, Pryor was in his prime, nothing tops that year. So 1980-81 any time around that period those guys were faster than they are now, but boxing is better than it wa 5 years ago and continues to improve with the Ukranian training methods leading the way.

 

George and i had a good exchange of idea's ages ago on something that sorta paralleled this topic. I had 82 i think it was. actually it may have been in another thread to the one i found but i'll cut and paste my post from June.

https://www.boxingforum24.com/threads/what-would-you-say-was-the-strongest-year-in.669735/

Lets have a Captain Cook my era of 1982 -

Bantam - We have two fringe ATG's in Chandler and Pintor at the top of the pile.

Junior Feather - Not much depth but the GOAT Wilfredo Gomez sitting at the top of the tree.

Featherweight - Not one but two top ten ATG's at the top in Sanchez and Pedroza. Sanchez peak and Pedroza still prime. Decent guys like Lockridge and Laporte in the ten. Nelson emerged vs Sanchez late year.

Junior Lightweight - Camacho and Mayweather emerging hard by the end of the year, solid guys like Chacon, Limon, Navarrete and Boza Edwards going to war and a young Edwin Rosario in the top #5 and soon to campaign at 135.

Lightweight - ATG Alexis Arguello sitting atop the heap. Mancini, Davis and a host of other ex champs in the #10. Rosario making a permanent move there by the years end.

Junior Welter - Peak Aaron Pryor atop the heap considered by some to be the GOAT at the weight.

Welterweight - Peak SRL (who most rate at #2 behind SRR) at the top of the heap coming off a win over Hearns who is still willing to fight at 147 for a rematch. Cuevas and Duran still in the ratings at 147 if not the ring and Curry, McCrory, Starling and Jones all emerging.

Junior Middle - Peak (IMO) Wilfred Benitez ruling the roost. Hearns to dethrone Benitez by the years end. Moore and Ayala Jr emerging and the underrated Kalule about as well who actually gets beaten by McCallum late in the year.

Middelweight - Peak Hagler! A reasonable array of contenders.

Light Heavyweight - Peak Spinks and Qawi/Braxton reigning with freshly beaten Eddie Mustafa Muhammad and Saad in the top #4. Wow.

Heavyweight - ATG Larry Holmes still prime, commonly top #5.

What a period of boxing.

12 guys in McGrains top 100 or 13 counting Jung Koo Chang from lower weights. Most of these were prime or peak.

14 of Ring's 80 greatest fighters of the last 80 years.

How does one reduce that to 10 and define an order?

Spinks prime
Holmes prime
Leonard prime
Hearns prime
Benitez prime
Pryor prime
Arguello prime
Hagler prime
Holmes prime
Sanchez prime
Pedroza prime
Duran aging but about to re-emerge and win titles
Gomez prime
Chandler prime
Pintor prime
Qawi prime

Rough order at that point in time per achievements (in coming days i will find a respectable year end mag rating) -

1. Leonard
2. Hagler
3. Arguello
4. Holmes
5. Hearns
6. Sanchez
7. Pedroza
8. Spinks
9. Gomez
10. Pryor

Via McGrains top 100 career wise with no consideration of time period they were in -

1. Duran
2. Leonard
3. Hagler
4. Arguello
5. Spinks
6. Hearns
7. Sanchez
8. Gomez
9. Nelson
10. McCallum

11. Holmes
12. Benitez
13. Jung Koo Chang

 

McGrain nominated this list -

For names, it's tough to beat 1947/8.

1 - Ray Robinson
2 - Willie Pep
3 - Ezzard Charles
4 - Sandy Saddler
5 - Charley Burley
6 - Kid GavILAN
7 - Archie Moore
8 - Ike Williams
9 - Manuel Ortiz
10 - Bob Montgomery or Old Joe Louis, take your pick

That's crazy actually. Dunno though, they might not all have overlapped right, they were fighting a lot.

 

Yeah there's plenty of stacked years for sure.

 

I think it’s virtually impossible to pick one year. It becomes even more complicated when you have conflicting opinions on which groups of fighters were better.