Please Participate--All-Time Middleweight Survey--POLL CLOSED!

Then keep your comments to yourself.

:smoke

 

Steele never really distinguished himself as the best MW of his era, and in fact failed when he tried to. It doesn't seem to make sense that he would be the #2 guy of all time if he might not even have been the #2 of just his decade.

 

You're referring to his second fight with Fred Apostoli (the same guy that was TKO'd by Steele earlier in his career) I assume? The fight where Steele broke his breastbone and was TKO'd in the 9th? Right after the sudden death of his mentor Dave Miller? After over 100 fights against world class opposition? C'mon, it's pretty clear that, although Apostoli may have always been a bad matchup for him, Steele was at the end of his ropes by that point. Up until then he was one of the most consistent performers of the era, and one of the most impressive fighters of that era that I've seen on film.

The other fighters in contention are....?

And by the way, I don't necessarily believe he was the 2nd greatest MW of all time, just by the criteria I layed down.

 

Wasn't that kind of the idea of this thread, though?

 

Yeah, but that's pretty much impossible to do accurately. Do you base it solely on their success at MW? If so how about a guy like Al McCoy? He was a very successful champion, after all.

Head to head ability? How about Roy Jones? He didn't accomplish much, but he'd have given any MW fits.

Their success at higher weights? How about Ezzard Charles or Archie Moore? Both guys that are among the very best P4P fighters of all time who started off at MW.

How do you do it? My revised list was based on a specific criteria because the first was so muddled that it ended up making little sense.

 

Those fights with Apostoli don't really do that much for Steele. He stopped Apostoli in his 7th pro fight. When they fought at their peaks, in 1938, Apostoli destroyed Steele. Steele was 26 and basically that was the end of the line for him. He was at the top for about three years.

 

That, and the Hostak fight.

Actually, the majority of his fights weren't against world class opposition. He spent most of his career padding his record at the clubfighter level, and had only been fighting against world class comp. for a few years.

I don't see how it was "clear" at all, given that he had scored what was considered among his best performances a few months earlier against Ken Overlin, who was never stopped otherwise in his career, and this was after Miller had already died. It certainly doesn't seem to have been clear to people at the time. When the fight with Apostoli was made, it was generally considered as being between the two best MWs in the world at that time, and a fight that was some time overdue.

Apostoli - Not only beat Steele, but also stopped the other two title claimants at the time, Thil and Corbett. Only bull**** politics prevented him from actually holding all those titles, which no one else had come as close to doing since Walker retired. Like Steele, he also beat a host of other top fighters in the division (ie: Brouillard, Kreiger, Risko, etc.), but also beat a leading LHW contender in Bettina. Also reportedly gave a peak Zale one of his toughest fights, and almost a decade later was still good enough to beat rated contender Georgie Abrams. If there was a "best" fighter of the '30s, I'd say Apostoli has a stronger claim to be it than Steele.

Hostak - In addition to blasting out Steele in just 1 round, he also stopped Risko and Kreiger, which Steele had failed to do in multiple tries, and had a few other good KO wins.

Marcel Thil - During his heyday he beat Gorilla Jones, Jock McAvoy, Len Harvey, Kid Tunero, Lou Brouillard, and Ignacio Ara, among others.

If you wanted, you could also argue Yarosz, for the reasons Old Fogey mentioned.

One of your criteria was accomplishments though. Wouldn't his failure to certify his claim to the world title constitute a shortcoming in that regard?

 

I liked Steele at #2. Makes for a change. Any love for Zale at all out there?

 

He wouldnt be far out of mine...but Id say for achievements, H2H ability and in the ring dominance shown on film he isnt up to most of the guys mentioned thus far.

 

1. Harry Greb
2. Marvin Hagler
3. Sugar Ray Robinson
4. Mike Gibbons
5. Carlos Monzon
6. Eddie Booker
7. Bernard Hopkins
8. Tommy Ryan
9. Mike O'Dowd
10. Jake LaMotta

If you don't know who Eddie Booker is, check his record on boxrec. You'll notice that he was a very avoided man. Archie Moore had the courage to fight him 3 times but never beat him. Booker was never KO'd.

 

His opposition wasn't great but on the contrary, I think he looked brilliant against them (most of them). The same is said of Wilfredo Gomez and Bob Foster.

With modern fighters it's easier to pick out faults because they're so well documented, so you can say Hopkins was decked here or there and looked bad against whoever. But even Ray Robinson looked bad, quite a few times.