Rating John Henry Lewis over Marvin Hagler

These are all fighters ranked at the time they were beaten? Either way I wouldn't give much of an edge, if at all, to Lewis. Also, unless we're basing ATG rankings purely on who a fighter beat while discounting dominance, consistency, ability, losses, etc I don't think the case can be made for Lewis over Hagler.

Are your rankings going primarily by record?

 

I don't know if Lewis deserves to be rated over Hagler, but I do believe that he is a vastly underrated and probably forgotten fighter in many circles. One thing is for certain, whoever deserves to be rated over the other in this comparison, the margin can't be too wide.

 

I just checked boxrec, and apparently Elmer Ray was a 3-4 nobody at the time Lewis beat him... Assuming of course, this info is correct.

 

All Slapsie Maxie fights took place in the bay area and received excellent coverage from Harry B. Smith San Fran Chronicle. John Henry completely dominated and outclassed Rosenbllom save for the first fight when he was only 18.

 

That's reasonable. I agree that Lewis should probably be rated a little higher than #17 at LH. I thought it was unbelievable how he turned pro at age 16 and compiled 110 fights by age 25, especially considering the comp he fought and having the claim to being a world champ. Another thing that jumps out at me, is that most of his defeats came between ages 16-21, and mainly against good fighters.. He was also only stopped once in over 100 bouts, and against the greatest heavyweight puncher of all time.

 

I don't know if he belongs in the top 10 either, but there's a lot of slots between 10-17. I think somewhere between 12-15 is probably a reasonable range, but that's without getting into a lot of in-depth analysis of everyone else.

 

Yeah, to be honest I really don't know for sure how to rank Hagler or Lewis in their perspective weight classes. I'm not sure that ranking Lewis at 13, would transcend into rating Hagler at 5 in his own division. I think its a bit more complicated than that.

As a sidenote, I think that the LH division is probably one of the hardest in terms of rating fighters. You have literally dozens of great fighters who's resume's are actually very close in terms of quality acheivements and the lines that separate them, are either very thin, blurred or virtually non-existent.

 

I've never done a pound-for-pound list.
And I cant make sense of most of the ones I see, anyway.

Hagler was one of the greatest of modern times, but I believe John Henry Lewis was great in what was generally a more competitive era.