Ricardo Lopez at Flyweight.

Some good titlists around.

Sure, he was good enough to hold a strap, if that's the question. I don't think he'd be the wonder-making some make him out to be, and it's amazing how often he crops up on ATG flyweight lists...people really really want him to have been a flyweight, it's strange.

 

Why wouldn't you recognise them?

 

Yeah, since, it hasn't been designated flyweight though. So not acknowledging them since then is like not acknowledging...snow or fish.

 

I guess it would be like pretending snow doesn't exist for the purposes of building snowmen...

How bout everyone below bantamweight?

 

Well I suppose what i mean is that it's strange to want to ignore the history of the 108lb division for some reason. It does seem very bizarre to me and I don't really see any logical reasons for doing it.

I also don't see any reason at all to ignore -for these purposes only- the existence of the smallest divisions and I don't think it would happen with any other divisions.

Though there is a historical precedent actually and some people, somewhere, we could actually ask. Some people in writing totally ignored the existence of superfly for a while, Ring among them. They just lumped everyone into bantamweight and pretended they were all in that division. Ended in disaster of course, because the smaller fighters just didn't box the bigger ones - so you would have a your divisional #2 and it would be impossible for him to fight the divisional #1. It was a total cluster****.

If you were doing it historically I suppose you could do it as a sort of mini pound for pound list. But I can't imagine any reason why you'd want to apart from laziness, being frank. It seems weird to just ignore -for these purposes only- the existence of two boxing divisions (more) with their own champs and history.

 

It's definitely surprising to me - in fact I don't think i've ever heard of anyone "drawing a line" below cruiserweight and declaring everyone over that a heavyweight, even though "historically" this is also a recent development?

You know of people rating, cruiserweights strictly as heavyweights?

Yeah, I just did the classic 8 (7 so far). But what I haven't done is ignore super-welterweight and include it in the middleweight division appraisal, which would be the equivalent here (and would be a really freaky thing to do, I think).

 

Like, they had a hybrid ratings system independent of the individual ones as for superflyweight, or they did an ATG top 10/20/whatever including the active cruiserweights?

Well I wouldn't want to set myself up as an arbiter of what's valid...

...but why?

Why not just rank the cruiserweights?

 

I think I remember that yes, not as an at the time thing but retrospectively.

Total disaster though right? Looks awful.

That's because a return to eight weight classes might be a good idea (maybe) but just pretending super-middle weight doesn't exist for the purposes of rankings makes literally no sense. Like it makes no senses at all. Which is pretty much what i'm getting at.

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The point, I would say, is that ranking 105lb fighters alongside 112lb fighters is ranking two fighters alongside each other where one has an ineffable advantage over another that is designed to be ironed out by weight-classes. That is, the purpose of weight classes in boxing - to provide an even playing field - is being denied. That type of list is called "p4p". So you're either, kinda, rating all fighters on dominance or relative quality of opposition beaten or you're ranking them "head to head pound for pound" which is just a ballache, or you're ranking the list of the most skilled fighters seen below 112lbs. This last one is arguably the best option but it does chip away a bit at what objectivity exists - which might direct you to option one, dominance/relative quality of opposition beaten but both these methods still beg the question why? Why not just do what you've done for the welterweights: organise who you think the best/greatest ones are in order and say "there, something like that." It allows comparable method between the weight classes and it offers equivalent respect to each one. It doesn't force unfair comparisons upon list-makers or fighters. It's just better so the other thing seems odd.

Anyway, this is a line of argument that's definitely gone on too long i think you'd agree.

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