So , who do you think is number 1 in every weight division ?

****, i forgot Cruiser. I'll put up Rocky Marciano tops with Holyfield/Dempsey locked for honorable mention.

 

I've put mine out there. Can we see your list this time?

If I recall correctly, the last time you put up a list it was almost an identical match to my own so I know you to be a very solid list-maker aswell.

I guess we have to go our separate ways then. I think Tommy Gibbons was slightly better than Conn and Loughran. There's very little separating them in my book anyway so I can accept a different point of view from mine.

As for Robinson, it's not that I've placed him outside the top ten, I didn't put him in that list at all. I'm in the practice of consigning fighters respectively in the division I feel they fought best at. If I were to put Robinson anywhere in the middleweight class, he'd be first second or third.

 

So you feel Mayweather is better at 147 than he was at 130?

 

thanks

 

There are so many great fighters in each division, so I hesitate to pick out one for each, and I'm bound to change opinion on at least some of these. But here it is (THE EIGHT OLD SCHOOL DIVISIONS ONLY) :

Heavyweight JOE LOUIS
Light-heavyweight SAM LANGFORD
Middleweight HARRY GREB
Welterweight JOE WALCOTT
Lightweight BENNY LEONARD
Featherweight ABE ATTELL
Bantamweight PANAMA AL BROWN
Flyweight JIMMY WILDE

 

Well, it's impossible to say for sure. I think some of the recent champions were definitely tough enough. You have to give guys credit for fighting so many tough fights, and going long distances though.
If 30 years from now the promoters choose to cut title bouts to 8 rounds and fighters wear 14 ounce gloves and have 15-20 career fights I think we would all see it as a drop in standards.
So, old-timers are due some credit.

But with some of my picks I can just as easily think of another name or two, there have been so many worthy fighters over the last 120 years.

Michael Spinks is a decent choice for number 1 light-heavy, but I favour Langford today (of course Charles, Moore etc. are good picks too)

Marvin Hagler's a fighter I'd' consider at number 1 middleweight, but I'll pick Greb for his sheer level of activity and for beating great light-heavies. We all know plenty of others could run those two close though.
Perhaps I'd have pick a few more recent fighters if everyone else hadn't already done so.
I probably see 5 or 6 fighters in each division equally worthy of being singled out has "number 1".

Joe Walcott deserves mention at welter, no else mentioned him. Man was built like a mini-bull, ridiculously strong and powerful, he knocked out men much much bigger than himself.

I'm not any expert on the lower weight classes, but Abe Atell grabs my attention because he had a great string of wins over featherweights, and is described has very clever and very tough. He didn't have many clear losses, but was thought to have thrown most of those he didn't win.

 

While Mayweather was of course more youthful in his exploits at 130, I don't think that he was at his prime weight then. He was fast and snappy, and had all the advantageous tools of a young person, but the catch was that he was too youthful. He was a kid; he had yet to grow into his potential.

To illustrate, I submit the similarly confusing career of James 'Lights Out' Toney. The Toney of the middleweight division was a good champion-- he was inherently fast, defensively capable, and even frequently described as a very heavy-handed fighter (maybe more powerful then than at the higher weights). However, even then boxing pundits knew he would not last long in the division he debuted in. How long was it until Toney started having weight issues? He couldn't have been more than twenty-five. Right then and there it was clear to me he was roughing it out through sheer talent alone. While he spent more time fighting middleweights than any other type of fighter, it is undeniable that he belongs at a higher weight class than middleweight. It was probably either at super middleweight or cruiserweight that he was best.

Floyd is the same. I think he should be ranked above the super featherweight limit. He's fought best against a higher level of opponents at welter so that's where I have him.

 

I've seen all the heavy weights from Joe Louis to the present.None would outbox Holmes in his prime. Marciano or Frazier might wear Holmes down in a war of attrition. Big George might get lucky in the early rounds and give Holmes the bum rush.If Foreman lost to an old Ali, he would loose to a prime Holmes. Jimmy Young gave Foreman a boxing lesson. Ali would take a good ass whipping or even get stopped. Ali was not a good boxer, and was not able to stop Patterson in two or three fights, duh! It took a bad ass Tyson to stop an old , tired Holmes. I see Holyfield as the only fighter who could box well enough and was agile and hostile enough to make a good fight of it with Holmes. Louis was smaller and too slow afoot Lennox Lewis would go just like Cooney, outboxed and beat down by a prime Holmes. Greg Paige, Bowe. Bonecrusher Smith, and the other alphabet champs, were second tier. Sorry , no place in the sun for them.

 

I thought Tim Witherspoon boxed on equal terms with Larry Holmes.
Witherspoon obviously had a lot of talent, and really wasted it.

I think Holmes got caught in a few fights by an overhand right, even from guys who weren't great boxers. Holmes seemed to leave himself open for that punch, SOMETIMES.

I think Holmes beats Foreman though, and I think he beats Lewis too.
Not sure about Ali - Ali was very strong, very tough and had great hand speed.

Holmes was a great pure boxer, he's impressive.
A bit like Jack Johnson and a bit like Gene Tunney.