The BN24 Classic Boxing Hall of Legends

EZZARD CHARLES

This content is protected

"Ezzard Charles was the toughest man I ever fought. I learned what pain was all about when I fought him." - Rocky Marciano.

Inducted At: Light Heavyweight, Inaugural
Years Active: 1940-1959
Lineal Champion: 1949-1951 (Heavyweight)
Boxrec Record: 95-25-1

Archie Moore is almost universally regarded as the greatest or second-greatest light-heavyweight ever to box. Charles is the man who holds the other berth. Imagine, if you will, what it would have meant had Joe Louis and Muhammad Ali shared an era and that Joe Louis had three times beaten Muhammad Ali. Can it even be imagined what that would have done for the standing of Louis, especially if Ali had gone on, regardless, to rule the world as perhaps the greatest champion in the history of his division anyway?

The career of Ezzard Charles prompst such head-scratchings. His record against fellow Hall-of-Legends fighters is a sensational one and further inductions will fatten it. Charles is probably the last fighter to retire who has an argument for having met the very best slate of fighters in history. He beat great middleweights (Charley Burley) great light-heavyweights (Moore) and great heavies (Joe Louis) the last of these the division where he finally raised a championship, sparing us another story of a great fighter denied a title.

But Charles was a lock for the Hall long before.

Click.

 

BILLY CONN

This content is protected

"I've been dreaming of this chance ever since I was a middleweight and whatever happens I'm ready for it."

Inducted At: Light Heavyweight, Inaugural
Years Active: 1934-1948
Lineal Champion: 1939-1941
Boxrec Record: 63-11-1

The quote above relates to the Joe Louis fight, of course, for which Conn is most famous. In many ways the temptation is to dismiss that fame as a foible of weightclass bias and dive into Conn's storied Middleweight career, but Conn's heavyweight run was in no way a failed run at the jewels. He laid groundwork and became inured in the division, all the while developing his punching power. Conn probably was at his most complete in the unlimited division.

But it is heavyweight that leads his charge into the Hall. Conn had no amateur experience and was blasted face first into professional competition in the mid-thirties, as a teenager, breaking into the world-class only a few years later; but he fought then as a middleweight, not a light-heavyweight. It was 1938 before he stepped into the bigger division in earnest and he preferred to do so against old middleweight rival Honey Boy Jones, a clean win in twelve; a decisive victory over journeyman Domenico Ceccarelli followed before a narrow squeeze past Eric Seeling and a raucous, foul-filled loss to old-foe, the 162lb Teddy Yarosz (Conn weighed 168lbs). “Too much Irish” was the call from boxing scribe Regis Welsh in the aftermath, a sentiment typical of the generally indulgent nature of the press when it came to Conn. This loss to Yarosz, however, was the only one Conn ever posted at light-heavyweight; in fact, he went unbeaten over nineteen contests before the fight with Joe Louis.

Click.

 

GEORGE DIXON

This content is protected

"A fighter without flaw." - The National Police Gazette.

Inducted At: Featherweight, Inaugural
Years Active: 1886-1906
Lineal Champion:
Boxrec Record: 66-30-57

George Dixon was a pioneer. As brilliant a technician as his era produced he was as much a pathfinder of boxing technique and style as Tommy Ryan or Nonpareil Jack Dempsey. Alas, the racism that ran rampant in much (but by no means all) of the sports-press of that time fetters, and Dixon still rarely gets the credit he deserves. His record, though, cannot be undermined by something as banal as prejudice, nor his great talent.

His prime lasted an astounding decade. Traveling to England to become the first black man to win a world title, he beat Nunc Wallace to claim the old-weight featherweight title, cementing that claim amidst tumultuous scenes against Johnny Murphy upon his return to America. One of the greatest title runs in history then saw him box defense after defense of either the bantam or featherweight titles.

Dixon made eight successful defenses and won numerous non-title fights before dropping a questionable decision to Frank Erne. He immediately recaptured his title and avenged himself upon Erne before dropping a legitimate decision to Solly Smith (whom he had previously beaten by knockout). By this point he had been the best fighter in the world for a number of years, but was about to be usurped by the coming Joe Gans. Nevertheless, he reclaimed his title, then receiving a questionable decision of his own, over Oscar Gardner, his decline seemingly deepening but Dixon, as always, surprised, adding an additional eight title defenses until Terry McGovern chopped him down in 1900.

Click.

 

BOB FITZSIMMONS

This content is protected

"Whilst physicians were examining him, Ruhlin opened his eyes and faintly asked for water. This was given him as he again lapsed into a sort of stupor. Blood at this time was trickling from his ears and nose.”—The San Francisco Call

Inducted At: Middleweight, Inaugural
Years Active: 1885-1914
Lineal Champion: 1891-1895; 1897-1899 (Heavyweight); 1903-1905 (175lbs)
Boxrec Record: 61-8-4

Nobody hit like Fitz.

He beat world champion Jack Dempsey in such one-sided fashion in 1891 that the first chairman of the yet-to-be-founded New York State Athletic Commission, William Muldoon, immediately named him one of the best he had ever seen. For his own part, Fitzsimmons complained that he hadn't become completely warmed upon and dismissed all notions that he might tackle the heavyweight world champion James Corbett. Nevertheless, Corbett would soon find himself crawling one-armed across the ring as though he had been shot in the back whilst lain prone.

Later, Fitz would add the light-heavyweight title.

In between, and during these title reigns, he destroyed people.

Click.

 

GEORGE FOREMAN

This content is protected

"This is easy. This is what I’ve been waiting for."

Inducted At: Heavyweight, Inaugural
Years Active: 1969-1997
Lineal Champion: 1973-1974; 1994-1997.
Boxrec Record: 76-5

George Foreman's first career wouldn't have seen him inducted. Exciting and resplendent as it was seeing him destroy the likes of Joe Frazier and Ken Norton before being out-thought by Muhammad Ali and Jimmy Young, Foreman would have been excluded if his retirement in 1977 to answer the call of Jesus had stuck.

But he came back.

Not, like they always do, ten sheepish months later, fending off the taxman with one hand and an awestruck sparring partner with the other, but ten years later, fat, happy, with a set of arms so enormous his prestigious power had survived the dilution of torque that time never fails to mix up with what is almost always a depressing cocktail. There was nothing depressing about this. Up and up the rankings he slithered, self-deprecating at every step, the menacing "black forest" of Norman Mailer psychobabble no longer, but Big George, funny, approachable, beloved. In 1994 when he stood ring-center and allowed heavyweight champion Michael Moorer to beat the crap out of him for ten rounds, we shook ourselves out of the dream he had passed across our eyes and told one another that this was enough, time to pack it in George;so when George instead chucked out one of those torque-less right hands, more a man passing bread across the table than a trained fighter throwing a punch, and Moorer collapsed to the canvas we were stunned, less so when he could raise no further than his knees by the count of ten. Guys he hit stayed hit.

Click.

 

BOB FOSTER

This content is protected

“I didn't know I was on the floor. Was I on the floor?" - Dick Tiger.

Inducted At: Light-Heavyweight, Inaugural
Years Active: 1961-1978
Lineal Champion: 1968-1974
Boxrec Record: 56-8-1

Bob Foster summarised his stylings beautifully after his destruction of Eddie Cotton as “jab, jab, jab, then wham!” This sounds too basic to be true of a legitimate all-time great, but it is the essence of Foster’s strategy. Technically proficient without being a truly sound, he was gifted with height and reach but took true advantage of neither, fighting in a strange crouched posture that undervalued his 6’3 frame. The point was, Foster wanted to make his opponents hittable. Whether that was through controlling them with his world-class jab to create openings or through initiating exchanges out of which he always – always – emerged victorious, making punching opportunities was the key to his style. This is because Foster is, perhaps, the hardest p4p puncher in the history of boxing.

Foster’s level of competition is sometimes criticised and in this type of company you can understand why. It is true that his was not an era that provided great opposition, but interestingly there were granite chins in abundance. Chris Finnegan had been stopped before, on cuts – but the devastating one-two Foster laid him low with saw him counted out, lurching in the ropes, his brave attempt at Foster ending in a disaster for his brainstem. Frank DePaula was stopped just twice in his career, but Foster turned the trick in a single round with a crackling right uppercut. No softening his man up; no wearing his man down – when he lands, it’s over. Henry Hank lost thirty-one fights in his career but Foster was the only fighter able to stop him. Mark Tessman was stopped only once by concussion and that concussion was inflicted by Foster’s punches. “Punch resistance” was a meaningless phrase for any light-heavyweight that shared the ring with Foster. The only way to survive was to avoid being hit.

Click.

 

JOE FRAZIER

This content is protected

"Lord, you in the wrong place tonight."

Inducted At: Heavyweight, Inaugural
Years Active: 1965-1981
Lineal Champion: 1970-1973
Boxrec Record: 32-4-1

Frazier snorted his way from an Olympic gold medal to the professional ranks without fanfare; perhaps the frustration informed his killing style. He hit the ground running and by 17-0 had dispatched top names Oscar Bonavena, Eddie Machen, Doug Jones and George Chuvalo. The legend that belongs to Mike Tyson and Sonny Liston in truth should be hung upon Joe Frazier who was matched harder and deeper earlier. Buster Mathis, Manuel Ramos, Jerry Quarry and Jimmy Ellis all followed before 1970 was out and then Frazier painted his first legitimate masterpiece by breaking a helpless Bob Foster into two clean pieces in two scintillating rounds. Frazier had mounted one of the most rarefied peaks in heavyweight boxing history.

In the 1971 Fight of the Century, in spite of high blood pressure, in spite of deteriorating eyesight, Joe Frazier turned in arguably the best performance ever filmed at the weight. Watch carefully as Ali, still in possession of some of the fastest feet in the division's history, bounces from rope to rope and the attack dog Frazier moves with him, never more than a half step behind and usually in perfect tandem. T He eventually lost the series to Ali and would later be rag-dolled by the formidable George Foreman. What these two proved between them was that you had to all but kill Frazier to beat him.

Click.

 

JOE GANS

This content is protected

"Joe Gans was the greatest fighter of all time." - Sam Langford.

Inducted At: Lightweight, Inaugural
Years Active: 1893-1909
Lineal Champion: 1902-1908
Boxrec Record: 147-10-16

Joe Gans asked for his 1900 contest with Frank Erne in pursuit of the world title to be stopped due a cut caused by an accidental clash of heads. Having turned professional in 1893, just thirty years after the Emancipation Proclamation, a fourth class citizen in a third-class, despite the unalloyed class he oozed in every move he made it is a massive triumph that he re-emerged to such prominence.

In his 1906 victory over Battling Nelson, Gans was hit low, butted, thumbed, but careful to help Nelson to his feet when he fell; always in the ring his appearance had to be that of a gentleman, especially when the opposition was white. But even good conduct wasn’t going to be enough to bring him back from a quit job and then a dive that saw boxing banned in Illinois. Only one thing could bring a fighter back from that: pure, unadulterated skill. That skill fostered a three-year tear through what I am happy to call the deepest lightweight division in history. He smashed former “colored” lightweight champion Bobby Dobbs to pieces twice in 1901, added to his mastery of George McFadden, having already knocked out the era’s other defensive genius, Young Griffo, waiting patiently for the mistakes he would use to put his supposed peer away in eight. So consistently brilliant was he that despite the color of his skin and the fact that Erne had already repelled him once, a second title fight was made between the two.

“After knocking on the door for ten years,” wrote the Brooklyn Eagle, “Joe Gans, colored pugilist, is at last the lightweight champion of the world.”

It took ten years and fifty seconds; Gans dispatched Erne in the first. The resume that has resulted is certainly the best to be seen at 135lbs and one of the best in all combat sports.

Click.

 

KID GAVILAN

This content is protected

"Gavilan was a hard guy to fight. He did not hit hard but he was fast and would throw punches in clusters. He took a very good punch." - Carmen Basilio.

Inducted At: Welterweight, Inaugural
Years Active: 1943-1958
Lineal Champion: 1951-1954
Boxrec Record: 108-30-5

Kid Gavilan was probably impossible to out-brawl at 147lbs. He had a collection of attributes that flat-out negated that style. Active, poised, a brilliant general and a terror on the inside, he had a granite jaw and an unsurpassed engine that enabled him to out-work and out-think just about anyone who came to him. He had to be outboxed; in his stunning prime in 1951, 1952 and 1953, during which he reigned as the world’s 147lb champion, no welterweight of any style was able to defeat him.

A truly great general, Gavilan forced opposition to wait whether he was taking tiny shuffling steps, waiting, circling, or a mixture of the three. He chose when and how his opposition would fight him, whether he was winning the fifteenth almost entirely with his left hand, or hashing it out up close. As good on the inside as the outside and truly exceptional at controlling which of those distances the fight would be fought at, Gavilan is among the greatest welterweights and fighters in history.

Click.

 

FRANKIE GENARO

This content is protected

"While I never have been credited with being much of a knocker out, I'm just as well satisfied if I can box it through any time without any damage."

Inducted At: Flyweight, Inaugural
Years Active: 1920-1934
Lineal Champion: No
Boxrec Record: 80-20-8

Frnakie Genaro's brilliance was most crystallized in his three-fight series with the puncher Pancho Villa. These two seem to have sapped the far reaches of excellence from one another although here there was never any doubt as to who was the better: Genaro took the decision from Villa on all three occasions. Despite his domination of their trilogy, Villa remained a thorn in Genaro’s side, losing to him but somehow beating him to fights with both Johnny Buff and Jimmy Wilde. Villa then failed to defend against his old tormentor. Their third fight is close enough to wonder if Genaro would have slipped over the line against the Pinoy puncher in a title match, but he certainly would have started a favorite and unquestionably deserved the shot. Either way, Genaro was never lineal.

Fortunately, his great career was defined by Villa but not limited to it. He also defeated many of the finest names from a stacked era, many of whom will be familiar to readers of this series. Valentin Angelmann, Ruby Bradley, Emile Pladner, Steve Rocco and Frenchy Belanger all fell to him at one time or another (though Pladner also once defeated him with an exquisite sounding liver-shot). It adds up to one of the most rendered resumes in the history of flyweight boxing.

Click.

 

WILFREDO GOMEZ

This content is protected

"There was nothing that I could not do. I could box, I could punch, I had defense, and most importantly I had guts."

Inducted At: Other Weight Classes, Inaugural
Years Active: 1974-1989
Lineal Champion: 1977-1982 (122lbs).
Boxrec Record: 44-3-1

A natural puncher even as a child, Gomez harnessed that ingenerate ability to become one of the most destructive hitters in fight history and the undisputed king of the super-bantamweights, drawing in his debut but then knocking out thirty-two consecutive opponents, including, in just his sixteenth professional fight, the excellent strap-holder Dong-Hyun Yum (then 50-2-6). He boxed seventeen successful defenses of this strap, scooping up the linear title in the process, all of them by knockout. To suggest that Gomez was dominant over the field is like saying the Romans did alright in Europe. Gomez was awesome. He was awesome in dispatching Royal Kobayashi in his native Japan with a single punch after just three rounds (a trick it had taken Alexis Arguello, in a career's best performance, five rounds to turn all the way up at featherweight) and he was more than that in dispatching the legendary Carlos Zarate in just five rounds in October of 1978. Gomez did what no fighter down at bantamweight ever did and attacked Zarate directly, out-speeding and out-punching another technical genius and likely settling the question of who was the best box-puncher of that era. Defenses followed, but Gomez's ambition knew no bounds. He moved up to featherweight and met with no less a fighter than Salvador Sanchez. Sanchez was, in many ways, the Hagler to Gomez's Sugar Ray, less natural gifted, bereft of the superstar stylings Gomez enjoyed and the bigger man determined to brutalize his due from the smaller man who earned the bigger purses. For Gomez however, there would be no miracle victory.

Gomez had all the tools, physical, technical and psychological to remain, in his prime, undefeated in any super-bantamweight division you would care to array. Winning eighteen title bouts by knockout, many of them against superb opposition, is an astonishing achievement. Whilst it is true that he ruled over a weaker division than some, he ruled for many years, and with an iron fist.

Click.

 

HARRY GREB

This content is protected

"Dempsey couldn't do anything with me in the ring, and he was trying."

Inducted At: Middleweight, Inaugural
Years Active: 1913-1926
Lineal Champion: 1923-1926
Boxrec Record: 108-8-3

Greb has the best paper resume in the sport's history, and most of the men he defeated were at or near their absolute best when he trounced them, including but not limited to: Tommy Gibbons, Mike Gibbons, Mickey Walker, Gene Tunney, Jack Dillon and Tommy Loughran. Men like Gibbons, Tunney and Walker were at one time or another heartily thrashed by him in non-competitive bouts that underline just how much better Greb was than most of these men; as a middleweight, the great Mickey Walker clearly was not in his class. When he first encountered Gene Tunney, the fighting marine, he beat him as though he was a thief and finished the fight covered in the future heavyweight world champion's blood, himself almost unmarked. Meeting Tommy Gibbons in what was billed as a world title eliminator in their final fight in 1922, Greb beat him so completely and inarguably that Gibbons was considered by the press to have been removed from the title picture having previously been the man deemed most likely to challenge Jack Dempsey. For each of these fights, Greb was suffering from varying degrees of blindness in his right eye.

When he moved up to heavyweight in search of the ultimate of sporting honors, he continued to outclass opponents despite their vast size advantages. Champion Jack Dempsey would never entertain him despite his having defeated many of the men who did or would receive title shots. So great was Greb, his being avoided by the heavyweight champion of the world probably does not encumber his status.

 

EMILE GRIFFITH

This content is protected

"The kids see me come into the gym. I tell them ‘Do this, do that’; they call me ‘champ’ and say they love the way that I train them. They ask me to come back and I tell them I’ll be back tomorrow. It is nice when they call me champ."

Inducted At: Welterweight, Inaugural
Years Active: 1959-1977
Lineal Champion: 1961; 1962-1963; 1963-1966
Boxrec Record: 85-24-2

Emile Griffith is the two-time lineal welterweight and two-time lineal middleweight champion of the world. He also lifted a strap at light-middleweight going 2-1 in title fights at 154lbs with his first and last contest for belts at that weight separated by fourteen years. His first ever title fight was at 147 lbs and was fought less than three years after his turning pro, but by this time Griffith had already served a severe apprenticeship. After beating perennial contender and veteran Gaspar Ortega having boxed just sixteen times as a professional, Griffith was matched twice with the future light-middleweight champion of the world Denny Moyer, going 1-1. Immediately, he was thrown back into the deep end, taking an unpopular decision over another welterweight veteran, Jorge Jose Fernandez, immediately rematching him for a clean win. Florentino Fernandez, the "Ox" followed just a month later, outpointed over the distance and after stopping Willie Toweel in eight and shading the great Luis Manuel Rodriguez in ten, Griffith was deemed ready, faith he repaid by stopping world champion Benny Paret in thirteen to lift the title. After knocking out Ortega, Griffith rematched former champion Paret and was controversially beaten on points. Griffith would win back the title in what was arguably a needless third meeting between the two in a fight that Paret, tragically, would not survive. He was stopped by a huge attack and died of his injuries ten days after the fight. Griffith would later claim that he had left the most brutal percentage of his offense in the same ring which took Paret's life.

Whether or not this is true, Griffith continued to box with genius and surety, a force as high as 160lbs where he defeated fellow inductee Dick Tiger.

Click.

 

MARVIN HAGLER

This content is protected

"War, that's what's on my mind."

Inducted At: Middleweight, Inaugural
Years Active: 1973-1987
Lineal Champion: 1980-1987
Boxrec Record: 62-3-2

Hagler is most famous for his 1985 third-round knockout of Tommy Hearns. Notorious, too, is his final fight, his controversial 1987 loss to Ray Leonard a fight in which, again, he adopted the role of aggressor as Leonard slipped his way to a decision win. But that is not Hagler’s natural style. A stalker, yes, he was that, but more a pressure-stalker than a swarming one as he appeared in those two contests. To put it simply, Hagler was a much better boxer than he was a brawler, and he was one of the better brawlers in the division’s history.

That said, his careful methodology probably cost him the decision against Leonard and let the genius Duran come perilously close to taking a decision from him in 1983; but for the most part, Hagler’s legacy is perhaps the definitive alter to the savagery of the deliberate. The best examples of his true style are likely his two dominations of the direct Mustafa Hamsho. Hamsho, who convinced both media and public that he, of all the ranked contenders, was the best equipped to test Hagler, was in fact the perfect foil for this pragmatic puncher’s style, and in the first fight Hagler slipped, blocked and rode Hamsho’s attack all the while counter-punching him to pieces. The ending was brutal.

But it was less brutal than the rematch, conjured by Hamsho in the wake of some moderate difficulties Hagler had had against the not-dissimilar Juan Domingo Roldan. These difficulties were not recreated by Hamsho who once again was dismantled, this time in just three. This fight, in conjunction with the Hearns war, demonstrates the absurd difficulty borne in matching Hagler. He had an iron jaw, a world-class defence, really good punching power (of his twelve successful title defences he won eleven by stoppage), was a good mover and a wonderful counter-puncher; but when Hamsho and Hearns plant their feet they get destroyed, are out-thundered by a fighter armed to the teeth and in possession of the accuracy to find all but the most elusive targets with sickening regularity; he was a king who brooked no authority.

Click.

 

FIGHTING HARADA

This content is protected

“I am most proud of the fact that I was able to beat a great champion like Jofre.”

Inducted At: Bantamweight, Inaugural
Years Active: 1960-1970
Lineal Champion: 1965-1968; 1962-1963 (112lbs).
Boxrec Record: 55-7

Fighting Harada was a flyweight champion of the world for three months at the end of 1962 going 1-1 with the excellent Pone Kingpetch; but it was bantamweight where he would make his mark Jose Medel defeated him in 1963 but between that time and his title-defeat to Lionel Rose in 1968 he went 19-0 and 5-0 in bantamweight title fights. In terms of quality per-defense, this may be the single greatest meaningful title reign in the history of the division. First though, Harada had to take the championship from Eder Jofre. Harada demonstrated the perfect execution of the swarming style and then claimed ring center in the final third, even surviving a near-disaster when Jofre came for him late. A second defeat of Jofre made Harada a true immortal.

By 1968 Harada’s battles with the weight had become legendary. He had his title ripped from him by Lionel Rose that year and left the division for a tilt at featherweight. He left behind him an astonishing reign and a pair of victories in his defeats of Jofre as wonderful as any held by anyone at any poundage.

Click.