The Fifty Greatest Lightweights of all Time

I consider it silly when people are asking why Gans or Leonard are ranked above Duran or Whitaker. Compare their resumes, they are light years ahead of Duran or Whitaker.

 

Compare their skillset on film. Duran and Whitaker are light years ahead.

 

Past-prime Gans looks at least on par with either Duran or Whitacker in his bouts vs Kid Herman and Battling Nelson, as far as skills or ring generalship are concerned, and with adjustment to completely different styles. Not much footage of prime Leonard.

 

Both look incredible. Gans against Herman and Leonard against Tendler.

But they don't look as good as Pea did against Chavez nor as good as Duran did against Leonard.

They have better resume but I wouldn't favour them over the latter two.

If h2h plays a part in the criteria, it's not a silly question as to why the former two are ranked higher.

 

Is Ad Wolgast 51?

 

Leonard didn't look particularly impressive vs Tendler, as per contemporary writers. Whatever the reason, it's not the best bout to judge his skills. Duran didn't look impressive in some of his lightweight bouts either, and Whitaker had a few other not so impressive performances at the weight.
All four had different styles that you can't compare their skills directly, anyway.

 

I think he looks incredible against Tendler.

Every fighter has different skills, doesn't mean you can't compare and contrast who was a better fighter.

 

Is it because if the lemonade incident. You can't trust anyone from Brooklyn McGrain you should know that.

 

A better fighter is an abstraction. Skills are good, but how successfully you can use them depends a lot on the style (and skills) of your opponent. Like I said, you can find plenty of flaws in Duran's and Whitaker's skillsets they displayed vs certain opponents at or close to 135 pounds.

 

A resume is also an abstraction. Hard to say which wins are better and why.

Is ranking on footage any worse than ranking on resume? It's certainly a lot more fun and interesting to me.

I wanna know how good Pryor is. I'll watch his fights, I won't comb threw his record.

 

I have yet to hear anyone who would claim Duran's lightweight resume being even comparable to that of Gans or Leonard.

 

Ortiz has a better LW resume than Duran imo.

 

Mosley doesn't belong on the top 30, his lw resume is ****.

 

Probably because no one thinks it is.

That being said would De Jesus have been able to defeat the LW operators that the afore mentioned two defeated?