Excluding the obvious top 3 (Greb, Langford, and Charles), what fighter has the best resume of opposition? Archie Moore, Ray Robinson, Jimmy McLarnin, Barney Ross, Benny Leonard, Emile Griffith, Muhammad Ali, etc. Who deserves 4th place honors?
You could argue Robinson ahead of Charles in terms of quantity actually. Those would be the top 4, with likely Armstrong and then the likes of Leonard, Ross, Canzoneri, McLarnin, Moore, etc coming next. Guys like Walker and Barbados Joe had great resumes going through the weight classes as well. Ray Leonard should be rated very highly in terms of top wins, but his quantity doesn't match the others. Duran fought at a high, though inconsistent level at parts of his career and weights he didn't have any business being so successful at. And when included with his prime, very consistent career from LW to early on and up to the Leonard fight at WW, his resume looks all the more impressive. Those kinds of guys, though Griffith is a damn good shout resume-wise in terms of second tier elite ATG's.
So based purely on their resumes, a top 5 list would look like: #1. Harry Greb #2. Sam Langford #3. Ezzard Charles #4. Ray Robinson and then who at #5. Armstrong?
In modern time he stands out, fought everyone, great record, I can think of many others before him that had greater resumes but in the lat 20 years Chavez stands out
Whitaker is up there with him but both aren´t on the level of a Charles, Langford, Greb. Now that I think about it DLH and Pacquiao are also two fighters of our days who met the best fighters around their weightclasses. Both aren´t near the best but still.
Charles was far above his best weight and past prime, a good victory for marciano but hardly compares with charles resume of marshall, burley, moore,maxim as well as beating louis and walcott past his best weight There resume aren't even close
Barbados Demon Joe Walcott, Mickey Walker, Archie Moore, SRR, Canzoneri and Armstrong. Holman Williams and Lloyd Marshall both have excellent resumes.
Agreed, Pep should be thrown in as well. I recently ran across a composite of all boxing rankings (you know-Ring Mag, historians so on and so forth...) that had Pep list as #4 all time. Almost forgot-Tunney!