I guess if you really, really like Marciano, then Louis-Marciano has a shout! Obviously Louis was horribly past his prime. I guess this is the issue with this premise - all-time greats usually establish themselves in isolation in their division by beating the best of their era so having the two greatest fighting at the same time and in their primes is highly unlikely. That's what makes Charles-Moore so extraordinary. Both met in their actual primes but Moore established himself as one of the two greatest in light-heavyweight history past his physical best.
As a prime-for-prime matchup, I like Robinson-Gavilan better, but SRR v Armstrong is a legit shout as no. 1 v no. 2 in WW history and p4p history, so it's a great shout!
I personally wouldn’t have them 1 and 2, but Carbajal-Chiquita is one of the more plausible examples in the modern era. At the time he fought Lopez, there was an argument (probably H2H rather than resume) that Rosendo Alvarez was the second best strawweight ever.
So is this thread about actual matchups of all time greats or matchups between two fighters who were clearly the 2 best fighters in the same division at the time that they met?
There is an argument that McGovern and Dixon were the two greatest feathers pre Pep. Whatever you think of Fleischer’s ratings, he had them #1 at feather and bantam respectively, while having a policy of only ranking a fighter in a single division. Prior to Chavez, Pryor and Cervantes may well have been #1 and #2 at 140. Starting to clutch at straws a bit. Charles and Moore is still the obvious front runner.
The original idea was about matchups of the two best fighters in the history of a weight division e.g. Charles (consensus no. 1) and Moore (consensus no. 2) at light-heavyweight. But I think everyone agrees that this is an extremely rare occurrence. I could only think of 2 obvious ones - the aforementioned example and Pep-Saddler at featherweight. For that reason, I'm happy for people to interpret it a bit more loosely and include the two best fighters in the history of a weight division at the point they fought (e.g Greb and Tunney were arguably the two best light-heavyweights there had been up to that point in history). As far as just the two best fighters in their division meeting (e.g. Oscar De La Hoya v Tito Trinidad - the two best WWs of their time but neither very high in an all-time WW list), I guess that's a slightly more common occurrence so wasn't exactly aiming at that (still interesting to discuss though!)
Good shout. They were ranked 1 and 2 when the Ring did their division by division all time ratings in the 90s.
http://boxrec.com/media/index.php/Division-By-Division_-_The_Greatest_Fighters_of_All-Time The May 1994 lists are the ones I was referring to. The magazine itself is a good enough read if you can get hold of it, and gives a bit of context for some of the more curious picks. Like all ratings, they are a product of their time. Carbajal #1 at 108 made sense when he was the Fighter of the Year coming off the Fight of the Year win over Chiquita, but looks out of place after Gonzalez winning the series. The 1975 lists throw up Wilde-Villa as a #1 vs #2 match-up. I'm surprised at Villa ranking so highly by that point, although any list that has Jack O'Brien #1 at 175 and Ezzard Charles nowhere to be seen probably fails the crack pipe test anyway. Accepting the "limitations" of the 1975 list, it throws up some interesting examples of highly ranked ATGs fighting each other. #1, #3 and #5 at bantam all fought each other, as did #2 and #4 at feather, #2 and #3 at lightweight, #2 and #3 at welter, #3 and #4 at middle and #3 and #4 at heavyweight. The supreme overlord of 175 (O'Brien) also fought the #1 middleweight. I'm not sure if this is a reflection of how things look if you are working with 40 fewer years of boxing history, or if the ratings fell into the trap of grouping together fighters who fought each other.
Cheer man, that's some good entertainment for a few days then I've already got a few thread ideas using this.
I remember the May 94 issue well - I bought it at the time. Interestingly, it has Armstrong and Robinson 1 and 2 at welterweight so based on that list, it would be another example of the two greatest in a division facing each other. Armstrong placing above Robinson is surprising though.