Top 10 by Decade - Divisional Ranking Experiment

Rumsfeld

Am loving this thread. Personally more interested in the traditional divisions, so looking forward to welter and lightweight and hopefully featherweight as these divisions go back to boxing's greatest eras. But am interested in whatever you post.

 

am keeping track of who beat the top men in a weight class for a decade--

so far four men have beaten three men who were best (other than themselves) in a decade--

1---Muhammad Ali--beat Foreman at heavy in the 1970's, Patterson (and also the more worthy Liston) at heavy in the 1960's, and Moore of the 1950's at light-heavy.

2---Rocky Marciano--beat Louis of the 1940's, and Charles of the 1950's at heavy, and Moore of the 1950's at light-heavy.

3---Ezzard Charles--beat Louis of the 1940's at heavy, Lesnevich of the 1940's at light-heavy, and Moore of the 1950's at light-heavy.

4---Joe Louis--beat Schmeling of the 1930's & Mauriello of the 1940's at heavyweight, and John Henry Lewis at light-heavy in the 1930's. (*I earlier screwed up by mis-remembering Rosenbloom as #1 in the 1930's, so I corrected this to add Louis)

Robinson probably will only have Gavilan as a top of the decade man he beat.

Quite a few will have two, and I hope to total them up when finished.

Joey Maxim and several others (Giardello, Archer, Jones) also beat men who led in three decades, but this is because Robinson brings in two different decades, and the two middleweight Joey's beat him in his forties. Jones, though, is impressive, especially for a mere contender, with wins over Robinson and Gavilan.

Carmen Basilio is going to be fairly impressive on this basis I think, with wins over Robinson, and Ike Williams, probably the best at lightweight in the 1940's. Carmen also lost a close decision to Gavilan and had Gavilan down, and so came within an eyelash of joining the exclusive beating the best of three decades club.

Some of this assumes Gavilan wins at welter in the fifties. I think he will, but we will see, hopefully.

 

"flash-in-the-pan explosive short runs"

I think this is a mixed metaphor for what happens. "Flash-in-the-pan" refers to a misfire in which the gun didn't go off. This really doesn't apply to Marciano and Conn and some others over the years. They didn't have longevity, but certainly could beat the best, so explosive short run is an accurate description. Of course there are those like Ali, Louis,and Robinson who had explosive, and long, runs, but the distortion comes with the guys like Folley and Machen who hang around fairly near to the top for years but never beat the best.

On Robinson, I think your rating is about right. My problem would be with those who automatically give him the #1 middleweight ranking off his overall career with his domination at welter burnishing a somewhat in and out middleweight resume.

 

What jumped out to me was his pronunciation of the word junior.

 

It is a damn shame that we can't do such analysis for earlier decades. Fighters like Bob Fitzsimmons, Tommy Ryan, Barbados Joe Wlacott, Harry Greb, and Mickey Walker would have made for some interesting results!

 

Your light heavyweight rankings showed the following in my eyes:

John Henry Lewis and Maxie Rosenbloom should be more highly regarded today.

Gus Lesnevich is probably a little under rated.

Archie Moore's resume is just ridiculous.

The depth of talent in the 1950s was just absurd.

Antonio Tarver was significantly better than we are currently admitting.

 

Junior middleweight actually isn't that bad a division. Nino Benvenuti, Tommy Hearns, Terry Norris, Julian Jackson, Oscar De La Hoya, Felix Trinidad, Erislandy Lara, and Saul Alvarez. Not bad for a fifty year old division. I wonder why Ring didn't rank the 60s era?

Good job on the video Rummy. Wait a little while and get over that cold before you record the next one though.

It's no Ring Rankings but some guys here in the classic were just putting together an annual top 10 ranking for heavyweight going back to the 1880s. https://www.boxingforum24.com/threa...eight-ratings-1882-1922.604187/#post-19087339 If they can do that for heavy I don't know what's stopping them from doing the other seven original weight classes.

 

Was just looking at Heavyweight Action in the hopes that they had annual average height data. Didn't find that, but they ranked the heavyweights by decade and all through history using Ring Rankings the same as Rumsfeld is doing. Their top 100 through 2011 is actually pretty decent, given a cursory glance. At least the top ten looks good, if you discount Floyd Patterson being ranked #4. http://heavyweightaction.com/Ring Ranking Totals.html

Huh, you know with the 48 points Wlad picked up between then and his retirement he'd be ranked #4 now on an updated list. Bowe, Liston, and Vitali seem a little low, but they were on top for such a relatively short time and this list skews toward longevity. Still, worth a look.

 

Thanks again for all your hard work.

I am still studying the welterweights, but an initial question did pop up for me.

Robinson is on the boxrec list of The Ring's Annual rankings, and the 1981 Ring Record Book list of The Ring rankings, still credited with being welterweight champion in 1950 (certainly fair enough as he defended the title that year.)

Well, does that give Sugar Ray an extra ten points, which would move him into the #1 all-time spot among the welterweights? And if not, why not exactly?

*another point on Robinson, he was not rated at all in 1943 due to military service. That year would have raised his total quite a bit, probably 9 points, and certainly 8, which alone would move him to a #1 tie all time with 8 points and #1 all by himself if 9 points.

 

Thanks for the explanation. Not surprisingly for an old guy, I had forgotten that.

But I do think my point stands that his military service in 1943 probably cost Robinson being #1 all-time at welter.