#10. Paul Berlenbach #9. Michael Spinks #8. Glen Johnson #7. Archie Moore #6. John Henry Lewis #5. Julio Cesar Gonzalez #4. Callum Johnson #3. Saad Muhammad #2. Marvin Johnson #1. Ezzard Charles Top two are non-negotiable, I tend to swap the order around a bit between three and five. I love the others, but not quite as much.
Tommy Loughran Billy Conn Ezzard Charles Matthew (Franklin) Saad Muhammad Dwight (Braxton) Qawi Jose Torres John Conteh Victor Galindez Mike Rossman Michael Spinks
Glen Johnson Roy Jones Jr. Joe Smith Jr. Julian Letterlough Tomasz Adamek Virgil Hill Julio Cesar Gonzalez Bob Foster Archie Moore Derrick Harmon In no particular order.
- Archie Moore - Bob Foster - Mike Spinks - Billy Conn - Harry Greb - Sam Langford - Matthew Saad Muhammad - Dwight Muhammad Qawi - Tommy Loughran - Dariusz M
Ezzard Charles Archie Moore Billy Conn Willie Pastrano Micheal Spinks Matthew Saad Muhammad Sergey Kovalev Bob Foster Harold Johnson Micheal Moorer
A division containing my three favourite fighters Ezzard - humble, compassionate and a gentleman Floyd Patterson - as above Michael Spinks - delightfully quirky. I love the interview with him after the first Holmes fight. He had a cold and his voice goes falsetto and it was a nice antedote to Larry's (very understandable) ill humour. He was so polite to the media. Also love his joint interview with Saad after he had kayoed Pops Johnson. Again so quirky and funky. Love him. not far behind...Saad Muhammad - what's not to love? Gets a bit trickier for me after that. Apart from the big names I don't really know much about light heavies from the old days so my picks are modern. Virgil Hill always seemed a nice guy. So did Prince Charles Williams. I always thought Leeonzer Barber came across really well - nice smiley kind of fella. Marvin Johnson seemed a good guy. That's eight. I'm fibbing if I claimed to really know any more than that and just filing spaces for the sake of it. But my top three are, along with Johnny Owen, my favourite fighters as men. Then it's a bit of a drop to Tito in fifth place and a massive drop to whoever's in sixth.
Would you believe he slipped my mind... I do like him actually, he has an interesting story and probably made the most of his (relatively) limited ability.
Spinks Qawi Saad Conteh Mustafa Muhammad Galindez Pops Ezz Moore Yaqui Outside of the top 4, they are all interchangeable. My obvious late 70s early 80s bias is quite apparent.