Top 30 fighters P4P from 1980-present

1. Whitaker
2. Leonard
3. Chavez
4. Hagler
5. Spinks
6. Hearns
7. Pacquiao
8. Jones
9. Hopkins
10. Sal Sanchez
11. Lennox Lewis
12. Holyfield
13. De La Hoya
14. Chang
15. Floyd
16. Kalambay
17. McCallum
18. Tyson
19. Barrera
20. Nelson
21. Morales
22. Marquez
23. Toney
24. Fenech
25. Trinidad
26. Lopez
27. Pedroza
28. Holmes
29. Curry
30. Duran

I rate some of Leonard's contender wins at 147 and they definitely make up the complete package in my eyes and as one of his greatest wins is in the 70s, and it's one of those wins that make Ray that very special fighter, I have no probs having Pea only slightly ahead here. If I take their whole careers Leonard goes a place or two above Pea but no more.

Duran makes it in over Pryor. Pryor more consistent during his career, Duran having his best days before, some inconsistency but still has better scalps than Pryor. You could probably argue Starling, Nunn, Mosley, Winky into this place.

Chitalada's reign was too spotty for my eyes. Some lackadaisical performances and arguably lost to the lanky Korean twice. Arbachakov, IMO, just didn't fight enough quality opponents. Lopez has the edge over him in this respect where he has about four good opponents. Out of the long reigns at the lower weights Lopez's, taking into account his application over his career, pips Chitalada, Yuh, Arbachakov, Wonjongkam into the upper echelons. At fly/light fly Lopez Vs those guys all would've been quality fights IMO.

Lopez has the long reign over largely average competition at a redundant division but incredible ability against them. Tito some good scalps scattered over a few weightclasses. Pedroza early career inconsistency and then a long title 'reign' but very close fights with the bet he faced (Lockridge x2) and never beating the no.1 (or if you though he was the man, the no.2) in the division. Toney had close fights or was beaten by the very best, but for pound for pound achievements scores high and has the big win over Nunn.

Holmes would be a bit higher but some of his best wins were in the 70s and he was blown away and beaten (closely, but beaten) by guys higher than him, and I rank Lennox higher than him at heavyweight anyway and Holyfield gets here for his longevity, as well as solid wins at Cruiser. Both were inconsistent in their latter days though, Holmes picked up the Mercer win late on, Holyfield competitive with a top five heavy at nearly 50.

It's a messy and hard job to do this, probably a few placings I can be argued out of and a few I'd refuse to move out of their brackets.

All fighters picked on a mix of resume, achievement, longevity and performance/skillset.

Feel free to pick holes in it. If I can't back it up/you can remind me of stuff/teach me new things/point out where my stoner memory has gone wrong then I'll change it. This was all off the top of the head, very quick 'is he higher than him? no, lower than him? No, okay he's here' sorta' thing

EDIT: Had one fighter in twice. So yeah, ****ed already

 

Solid list all I'm gonna say is two things

1) can't really justify it but I'm gonna claim you have Lewis too high.

2) Marquez, I scored all 3 pac fights in his favour and in fact only have him losing to floyd so I have him considerably higher but I appreciate his value differs depending on your view of his fights.

 

Hopkins/Chavez/Oscar fanboy!:twisted:

Jones/Toney/Pryor-hater!:fire

 

Changed a bit already

1) Lennox is my no.3 heavyweight. He has to be high up. His two losses hurt him a bit but he beat fighters of all shapes and sizes in a variety of different ways, can't punish heavys for not weight jumping so the ones that rank high must've pretty much cleaned out their division. In well over a decade there are about 3 fighters I can think that I would've liked to have seen Lennox face that he didn't. Can't really complain.

2. The John fight was too **** to care about so I go with the official result. No biggie though. Barrera got the better of Morales in their trilogy. Morales better overall resume and whilst 1-2 with Pacqiuao the first fight was a top notch win. Marquez won 2nd and 3rd Pac' fight handily IMO. No.1 at 135 and 130 but not 126 IMO. Right up there though and a hea above Finito for 'greatness'.

In my opinion. Hopefully this debate will provoke some good debate, well more than it has already. Any post I make seems to be controversial nowadays :-( :|

 

Lewis I can go along with on that basis. hard for me to perceive him being above hoya p4p but that might just be me being unfair to heavyweights.

See I think JMM was number 1 from FW - LW and would be at WW if he gets to fight Pacman next. I think I had all 3 mab-em fights to mab as well. I think JMM > mab/em.

 

Cuevas was in '79 was it not? You could probably switch Manny and Tommy, but for me Hearns' wins over Duran, Leonard (2nd fight clearly IMO) and Hill are all pretty spectacular. He loses massive marks for not dealing with Barkley second time round so I could see him behind Manny and probably Jones as well.

I could easily see Fenech>Nelson and the Mexican boys. Hell, I could see Fenech and Nelson behind the Mexican trio. All have their pro's and cons.

Toney could easily be thrown out of the top 50 for being so shite at light heavyweight :deal

 

Blasphemy!!! :yikes

 

Kalambay's middleweight prime wasn't long but he gets humongous kudos for the way he beat McCallum first time. When he beat guys it was via the kind of schooling that made Floyd famous. The Nunn defeat of course sees him suffer. He gets equal credit with McCallum for 2nd fight. Schooled Barkley. Beat Collins and Kalule IMO. Plus ability? He and McCallum are too close to split IMO. McCallum was a brilliant junior middle and middle, also beating Kalule, and Curry, Jackson, Graham, Watson, etc etc but not sure I can have McCallum over Sumbu when they're essentially 1-1 with Kalambay with the winning style of the two. Again, wouldn't argue with Mike>Patrizio and if long reigns are what you like I could see Kalambay out of the top ten. But look at the top ten middles when Kalambay was on top before he lost to Nunn. That's how class he was.

 

Not sure that anyone after Barrera makes my top 100. If they do, it's tight. Floyd is in like, the 70s of my list. Holmes would with Norton, Weaver etc etc on there but he's lower end of top 100.

 

Flea, perhaps you missed a junior bantamweight of some note...

 

I'm digging the list Flea, but littlered is right...nana Konadu deserves a place.

 

Really I shouldn't have included Lopez. Because Watanabe, Khaosai, Lacier, Arbachakov could all arguably be above him. I'd put Chitalada below Khaosai and the other few, as I say his long lineal reign looks great on paper but constant struggles with the weight led to a rather unspectacular period of 'dominance' and Chang beat him the 2nd time IMO. They'd probably all feature in the next few spots, with Pryor as well. As aforementioned Starling, Mosley, Winky and all the above could feasibly make the top 30 and would surely make the top 40.

Toney looks well out of place but depends on how you see the McCallum series (only had him clearly winning the 3rd, well faded Body Snatcher) but his sheer fighting talent and P4P ability see him pretty high for me. Beating IMO Holyfield (faded but great performance) and IMO Peter (first fight) as a fat former middleweight past his own best by years is damn noteworthy IMHO.

 

You know I'd love to agree with ya', I really would. But if I make room for Nana Yaw then Moon would deserve a place. And if Moon deserves a place then.....well you know :hey