Top Fifty All-Time Great at 175lbs

John Henry Lewis

There's loads to like about Lewis and not least is his defeat of Maxie Rosenbloom at the weight from 1933. Maxie was champ at the time, low blows may have played a part (this needs a further look). The rest of their contests spill over into HW by the rules i've set myself (And were considered there) - also by the rules i've set myself, Lewis may be legitimately unbeaten at LHW.

His other pre-title comp is good because the era is deep, but he certainly didn't make a huge splash versus ranked men. Fred Lenhart appears to have been just inside the top ten, as was Young Firpo, although Firpo appears to have been unlucky in getting just a draw - or fairer to say, a draw was maybe the best Lewis deserved. Lou Scozza is a nice name to have on the resume, but Scozza was 1-4 going in, so a nice scalp for a young fighter but probably not that significant. In '34 he beats Tony Schuco at the garden, a big win, dropping him in the process - Schuco was ranked highly. So he's 3-0-1 against ranked guys pre title (corrections welcome), but two of those wins are big.

In '35 he finally gets Olin in the ring and beats him non-title before beating him for the championship. He stops Jack Fox, beats #3 Jock McAvoy on points. A non-title draw with fringe guy George Nichols isn't great, but he's busy as all hell, because there's a fair bit going on at heavy. Shucco (by stoppage) and Al Gainer (#1) follow in quick succession and that's probably that generation dealt with. He then gives Len Harvey an absolute hiding in a routine defence in England, then his eyes really start to swivel for that HW dough.

A 1937 rematch with Olin is a stoppage win no less, there's a meaningless 1938 defence versus the unranked Emilio Martinez and one final outing against old foe Al Gainer, by then slipping.

He might have been a little lucky to get a draw a couple of times, but he is basically unbeaten as a light-heavyweight. In tandem with the above Ii think that's definitely worth a bump to Tier III.

 

Stevenson ain't making my list friend. I agree with you though that Kovalev is a bit cheeky.

 

Solly Krieger x2
Fred Apostolini x2
Honey Boy Jones


Generally he held a weight advantage over these boys, but it tended to be around 5lbs, and probably wasn't that significant. One loss, to Teddy Yarosz, but after that he hit some kind of horrible beast mode against a very high class of foe.

 

Nobody has any feeling about the bottom 7 or 8 guys and who should be there?

 

Aye, middleweights and world class competitors competing at LHW against a super-middle. Good results, but clearly fights at LHW.

Still, horses for courses.

 

I'd happily introduce Clark but here's my problem: even his 175lb fights were fought at heavyeight. His defeat of Kid norfolk (and he did lose that series overwhelmingly) was at 175lbs but was fought for a heavyweight strap. I've treated it as a heavyweight contest. I believe that now was a mistake, but it's sort of been done.

I think i'm also right in saying that he never beat Langford at 175?

I would quite like to be persuaded - what would you say are his keynote wins at the weight? I think i'm right in saying you turned up a lot of Clark's unknown fights, including his domination of a green Levinsky?