And are they better than these guys, my pick of the fighters than he shared an era with but didn't fight? In no particular order: Charley Burley Ezzard Charles Archie Moore Holman Williams Jimmy Bivins Jack Chase Lloyd Marshall Cocoa Kid
True, but i'm pretty sure Charles was doing time at MW when SRR was. Also, SRR was in negotiations with Moore over a fight at LHW which never happened (he priced himself out of it apparently). Besides, i'm sure they could have fought at a catchweight. And i'm not neccesarily holding it against him that he didn't make all of these fights - just wondering how his best competition lines up v the best guys he didn't take on in that era.
Kid Gavilan and Henry Armstrong are the best fighters SRR faced. In p4p sense they are at least as good as any fighter from that list.
I think it's a good thing he never fought Moore. Moore was no slouch, and with the extra weight, Robinson would have been in deep waters against the Mongoose.
Yeah, Moore probably would have beat him. There are another seven boxers in my original list who may have been able to beat him, too.
Yes, that's true. I think SRR is probably the best fighter that ever drew breath. It's just interesting that there are so many holes in his resume as far as his era goes - because some of these fighters were black and obscure he got away with it free from criticism. But I think an argument could be made that the guys on that list could ALL be on a p4p list from that time, say, top 20. Three are a lock for ALL TIME p4p top 20 in my view.
Well if we compare Robinson's resume to Monzon and Hagler we see that they didn't even take one step up while Robinson by modern standards had already taken 2 to get to middleweight. I myself wouldn't call the likes of Moore and Charles holes on his resume lest we consider the likes of Spinks, Qawi and Foster as holes on the others, heck we may as well go to heavyweight seeing SRR was already a couple of divisions up. At Welter, Robinson's peak division, he beat who he had too including bonafide greats. He was about 95-2-1 by the time he last defended his 147 title, must be close to Marvin and Monzon's combines career. I so get your drift tho.
Out of interest are you calling Burley one of the three? Being supposedly avoided doesn't get you into the top 20 P4P alone. There's a heckuva lot better resumes and records around.
I think he looks amazing at MW when he's firing properly. I shudder to think how he must have looked on his best night at WW. He out and out ducked Burley at that weight though. Well, Charles and SRR were at MW at the same time, I think. I may be wrong though And whilst "holes" may be a little strong both Moore and Charles represent "what ifs" as well as the opportunity to make himself "greater", always interesting. In terms of quality, let's say that Burley, Marshall and Jack Chase are similair in terms of quality to Mayweather, Hopkins and Taylor - I don't think it's stretching things - can you imagine a guy fighitng between WW and MW between 2002 and 2007, failing to fight any of these guys and still being seen as the greatest of his era? Especially if they were all very available?
*BUMP* Gr8 Question. I love Ray Robinson's fights, but never really tried to rank his best opposition and compare them to who he never fought that might have been considered great. (outside Burley)
Its a testament to Robinson's greatness that four of the names on this list were light heavyweights when Robinson was a small welterweight.
