Who in your opinion is the greatest boxer in the history of boxing?

There is NO one greatest boxer in the history of boxing, there's many across the generations. It's like the multiverse. There's far too many variables to be taken into consideration from each era that could either qualify and disqualify someone from being one of the greats. It's not like rating acting or directing, where all you have to do is compare the quality of their acting and films, it's cut and dried direct mano e mano standalone comparison. Film vs Film, actor vs. actor... because it was never intended to be a competition. But because boxing is a competition, there's no possible way to measure how one generation's opponents would fare against another, which is the only way to quantify their level of greatness. Which is an unknowable but very important factor. So the very fact that we can't assess that accurately, it's impossible to tell. Therefore making it impossible to narrow it down to 30, much less 1 GOAT. So it's a waste of time. Sure, there's the eye test, where you judge them based on skill sets. But every fighter has gaps that could use filling. So that comes down to a biased preference. Do you prefer aggressive or defensive fighters? Or a mix of the two? Then what kind of defense do you prefer, come forward defense, or backfoot elusive strict counterpuncher defense? What kind of offense to you prefer? Stalking, pressure, swarming? What about southpaws? Should they be judged the same as an orthodox fighter? Does each style have a greatest? Should a fighter be docked points because there's certain styles that give him issues? Should popular opinion be taken into account? No, casuals lack the esoteric knowledge to judge accurately and adequately. Should fighters get more credit if they know how to deal with an extra difficult style? Then we have resumes, can we compare, no... not accurately. You can draw conclusions, assume and speculate, but that is just that, it's someone's opinion, which doesn't make it fact. So yeah... the right answer is, there is no GOAT.

 

No, it's not a duck, I'm an obsessively nuanced thinker, and clearly from the amount of lists I've made on this site and the amount of effort and thought I've put into them, I do think that gives me a leg up in the ranking things department. Now... which list have I never attempted to compile on here? That's right, a Boxing All Time Greats list. And why is that? Because I simply haven't seen enough footage of everyone in contention and I do not have enough accurate information at my disposal to peruse to adequately assess without just arbitrarily jumping to conclusions. And no, I won't put on airs and make one anyway, going by the criteria laid out by know nothing biased sports columnists who wrote glowing articles about certain guys 90 years ago, back when everyone DKSAB. Nor am I going to base my list around the speculations and assumptions of historians, who read most of those aforementioned columns and articles, but saw little to no footage, when compiling history books covering the subject. Truly determining the greatest of all time, is the definition of unknowable and impossible to gauge. Anyone claiming otherwise, is full of ****. So since I'm not full of ****, because I genuinely don't know the answer, I refuse to name just one. Because there isn't just one.