Who is the GOAT of 140?

Whoops. My bad. You're right, never noticed it when I was checking his BoxRec. In all honesty, I'm not all that well-read up on Larkin.

 

It's Hawk Time! Aaron Pryor's best wins at 140 with context and Ring ratings in chronological order: Alfonso Peppermint Fraser (former champion and the first man to beat Locche at 140, past prime, 1-2 in his last 3, and unranked), Antonio Cervantes (2x 140 champion, one of the greatest fighters at the weight, past prime, but still the best in the division, still a champion, and still had enough in the tank to put Pryor down in the 1st only to crumble to the pressure in the 4th, good win), Lennox Blackmoore (ranked 3rd by The Ring, good contender, KOed in 2 by Pryor), Dujuan Johnson (then undefeated, ranked 3rd by The Ring, lasted 7 rounds), Miguel Montilla (ranked 4th, capable Dominican contender who had previously gone the full 15 against Cervantes in their 1st fight, lasted 12 rounds against The Hawk), Akio Kameda (unranked, undefeated and holder of the Japanese welter title), Alexis Argüello (I don't think I need to convince anyone of the greatness of El Flaco Explosivo, 3 weight champion the power-punching Nicaraguan was making his challenge for a historic 4th divisional title with him and Pryor producing one of the greatest fights of all time, however Pryor's outstanding performance and perhaps his whole career is called into question because of 5 seconds of audio caught by the HBO mics when Pryor's trainer, the infamous Panama Lewis was heard saying "Give me the other bottle, the one I mixed", which then rejuvenated a tiring Pryor), Sang Hyun Kim (ranked 5th, holder of the OBPF title, the southpaw veteran was felled in 3 by The Hawk), Argüello a second time (this result was more definitive than the first and Manny Steward was Pryor's trainer this time and there aren't claims of cheating for this fight, though it's arguable Argüello was past his prime and that the split from Futch made him less prepared, nonetheless though, Argüello was still one of the best talents in the sport and a HOFer), Nick Furlano (an unremarkable and unranked Canadian fighting Pryor for the newly recognised IBF belt following Pryor being stripped of his WBA belt), and Gary Hinton (ranked 8th, holder of the IBF USBA 140 title, solid contender). By now, Pryor's life is ravaged by his drug addiction and he is soon stripped of his IBF belt for inactivity. He would later mount an ill-planned comeback at 147, where he would be TKOed by Bobby Joe Young, his only loss. Pryor was WBA and lineal champion, however never unified with the WBC belt, which was held by, in order, Saoul Mamby, Leroy Haley, Bruce Curry, and Billy Costello during his reign at the weight. Overall, Pryor defeated 3 fellow champions and defended his title against Ring ranked opponents in 5 of his 9 defences.

 

That's fair, I was overly harsh on Chavez and light on Pryor. Pryor did reign over a bad division, maybe the worst in the history of the 140 division actually the more I think about it, that is fair to say, I think it's safe to say that the division Chavez reigned over was better overall but it was still quite rare for him to fight a top 5 opponent, even if the top 5s of Pyor's division were worse. Pryor never really wanted to fight at 140 in the first place weirdly, he was a natural LW but knew it would be harder to get a title shot, and he wanted to move to 147 as early as 1982, when he was meant to challenge Leonard for his titles rather than Arguello. Actually, both men's reign at 140 were cut short by substance abuse issues, Pryor by drug addiction and Chavez by alcoholism, both were courageous brawlers who exerted relentless pressure and carried massive power, and both of their biggest wins are clouded by controversy. Chavez deserves more credit than I gave him, and Pryor probably deserves less.

 

Okay, I can tell this thread has run out of steam, but anyways, I thought I'd offer up my top 20 140lbers. It's a bit rough, and I'll probably change it a fair bit in the not too distant future, but, as it stands:

1. Nicolino Locche
2. Barney Ross
3. Tony Canzoneri
4. Julio Cesar Chavez
   
5. Jose Napoles
6. Antonio Cervantes
7. Wilfred Benitez
8. Jack Kid Berg
9. Aaron Pryor
   
10. Carlos Ortiz
11. Tim Bradley
12. Josh Taylor
13. Terence Crawford
14. Kostya Tzsyu
15. Ricky Hatton
16. Eddie Perkins
17. Duilio Loi
18. Carlos Hernandez
19. Saensak Muangsurin
20. Tippy Larkin

 

Yeah, I really struggled to rank Bud properly, I wanted to do him justice because I love watching him fight but at the same time acknowledge the fact he reigned over a very weak 140 division. He did go undisputed and there are a couple good wins in there like Postol and Beltran, but at then end of the day when Dulorme and Hank Lundy qualify as good contenders, that isn't a division seeing its best days.

 

I think I definitely have Tzsyu too low, but I don't think he's top 5, his win over an ageing Chavez was good, and him making Zab do the chicken dance is always a fun watch, but Zab was also a massive underachiever and I'm not sure how strong the division was at the time, he was also KOed by Vince Philips at 140. Is his record better than the likes of Locche, Napoles, Ross, Canzoneri, or Benitez, who all have wins over fellow top 20 140lbers? I'm not even sure his record is better than Bradley's, who beat Holt, Lamont, Witter, Alexander, and Casamayor. Kostya's best wins are Zab (good win at the time but hasn't aged gracefully), a past-prime Chavez, Hurtado, Miguel Angel Gonzalez, Sharmba Mitchell, and the euro-level Urkel. Good wins but not exactly a murderer's row either. I could maybe see how he could be ranked highly H2H, but I'm not sure which fight could be used to prove that and he has losses to Phillips and Hatton dragging him down a bit.