Who is the Greatest British fighter of All-Time?

What about SPX then ? Did anyone ever buy an SPX tracksuit or trainers ?

 

Ken Buchanan is my #1

 

No Scottish bias at all then?

 

my favourite is nigel benn, the greatest is hard to choose from fitzimmons if you class him as british

 

Ha ha, i've been found out!

If Im being honest TFFP your list is pretty much spot on although I would make Buchanan 4th.

It was easier to tell who were the real rulers before all these belts appeared. 20+ years ago and more you did not win a world title and have a long reign unless you were absolute class, now its possible to hold onto a belt for a long time without facing real opposition.

This is great for the fighter as it makes them wealthy in a lot of cases but in terms of legacy its very hard to put an undefeated Calzaghe higher as for a long time his opposition sucked.

Not saying for one minute Calzaghe aint a great fighter but had he consistently faced the best over the last 10 years, even with a loss or two he might have been higher on your list

 

Yep, exactly. This is the reason I find it difficult to rank modern fighters over some of the old timers, unless they have an exceptional case, like Lennox Lewis

They fight a couple of times a year, so less fights are made. Less fights are made anyway, due to politics. It is very easy to pickup an ABC, therefore being a champion doesn't mean as much

It's very difficut for anybody to do these days. For Calzaghe to have made the top 5 he would have had to beat Ottke and Beyer to unify the division earlier in his career (not really his fault), fought Hopkins earlier (no fault of his own here), put up a good fight against RJJ (Jones didn't want it anyway), move up to LHW earlier and have beaten guys like Tarver and Johnson

Which just illustrates the point, politics makes it very difficult.

 

In Ken Buchanans instance he had to travel to the baking hot heat of San Juan, Puerto Rico to fight outdoors to get his title shot. Thats what makes his win all the more remarkable.

How many modern Brits could have pulled that one off?

I suppose the fights will always be where the money is and like it or not that has often meant the US for the biggest fights.

 

Most of the old guys would fight at home in the UK, before moving onto the US. There wasn't such a strong European scene, as there is now, so there was nothing to stay for and the money was made in America. You couldn't pack out a football stadium fighting a can like now

You had to fight tough competition, and often, to make money. No easy pay days

You'll find most of these guys fought in the US, if not all of them

 

Bob Fitzsimmons as others have said is the clear choice among the gloved champions.

If we include great pound for pound British fighters of the bare knuckle era such as Jem Mace and Tom Sayers then the picture becomes a lot more complicated.

 

well I need to brush up on my boxing history, but I still wouldn't suggest the likes of Ricky Hatton and Frank Bruno to be up there, laughable.

thanks for the insightful posts from the likes of TFFP.

I've always had Buchanan number 1, but admit to not knowing enough about the likes of Wilde and Fitsimmons. So i'm bias. The only guy from the last 20 years that should be in that company is Lennox, surely?

 

For much of the 19th century Britain was the meca of boxing and the top American fighters had to come here.

 

I wasn't aware of that, my knowledge pre-1900 is poor. I always think of Wilde fighting in the States later in his career, but I suppose it also true he fought Americans in the UK. Also Fitzsimmons doing virtually all his work there, although he was never based in the UK to begin with.