Who is the greatest out of these 4: Holmes, Hearns, Johnson, Whitaker?

I think this is a hard question

Dominance in 1 division: Holmes
Competition: Hearns
Dominance and looking unbeatable: Whitaker

 

Johnson is not obscure. Everybody knows him. And yes, his resume easily compares to Hearns´.

 

I think Whitaker stopped looking unbeatable at welterweight. His footwork was largely gone, he was slower and quite small.

 

The thing about Johnson is he came up short against Moore, Walcott and imo a past prime Charles. In that sense hes similar to Hearns, very good wins but in his career defining fights he came short. He has got the Moore/Charles decisions on his record ofcourse, Hearns should have Leonard 2 to add to his Benitez, Duran etc.

 

He was sporadic at WW, especially against Hurtado, Rivera 1 and McGirt 1. You could blame the cocaine. Still arguably unbeaten after Delahoya with 13years in the game

 

Yep, comparable on first glance but if you take into account that Johnson was at best the same size as those men while Hearns was always the bigger one it looks different. Nothing to take away from Hearns, great fighter but I give the edge to Johnson - and because I rate Charles higher than Duran and Moore higher than Leonard.

 

I thought he edged DLH, although I won´t complain if someone had it the other way. Close fight. So, yes he was unbeaten until Trinidad. But I wrote about looking unbeatable and that he did not. I don´t think he would beat guys like Leonard or Duran at welterweight, I think prime Curry would beat him too there, just to name fighters who were fighting there close to his time.

 

Whitaker.

 

I see your points, near as unbeatable as anyone from 135-140 though, as for the mythicals

Duran : could either way, but Whitaker would do a wonderful job of neutralising. Watch Duran-Benitez and Whitaker-Chavez to see what I'm talking about

Leonard: Whitaker is technically the better boxer, better technical boxers like Benitez/Mayweather Sr made Leonard look but his great speed/athleticism allowed him to get away with. I'd favour Leonard but wouldn't be suprised if Whitaker nicked it

Curry: I think Whitaker is a level above him personally

 

I think Hearns achieved more. Whittaker looked great but his opposition in his prime was good not great. His best wins are over smaller men. His time at 147 is mostly about him making sure he didn't lose.

He's the best fighter of the 1990s but I think he just falls short of Hearns in this one.

 

What? I haven't seen it recently but I'm pretty sure Leonard completely dominated Mayweather Sr from the 3rd round onward of their fight. And Leonard won what I saw as a pretty damn lopsided fight against benitez, of course no one looks great against benitez as he can make a fighter miss so much, but if anything I'd say those two fights show Leonard looked great against technical boxers.

 

You think Harold Johnson deserves to be ranked ahead of Hearns :huh Explain please.

 

Whitaker would be competative with all of them, I think his downfall would be his lower mobility at ww. So all of those guys could catch-up with him due to that. And as good as he was I don´t hink he can win against those guys if he can´t stay away from them.

 

I kinda already have. I rank Johnson´s top opposition higher than Hearns´. He has more depth and was the smaller guy against his best opponents more often than not while it was the other way round with Hearns.

 

Hearns had the greatest wins.