Why isn't Freddie Steele ever mentioned as one of the great middleweights?

Another question is how were Steele and his career rated when he retired? I know that he wasn’t in Fleischer’s top 10 in 1958. He must have been close though.

 

He is?

 

It's funny how my perception of the 30s may have been influenced by mainstream boxing publications. At least, a perception I took away when I was reading them in the 90s and early 00s was that the 20s (Greb, Walker) and 40s (Zale, Graziano, Cerdan, LaMotta + Black Murderer's Row) were great middleweight eras and the 30s was somewhat mediocre, sandwiched in between.

With hindsight, it's a lot like considering the late 80s and early 90s as a poor era because it came between two dominant title reigns (Hagler in the 80s and Hopkins in the 00s). Sometimes no-one truly dominates because of a group of outstanding fighters so no one reigns as long or is celebrated quite as hard. Feels like this is what has happened to the 30s middleweights, including Steele. Thankfully, forums like this and first hand accounts like the ones from Burt act as useful historical correctives. I knew very little about Steele before coming to this site. He's now in my top 10-12 middleweights.