I'm a huge Walker fan he's one of my favourite fighter's ever.. what impressed you most about his career? Where do you rate him all time? Quick reminder of his career through the weights: -Beat HOFer & WW great Jack Britton. -Beat HOFer Tiger Flowers at MW, albeit controversial .. he still put Flowers down & beat him up a bit.. -Beat ATG LHW Maxie Rosenbloom. -Drew with HOFer & future lineal HW champ Jack Sharkey. As well as a host of other names such as LHW champion Mike McTigue who has wins over Flowers, Loughran, Battling Siki, Jeff Smith etc.. HW contender Paulino Uzcudun , HOFer Lew Tendler, HOFer Dave Shade, HOFer Paul Berlenbach, HW contender King Levinsky.. Fought many other greats like Greb, Corbett III, Dundee, Brouillard, Schmelling, Loughran.. & gave them all a fight... He was totally unique. Great great fighter. Thankful that we have him on tape unlike many others. That left hook to the body man.. "SOBER OR STIFF, I BUSTED THE GUTS OUT OF THE BEST OF THEM" -Mickey Walker
P4P: A little overrated. Welter: Probably a little overrated generally, but about right on this board (top 20 not top 10). Middle: A little overrated. Light-heavyweight: A little overrated Heavyweight: A little underrated.
The draw w/ Sharkey is 1 of the greatest single feats by any fighter in history IMO. His decisive wins over ex-lhw champs McTigue & Berlenbach also get criminally overlooked IMO. #6, behind srr, greb, Langford, Charles, & Armstrong.
P4P #12 all time. WW and MW respectively, based solely on fights contested in those divisions, I can't remember exactly, but in both cases he's top 20, not top 10, on my all times lists.
I would argue that he scored some of the best non-title wins by a champ in either division, though. While still ww champ & weighing a couple lb over the limit, he was roundly credited w/ outfighting reigning lhw champ McTigue in a no-dec. As mw champ, he blasted out McTigue in 1 & battered ex-lhw champ Berlenbach while weighing only a lb or 2 over the mw limit himself.
I think how we determine which weight divison a fight contributes to a boxers ranking at, differs. If I understand you properly, any fight where Walker weighed under or around 147lbs contributes to his WW ranking, regardless of the weight of his opponent. I assign fights to the weight divison they were contested at. E.g. Berlenbach was 174lbs vs Walker and McTigue 2 weighed 172lbs in their 2nd fight. These fights were contested at LHW and as such, for the purposes of my rankings, contribute to Walker's record and ranking at LHW, not MW. P.s. I'm not saying my way of assigning contests to a fighter's standing in specifc weight divisions is better than yours, or vice versa, just that they're different.
I think all fighters should be rated in their True 'main' Division, though I understand too, that a fighter moving up in weight as he gets older, 'IF' he spends a substantial time in it, can be rated at the higher weight. Win or a 'Proper Contested' Loss outside of a fighters division takes nothing away from his Main division rating, it only adds to it. as too all the 'great' Fighters a Fighter meets, that has to be viewed in context too, lets be honest it is mostly American fighters, in the past particularly, that benefited from such privilege and I agree that American Rings were typically better, though No Better than many of the True Top men from other Leading Boxing Nations... so it has to be calibrated properly, as the saying goes, you can only fight those put in front of you or allowed to compete against. It follows that a lot of ATG Ratings, though conceivable, are often a bit gratuitous, which both misleads, while favouring some and excluding others... as I always say Rating 100%, is not only inaccurate, but also IMPOSSIBLE! as to Walker, is he an ATG, yes, is he Overated Yes, but his Bull Strength & Little Bigman prowess certainly assisted him In & OUT of his division. IF ALL the True Top Men could viable meet, beat, defeat or get defeated by one another, then we could be more accurate, as that was/is both impossible & often times purposeful, we only have the 'attempts' at trying to contrive just Who 'might' be the Best??? and as I always say, I prefer to think of Great Fighters & their true top contenders, to be Among the Best & Greatest Boxers in History.
Top 10 greatest of all time Man the white americans were ****ing badass back in the day. Countless ATG's. It's a shame they are little, tiny minority in all USA boxing gyms now.
That's fair enough.. can i ask who you are measuring him against in terms of P4P? Because Walker had success right up to HW.. & that to me is the very definition of P4P greatness.. yes he lost some along the way but who wouldn't under those circumstances.. .. & as mentioned above apart from his brilliant WW/MW period he beat some excellent LHWs.. dropped top 5 rated mctigue 4x on route to stopping him, beat Berlenbach putting him down twice in the process, went 1-1 with ATG Rosenbloom (who was the man at 175 for years back then) & pushed another ATG Tommy Loughran to a SD.. can u imagine the equivalent of all that today? .. then amongst all that he managed to push future HW champ Sharkey to a draw & beat the top 10 rated HW king Levinsky.. I can't even envision any of that today that's why I think he deserves to be right up there. That's pretty impressive for a little fella like Walker.
