Your Top Ten At 175lbs?

RJJ sweeps the contest here in terms of H2H.

 

He is for me, yes. I appreciate he may not be for others, either because their criteria (mine factors only fights contested at or around LHW) is different to mine, or if, for them, domination in the fighters own era is substantially less important than wins over historically significant/big names.

According to my notes, Bob was unbeaten in fights contested under 180lbs & I think his 14 wins in lineal LHW title fights is the most ever (it is out of those boxers I evaluated when compiling my top 20).

Whilst I accept not all era's are of exactly equal quality and I make allowance for that in my rankings (if I didn't, Foster would have an argument for the GOAT at LHW), I do value dominance in the era the fighter actually competed in, highly.

Tommy Gibbons is way higher than Foster P4P, when their entire career's are evaluated, imo.

 

That's fine. As I said others have different criteria and consider certain factors more & less important in ranking a fighter, than I do.

What I mean by "locked ahead" is - I have RJJ at #10 & Tommy Gibbons at #11. I'm not comfortable with that ordering & if I reviewed the exact same set of notes & data that I've compiled again this evening, ordered my LHW's again, there's every chance I'd have Gibbons higher than RJJ. There's virtually no chance I'd have Gibbons higher than Foster, though. So, Foster is likely locked ahead of Gibbons on my list.

 

Very doubtful in my opinion.
He'd eventually get ko'ed
by my top 8, some very
early.

 

Calzaghe was among the fastest light heavies of all-time, his hand speed would have troubled any light heavy, Moorer`s power would have made him a threat to any LH as would B-hop`s defensive guile.

 

Calzaghe was my favourite fighter when he was active, but 2 fights at LHW isnt enough to be in consideration for the 10 greatest LHWs in history, imo.

H2H top 10 is a different matter. Not that Joe would be on mine (I've not given it much thought), but its definitely different criteria to the greatness of what was achieved in contests staged at LHW.

 

Moorer had more power than anybody Calzaghe fought, however he never beat anyone as good as B-hop at 175, B-hop won a more established world title after his fight v Calzaghe than the then unheralded WBO belt Moorer held at 175 after defeating inferior opposition to win his unfancied belt.

 

I think Foster is a bit overrated at Light Heavyweight personally, don't get me wrong fantastic fighter and his KOs were amazing sight to behold. But his resume was kind of so-so, had he beat Conteh, Galindez, I would've rated him higher.

Overall though off the top of my head Spinks, Charles, Moore, Tunney, Greb, all rate very highly for me.

 

RJJ never fought any punchers at Light Heavyweight, and whilst he was KO'ed past his prime. There still may of been some vulnerability regarding his chin. Absolutely no guarantee he beats the likes of Spinks, Foster, etc who had genuine one punch KO power, and could KO Jones with one punch at anytime. RJJ never had that threat looming over him, regarding any opponent in his prime at Light Heavyweight.