What would be your top 10 welterweights of all time ?

[Rusty Tromboni]

Insanely top heavy? You just described how I like my women.

well said. But a full firm ass, and well sculpted legs keep things balanced.

[Anthony342]

well said. But a full firm ass, and well sculpted legs keep things balanced.

Well yeah. You need something else to grab on to on the bottom end when you get bored with the top, but top heavy is just my own personal preference.

[Dempsey19]

Yeah, that doesn't look like a terrible break-out. I'll have to rewatch it again soon a provide a fresh score card. I cannot find the last one I did.

For me, Hearns ranks plainly over Hagler, below Leonard and way below Duran. No discussion. Hearns made it competitive in the rematch, but I just don't know how he would have survived if it were a 15 Rounder... call it Boxing Karma biting Ray in the ass for the scheme he pulled on Hagler.

Hearns kinda had to keep fighting. Ray's career played out in spurts. He accomplished more in a shorter amount of time than Hearns. And while he might have cherry-picked the fights w/ Hagler and La Londe, he never really turned away from a challenge.

His two bouts w/ Duran speak to his greatness. I am actually at a lost to find a comparison except Tunney's series with Greb. It's beyond remarkable. Those fights alone justify his spot in my P4P top 10.

Leonard is definitely a solid choice for a top 10 P4P list. He just misses out and is 11th on mine. If the rematch never happened I would definitely have rated Hearns much lower.

Duran is actually what pushes Hearns slightly above Leonard for me, Hearns demolished him in 2 rounds while Leonard had an epic 3-part series with him. (Many Duran fans are of the opinion that Leonard only beat him because of poor training, and Duran himself believed that he would have won the 3rd fight if it hadn't been catchweight). While the loser always has an excuse, it is definitely true that all of those fights were much more competitive than Duran-Hearns.

Hagler is actually the best of the kings for me, he was roughly the same height as Duran yet did so much better against bigger men (and beat Leonard imo but that is a whole other debate !)

[headass]

That's actually a really, really good list. Napoles is too high - he beat some great fighters, but would get beaten by everyone else in your top 5. It's tough w/ Walker and Hearns because of their short Ww tenure, and how much they improved at Mw.

I would slot Mayweather in at 8, bumping everone else down one. I really don't think Basilio was top 10.

I generally agree w/ only ranking fighters w/ available footage, but the absence of Britton is pretty harsh on the eyes. His consitency and the quality of his era speak greatly to his credit. Zivic and Burley could easily replace Duran, but again, no footage to back that up.

Yeah, outside of Napoles' excessively high rating and the omission of Britton, this list is perfect.



Overall, I think the division is hugely over-rated. Due to the two Sugar Rays, and all the fighters who matured into better Middleweights, it gets a lot of attention. But it really isn't the deepest division. It's just insanely top-heavy.

Thanks. I rate Napoles very highly yes. I think Leonard would beat him but not sure about Hearns and Walker. In any case Napoles beat some great fighters and had a very long stay at the top of the division, even while flirting between 140 and 160. Thinking about it, maybe he does need to go down a bit.

The thing about Britton is that you really cant include him without including Lewis. And including Lewis would mean including other fighters without footage. The Tommy Ryans and Georgie Dixons, they must have been great fighters but they just dont belong on a list alongside Leonard and Hearns. I also forgot about Armstrong.

I understand your sentiment. It does seem a lot of the times like welterweight is a resting grounds for old lightweights and young middleweights. But you could flip it and say a lot of new lightweights and old middleweights were really welters. Guys like Freddie Steele or Cerdan for instance. Those two grew into 160lb quite late in their careers.

[Rusty Tromboni]

Thanks. I rate Napoles very highly yes. I think Leonard would beat him but not sure about Hearns and Walker. In any case Napoles beat some great fighters and had a very long stay at the top of the division, even while flirting between 140 and 160. Thinking about it, maybe he does need to go down a bit.

The thing about Britton is that you really cant include him without including Lewis. And including Lewis would mean including other fighters without footage. The Tommy Ryans and Georgie Dixons, they must have been great fighters but they just dont belong on a list alongside Leonard and Hearns. I also forgot about Armstrong.

I understand your sentiment. It does seem a lot of the times like welterweight is a resting grounds for old lightweights and young middleweights. But you could flip it and say a lot of new lightweights and old middleweights were really welters. Guys like Freddie Steele or Cerdan for instance. Those two grew into 160lb quite late in their careers.

Great points.

As far as the Britton-Lewis rivalry, it might be splitting hairs to declare a clear winner. But it seems Britton finally got the better of that long-running feud; at least he did better in the fights that mattered most. I think his record, overall, proved a touch better, as well.

I do think that they were both more advanced than men like Ryan. They're at the dawn of "modern" Boxing. It's hard to word define, and there really isn't a hard fast point in time where we can say it starts. But Britton and Lewis had peers that we can clearly identify as being comparable to men of more recent decades. I just don't see that in men like Ryan or Walcott or Dempsey.... though they were all very gifted, very talented men, I'm sure.

I agree, about cerdan. I don't know what his best weight was. He looks great on film, but his record - while tremendously accurate and consistent - is weak on quality opposition. Some guys might be better ranked P4P than in a particular weight division's top 10-15.

As for Armstrong, he had a lot of title defenses, but they were nothing special. Many happened around the modern Lw limit. I rank him short of only Duran at Lw. I think that's fair.

[Rusty Tromboni]

Leonard is definitely a solid choice for a top 10 P4P list. He just misses out and is 11th on mine. If the rematch never happened I would definitely have rated Hearns much lower.

Duran is actually what pushes Hearns slightly above Leonard for me, Hearns demolished him in 2 rounds while Leonard had an epic 3-part series with him. (Many Duran fans are of the opinion that Leonard only beat him because of poor training, and Duran himself believed that he would have won the 3rd fight if it hadn't been catchweight). While the loser always has an excuse, it is definitely true that all of those fights were much more competitive than Duran-Hearns.

Hagler is actually the best of the kings for me, he was roughly the same height as Duran yet did so much better against bigger men (and beat Leonard imo but that is a whole other debate !)

Duran was clearly well past his prime and well under-sized against Hearns and Hagler. There's no question that if they were Lightweight contenders in the 70s they would have been starched. You needed to be a spoiler like Buchanan to last the distance against focused Duran. Those guys really aren't in his realm. Hagler went life and death w/ Mugabe. His signature performance was what, dethroning Minter?

I often wonder what might have happened if Duran sought to unify against Hearns rather than rematch Leonard. He certainly would have arrived as focused OR MORE for that fight than he had for the first Leonard fight. No way we get the slob who only arrived to pick up his paycheck for the Ray Leonard Rematch. (I'm not sure he EVER took Leonard terribly seriously. He just realized too much was on the line to arrive to the first fight completely unraveled. Surely, considering the completeness of the first win and how recently it had transpired, he thought the rematch would go even easier). I'm not say Duran wins; I'm just saying it's a faaaar fairer fight than the fight we actually had to settle for - we should all feel cheated.

We gotta re-frame our view of Hearns: remember, he fought competitively at LHw. He was even winning fights at Cruiserweight. He was the biggest of all the 5 marquee rivals. While Hagler's win over Hearns was a huge achievement, I don't think it holds that much more weight than Pryor's win over Hearns back in the amateurs. You know if it were Hagler moving up to 175 to fight the Hearns who beat Virgil Hill the outcome would have been entirely different. I can't see Hagler getting his hand raised... hell, I might be surprise, but I wouldn't be shocked if Marvin didn't hear the final bell. Ray didn't have the size or power, but he had the skill.

[The Old LefHook]

Don't you EVER soil the welterweight division's reputation by placing MW in the top 5. I doubt he belongs in that division's top 10. Too many would stomp him into canvas.

[The plunger man]

- -how come you don't have hector camacho over Leonard when he KTFO of Ray?

See how that works?

not when both fighters were in there prime and hearns was unbeaten with 32 with 30 ko’s And age hearns at 23 years and Leonard at 25 lol...Leonard was 41 when he boxed camacho ...that’s just shown how idiotic your post was.

[QueensburyRules]

not when both fighters were in there prime and hearns was unbeaten with 32 with 30 ko’s And age hearns at 23 years and Leonard at 25 lol...Leonard was 41 when he boxed camacho ...that’s just shown how idiotic your post was.

- -Ray boxing a tubby featherweight well passed his own prime.

We already know how a plunger man goes!

[The plunger man]

- -Ray boxing a tubby featherweight well passed his own prime.

We already know how a plunger man goes!

a 41 year old ravaged by retirements and alcohol & ******* will make any great fighter lose.
Leonard beat hearns when hearns was at the pinacle.
Thats the facts right there and as for plunger man he has deal with posters talking ****.....your one of them i reckon