The Top 20 All-Time Greatest P4P List

[edgarg]

There will be plenty wrong with this list, I'm sure. But I will keep it to five criteria: 1) Eye-test/H2H; 2) Record; 3) Innovation; 4) Precociousness/Longevity; 5) SIZE

1) Greb
2) Duran
3) Lomachenko
4) Robinson
5) Pep
6) Armstrong
7) Walker
8) Jofre
9) Canzoneri
10) SRL
11) Loughran
12) Whitaker
13) Leonard
14) McLarnin
15) Harada
16) Conn
17) Ross
18) Langford
19) McFarland
20) Dempsey


On the cusp (probably in this order): Floyd Mayweather, Gene Tunney, Terry McGovern, Ike Williams, Carlos Monzon, Ezzard Charles, Tommy Hearns, Muhammad Ali, Alexis Arguello, Archie Moore, Charley Burley, Joe Louis, Jose Napoles, Miguel Canto, Rocky Marciano, Ruben Olivares, Holman Williams, Joe Walcott, Carlos Ortiz, Emile Griffith, Evander Holyfield, Manny Pacquiao, Johnny Kilbane, Benny Lynch

That actually rounds it out to about 40. And that' leaves a lot of tremendous, tremendous fighters unmentioned.

Even w/in weight divisions it's difficult to establish a top 10.
Feathweight is a great example:
- Saddler beat Pep, but he beat a greatly reduced version of Pep. He also employed his size and ridiculously dirty tactics to achieve those victories. He was often being out-boxed, but his fouling eventually got to the smaller Pep.

- Then you have a guy like Sanchez who looks AMAZING on film, against less than stellar competition. He never got to fight Pedroza, and that fight was considered a 50-50. His best test lay yet ahead of him, he certainly never proved himself Featherweight king.

- Miller and Kilbane, conversely, don't give us much footage to work with, and look more "primitive", but had amazing title reigns. Something Sal couldn't dream of touching.

- saldivar is an even more extreme version, of Miller and Kilbane. Impressive title reign, but the division was probably at its historic low.

- Jim Driscoll, on the other hand, NEVER wore the Featherweight belt, but was for many years that division's best... and maybe one of the very best P4P. This, unlike during Saldivar's reign, was when the division really meant something. Is Ben Roethlisberger and all his rings a better QB than Dan Marino? Was he even the best QB of his own era?

- How do you rank a fistic marvel like McGovern? This was probably his best weight. He trashed Gans: an accomplishment NO featherweight has ever come close to matching. But shortly after unraveled against Corbett II.

- And what about Lomachenko? Dare we say, he even exceeds Pep based on the footage. He probably is the best natural 126 pound fighter ever.... but he only has a few fights in the division.

Joe Gans was dying from TB for a lot of those years he passer away aged 35. That particular fight McGovern made him weigh in at 132 with all his clothes and boots on. Even thoughn Gans was champ, he was black and needy, and therefore "inferior" and had to take the orders or not get the fight, or make a living. This is Boxing History site, but many don't know their history.

[edgarg]

And what "Research" is done to construct this list!?

It's too shoddy for it to be worth my time to investigate it.


Really, that's a sh.itty list. It has lots of famous names, but no real logic behind it other than: "here's a bunch of guys I hear mentioned regularly".

LOL Robinson punked to Joey fookin Maxim.

Ali got ****d by Joe "I like to walk into power punches" Frazier.

Langford is a knock-off Kimbo Slice.

Who did Armstrong beat? I know he struggled with a fat Wolgast. Maybe Macho Cmaacho should take the top slot then?


I know logic hasn't been your thing since you had your own teeth to chew food. But it's nice to think you'll give a reasonable answer for once.

Joey Maxim outweighed Robinson by about 25 lbs. On top of that it was well over 100 degrees, and the ref collapsed after 10 rds and was replaced. Robinson weighed 157, (Maxim 182 at fight time) and at the end of the fight, with the heat, and Maxim leaning on him all the rime he weighed 147 on the nose. He was streets ahead on points at the time.

You don't know your boxing history.evn though this it the site for it.

[edgarg]

That's sloppy even by your standards.

Sorry but which ATGs?

Which "weights"?

The record is pretty pathetic.
The footage shows he was pretty sloppy.

If anything Fitzsimmons, McGovern and McFarland are men from that era who better satisfy your criterion. They don't even make the grade.

Og yeah, and that Dempsey guy you hate on - Langford called HIM the best he'd ever seen.

Dempsey did NOT say that. There's an urban legend supposed quote for Dempsey that said "Yes there was one man I was afraid to fight , 'Sam Langford". That was when Sam was about 40 ,well used up and half blind.

Dempsey was afraid of no man . His career proved that over and over. He let Hollywood and the good life ruing him, before he fought Tunney. -his first fight in over 3 years of partying..

[edgarg]

I'll give you the short list.

Lightweight - Joe Gans win
Welterweight - Joe Walcott draw
Middleweight - Stanley Ketchel win
Lightheavyweight - Philadelphia Jack O'Brien win
Heavyweight - Harry Wills win

I could go on with other All time and HOF fighters, but their is really no need.

I suggest you look up the record and see how many times Harry Wills beat Langford. About 7-8 times. Also you must consider that In those days these guys were often pulling their punches except for the last round or two, very skilled at that, because to keep eating they were fighting nearly every week . Look at Langford's record and note the dates. The longest breaks between fights he had was 2 months, after the beating he got from Jack Johnson, and as he also lost his next fight, he took another 2 months to recuperate.

By the time he'd fought Johnson he's already had 60 odd fights in 4 years. And Johnson toyed with him KD several times , holding him up to prevent him going down other times. and more. Of course Sam was a sort of physical freak or else he couldn't have done all he did, only 5'6" but very long arms and bullfrog chest.. But a lot of those miracle fighter stories about him are NOT true, just polished a bit to make a point, for good old Sam. or a good story.

Maxie Rosenbloom had as many or more fights , REAL fights, and had an almost invisible KO record.

[edgarg]

- -U pics and vids of U 300 lbs squeezin' squeezin' into U tighties is prime time priceless.

We await with baited breath!

I wonder what your breath is "baited" with..... maybe you mean, bathed in.
Just kidding.

[edgarg]

Beautiful post.


I do believe that past fighters often suffer for the technology of the day. And the conditions they were fighting under called for a different style. We see how hopeless modern Boxers are when matched against Martial Artists from other disciplines... a lot of striking coaches have complained to me over the years about how difficult it is to UNtrain Boxers.

But there's no dis*****g that Boxing has become refined as a sport. And it takes a mature mind and nuanced eye to evaluate fighters across generations: Pacquiao clearly isn't a softy, and Fitzsimmons wasn't a knuckle-dragging caveman.

What bothers me is that fans fall in love with stories. You see the sane names repeated constantly and others neglected. It has nothing to do with the value of those fighters but the financial value of their stories.

The problem with "Ghost of Dempsey's story, is that I have every RING and Boxing Illustrated (when it began) in sequence for many years from the 1940's up until about the 1980s. And NOWHERE is that "story\' to be found..

On the other hand, Fleischer, who recorded that he had seen every heavyweight Title fight and/or Champion since he was 16, from 1903 up to and including several years of Ali as Champ. made a quite different list. He had Jack Johnson #1. Saying that he could do everything that Ali could but a lot better, and also many things that Ali knew nothing about.

So whilst I've always respected Ghost of Dempsey, and his excellent posts, I'm afraid that this time he's well off the mark.

[edgarg]

Langford was 17, possibly 20 when he fought and beat Gans. Sam was four and a half pounds heavier.

Sam and Walcott fought at welter, Sam was not in a different weight class, he just out grew 147. Nice try.

Ketchel was the middleweight champion when Langford carried him trying to get him to sign for a title fight.

O'Brien was a top lightheavyweight.

Wills was a long-standing heavyweight contender ducked by Jack Dempsey.

Do we need to go on son?

Langford and Walcott was a draw. Gans was dying of TB and it was his 170th fight. . .Langford was nearly 18, with Gans, because he was 20 when he tried to "fight" Johnson. .Langford was 23 when he fought O'Brien who was 34, and in his 196th fight, and had lost 6 of his last 7. Langford was his 3rd last fight, he was long past his "top Light-heavy" days -years and years past. He retired in1910. When he beat Wills, Wills was just beginning. after a year or so he never lost again. to Langford , beating him EVERY one of the many times. And Dempsey didn't duck Wills, their fight was arranged in1923, and something went wrong, nothing to do with Dempsey. Read your boxing history for goodness sake. I'm not saying that Langford wasn't good, but not like you paint him, nowhere near.

I like your posts, but...stop romancing.

[QueensburyRules]

- - Necromancer ***ALERT***

[GhostofDempsey]

The problem with "Ghost of Dempsey's story, is that I have every RING and Boxing Illustrated (when it began) in sequence for many years from the 1940's up until about the 1980s. And NOWHERE is that "story\' to be found..

On the other hand, Fleischer, who recorded that he had seen every heavyweight Title fight and/or Champion since he was 16, from 1903 up to and including several years of Ali as Champ. made a quite different list. He had Jack Johnson #1. Saying that he could do everything that Ali could but a lot better, and also many things that Ali knew nothing about.

So whilst I've always respected Ghost of Dempsey, and his excellent posts, I'm afraid that this time he's well off the mark.

This story was supposed to have been published in the March 1968 edition of Ring. Jimmy Jacobs said he had shown films with speed correction to a group of old-timers without revealing who the fighters were. The old-timers were shouting out "who are these bums"? It was Corbett, Fitzsimmons, Jeffries, George Dixon and Abe Attell. They were quite surprised.

[GhostofDempsey]

Johnson was only 6' tall;, with a 74" reach and best fighting weight of 185 lbs. He neglected training after he became champ and was a heavy boozer and womanizer. Still he held the title for nearly 7 years. He mostly played with his opponents, most publicly with Sam Langford who had the same reach but badly outweighed, He KD Langford 3 times and after that held him up to prevent him going down again several times. All through the fight he was carrying on conversations with ringsiders. He never seemed to have a problem in any fight whilst Champ.

The fact is that he was far superior to every other fighter during his time. regardless of size. He could do everything, For example Ali called himself The Greatest, but Johnson , according to many boxing experts, could do everything Ali could and much better, also things that Ali and others, couldn't do.

Johnson, being closer to 6'1", was often much larger than his opponents, particularly the ones who "played with". He had a 6 - 7" height advantage over Langford, who claims to have weighed about 156 for that fight. This would be the equivalent of Emile Griffith fighting Ali or Liston. Many of Johnson's opponents were crude brawlers, washed up, much younger and or considerable smaller. Tommy burns was about 5'7" and while he was a decent fighter, he was in with a much bigger man. In The World Heavyweight Boxing Championship, a History by John D. McCallum, he cites Burns as one of the worst heavyweight champions ever. He was basically ripe for the plucking.

Fight tapes tell a different story when we look back on the boxing prowess of many of these fighters. Remember, McVea and Jeannette were somewhat crude in their style, and Johnson only beat them while they were still green and had less than 10 and 20 fights respectively, and refuse to grant them legitimate shots at his title. He also refused to fight Wills after Wills allegedly showed him up in a sparring session.