All Time Greatest Top 15

First topic message reminder :

In response to Rowleys earlier suggestion and the fact it's been a slow thought I may as well get this start, you know the jist of it by now simply give your all time top 15 then i'll collate the votes and we'll our very own definitive 606V2 all time pound for pound list

1. Robinson
2. Armstrong
3. Greb
4. Charles
5. Fitzsimmons
6. Tunney
7. Ali
8. Duran
9. Jofre
10. B. Leonard
11. Langford
12. Pep
13. Leonard
14. Ross
15. Gans

rowley wrote:

C'mon You Irish wrote:Hold Up where is Floyd Mayweather JR in your lists

Did you vote on the original thread?

I do see a trend in those who complain about these lists, they're the ones who didn't bother voting in the first place.

Imperial Ghosty wrote:If you were talking about someone else you may have to wonder but with regards to Tunney there is simply no need to question his choice of opponents.

Says who?

It's my opinion, there's nothing to suggest that Tunney avoided anyone.

Imperial Ghosty wrote:It's my opinion, there's nothing to suggest that Tunney avoided anyone.

Fine.


You have incontrovertible proof he didn't avoid Norfolk do you? Obviously, with that authoritative tone in your words, you do.

No reason Manny or Floyd couldn't Alma, obviously for them to do it they would have to fight each other and pretty soon before they are both past it. However as I said previously if Floyd fought four more times and they were wins over Ortiz, Manny Martinez and Khan would have a fairly strong claim, if Manny did similar he would likewise have as strong a claim.

Is difficult for modern guys though, the proliferation of belts make proving you're the man at a weight tricky and also they obviously fight fairly infrequently so in direct comparison they can sometimes seem a little lacking.

Sorry Herman but you don't fight the likes of Greb, Carpentier, Gibbons and Dempsey if you're avoiding Norfolk, it makes little to no sense, he more often than not fought at Heavyweight where Tunney beat the champion Dempsey twice and his number one contender Heeney, if you could provide a specific time when you think the fight could have happened then i'll happily listen to it.

Alma the list as voted for by over 20 members of this forum is in the boxing vault, Mayweather, Pacquiao and Hopkins can get near a top 15 but they need to do more than they already have.

Was thinking myself if modern fighters will be able to mix up the top 10 p4p in the future , it's tough, if Floyd were to beat the fighters Rowley named above he would move from Early twenty's, to just outside the top ten on my list, maybe 13th or 14th.

Spoke to Rowley and Chris about this the other day, if he were to beat Ortiz, Pacquiao and then Martinez at middleweight and it's a big massive inconceivable IF then he would make a top ten fairly easily, he'd be universally recognized as the number one fighter at four weights including 3 of the classic divisions.

The issue of Tunney voiding black fighters is rather vague. At light heavyweight I can only think of Norfolk as the only legitimae top rated black fighter. There could also be an argument for the middleweight Tiger Flowers who occasionaly stepped up to light heavyweight but was more commonly a middleweight. With Tuneys career, there is a distinct lack of black fighters on his c.v but the argument is there werent a great deal of top rated ones operating at his weights during the time. Had there been a murderers row present and Tunney failed to face any of them then it would be far more obvious. as it is, one can only speculate.

Even if Tunney or his management did have a colour line policy, I dont think Norfolks claim to be a must have fighter on his record is strong enough and there is probably only a brief window where the fight would happen in 1923/24. What is relevant is that Tunney himself was looking for a shot at the recognised light heavyweight title and was fighting quality opposition. There is not really a specific reason why Norfolk should have been on his radar as Tunney would naturally have been looking for his own title shot. Similarly, Norfolk himself who held the coloured version of the title in the early 1920s would have more likely been looking for a shot at the recognised champion who was Mike McTigue, rather than Tunney.

I have little doubt that Norfolk was a much avoided fighter, although his notorious dirty tactics increased this, but Tunney was not the champion of the day so the perogative for the two to fight was not neccessarily there. It could be argued that Tunney perhaps didnt need to fight Greb as many times, especially in bouts where he held a big weight advantage and he would have been better served fighting someone like Young Stribling or Tiger Flowers around 1925. But if you look at the quality he beat consistently then theres not a strong argument to say he avoided fighters. Even in the event he did employ a colour line, I dont think Norfolk (and perhaps Flowers) had strong enough claims to be superior to the opponents Tunney was fighting in their stead like Gibbons, Loughran, Greb, Carpentiers and Dempsey. It was a time of very strong quality across two division so the liklihood is a fighter will miss out on a name here or there without it being a case of systematically avoiding them. Young Stribling for instance would have just as strong a claim to be avoided by Tunney as Norfolk would have. And again to re-emhasize, as Tunney was not the champion and was looking for his own title shot, it makes the necessity for a fight with Norfolk less of an issue.

Very well put Colonial and far more eloquently than I could have done it, there are instances when fights just don't happen and it isn't always about avoiding a certain fighter, Tunney and Norfolk were in fairly similar positions in that they were arguably too good for the champions of the time to face and if beating one another meant ensuring a title fight then it probably would have happened. Things like this soon get blown out of all proportion much like Robinson and the black murderers row, when you look into things a little deeper you realise the actual window of opportunity to face Burley was quite small, it probably should have happened but never been convinced that Robinson openly avoided them, they were always at different stages of their careers and very rarely fighting in the same weight class. It is probably true that Robinson eventually fought for the light heavyweight championship as it was held by for the time one of it's weaker champions in Maxim, were it held by the likes of Moore, Charles or Bivins I doubt he'd have stepped up.

Very true Imperial. Seems very unjustified to criticise someone like Tunney for avoiding fighters given the level of quality he faced consistently and the level of talent he possessed. He himself was largely avoided by Mike McTigue I believe.

Although I wouldnt entirely rule out the possibility that Tunneys management might have employed a colour line given the nature of those days, I dont believe Norfolk was a level above Loughran, Gibbons, Greb and Carpentiers amongst others so the abscence of him on on Tunneys record remains a very minor point to me and certainly not the foundation to mark Tunneys acheivements down as a fighter.

If the fighter who has apparently been avoided is of greater quality than those faced then I can understand the criticism but in this case i'm not entirely sure that can be said which is where the avoidance of the black murderers row in general holds more weight as they were by and large the best fighters around with the exceptions of Robinson, Moore and Charles. The latter two did of course face them with great regularity and McTigue while a good fighter did benefit from the fact that Carpentier had a shocker against Siki which put the title in the hands of a fairly low ranking fighter.