Bleacher report - Top 50 ATG - Laughable BS....

Floyd Mayweather at 29........Lamotta at 26.....Really ???

Tyson at 46......Dempsey......at 8.....Who did Dempsey beat ????....Tyson beat Spinks who substitutes for Tunney....Yes Dempsey may sit higher but not nearly 40 places..

Manny 34...........Chavez.......19.....No way.....

Gomez above Sanchez because he won 3 titles at different weights.........Winning 5 rounds of a 15 round fight against Lockridge and heading straight to hospital.....Right !!!.........Lopez twice......Nelson.....and Gomez alone as well as dying unbeaten is enough to cancel out Pintor and Zarate...

There is more but it's painful to read.

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1436191-the-top-50-pound-for-pound-boxers-of-all-time/

It's a hard (nigh-on impossible) task for even the best boxing historians to accurately rank their ATGs into an order which makes sense, as there are probably about 50 guys who you could argue 'deserve' a top 20 berth based on your criteria or your mood on that given day.

That said, even if you take a cruder and more workable method such as bracketing fighters into levels of greatness and not ranking them individually, there are some absolute shockers on this list.

As usual, way too many Heavyweights in there - four in the top eight alone. How can anyone look at the achievements of Dempsey or Johnson and deduce that they entitle them to a spot so high?

Conn (#37), McGovern (#35), Cerdan (#31), La Motta (#26), Frazier (#25), Ketchel (#21), Foreman (#20), Wilde (#17), Marciano (#15), Gans (#12), Dempsey (#8), Johnson (#7), Louis (#5) and Pep (#3) are all too high in my opinion, laughably so in a couple of cases!

On the other hand, Arguello (#45), Whitaker (#44), Monzon (#43), Jones (#39), Hagler (#38), Pacquiao (#34), Mayweather (#29), Charles (#28) and Greb (#11) would all be higher on my list, some of them much higher.

Like I said, not an easy thing to do, but in some cases here you just have to look at who these suspect names are sandwiched in between and wonder how anyone could put them in the same bracket (for better or worse) as them. It's subjective, but only within reason, surely? I just can't fathom anyone producing a compelling argument for Cerdan being greater than Sanchez, Whitaker, Pacquiao etc., or that Charles wasn't as great as La Motta, Wilde or Johnson etc.

bleacher report wrote:13. Sam Langford
Official Record: 179-30-40, 120 KO

Newspaper Decisions: 32-14-15

Years Active: 1902-1926

Championships: World Colored Middleweight, World Colored Heavyweight (5X)

Sam Langford had absolutely devastating power, but is often overlooked due to the fact that he was denied many opportunities as a result of the pervasive racism in the sport at the time.

Even Jack Johnson, a fellow black fighter and heavyweight champion, refused to fight him once he became champion. Langford did, however, compete for, and win, the World Colored Heavyweight Championship on five occasions.

Langford holds victories over Stanley Ketchel at middleweight, and many feel he deserved one when he fought Jack Johnson before he won the world championship. It was a close fight, and Johnson got the nod, but many felt this was the wrong decision.

Can't really accuse this top50 as having recency bias and more important than the particular ranking is the little windows of light it brings onto fighters of yore when many things were different compared to today.  

ps I have to admit I am more an interested casual compared to most here that contribute to this sub-forum and I do not doubt there are major issues with this particular bleacher report ranking.

88Chris05 wrote:https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1436191-the-top-50-pound-for-pound-boxers-of-all-time/

It's a hard (nigh-on impossible) task for even the best boxing historians to accurately rank their ATGs into an order which makes sense, as there are probably about 50 guys who you could argue 'deserve' a top 20 berth based on your criteria or your mood on that given day.

That said, even if you take a cruder and more workable method such as bracketing fighters into levels of greatness and not ranking them individually, there are some absolute shockers on this list.

As usual, way too many Heavyweights in there - four in the top eight alone. How can anyone look at the achievements of Dempsey or Johnson and deduce that they entitle them to a spot so high?

Conn (#37), McGovern (#35), Cerdan (#31), La Motta (#26), Frazier (#25), Ketchel (#21), Foreman (#20), Wilde (#17), Marciano (#15), Gans (#12), Dempsey (#8), Johnson (#7), Louis (#5) and Pep (#3) are all too high in my opinion, laughably so in a couple of cases!

On the other hand, Arguello (#45), Whitaker (#44), Monzon (#43), Jones (#39), Hagler (#38), Pacquiao (#34), Mayweather (#29), Charles (#28) and Greb (#11) would all be higher on my list, some of them much higher.

Like I said, not an easy thing to do, but in some cases here you just have to look at who these suspect names are sandwiched in between and wonder how anyone could put them in the same bracket (for better or worse) as them. It's subjective, but only within reason, surely? I just can't fathom anyone producing a compelling argument for Cerdan being greater than Sanchez, Whitaker, Pacquiao etc., or that Charles wasn't as great as La Motta, Wilde or Johnson etc.

Ezzard Charles is invariably woefully under rated, he's for me among a select handful who can lay claim to being the greatest boxer ever. Too much emphasis on heavyweights as per usual but that's to be expected; Marciano is always the stand out in that regard.

Cerdan was a decent middleweight champion albeit short lived; he gets listed so highly for one reason and that's because of Raging Bull, his record is thin to say the least, there is no way he was better than Jones, Monzon or Hagler. The same goes for Ketchel, died young so gets an elevated status.

As always with these things, the old timers are in general rated too highly, the highlighted shows that quite well.

Remember HazHarrison having Eusebio Pedroza higher than Mayweather and he also called Mayweather a ducker while the biggest ducker in recent times Golovkin was his favorite fighter...

A lot to do with disliking some modern fighters I guess with Bleacher........LaMotta is top 30.....Maybe stick Esteban Dejesus in the top 50 then unless you big up the dislocated shoulder win in Cerdan...Even then he couldn't get him out of there..