Greatest Champions who Never Conquered Boxing's Original Weight Classes

Mine and Truss' back and forth on Terry Norris, an outstanding Light-Middleweight champion, got me thinking - who are the greatest champions in the sport who only held titles in the additional weight classes, and never conquered any of the eight generally recognised 'original' or 'classic' divisions?

I've cobbled together a very (I'll stress again - very) rough potential top ten below. Light-Welterweight, by far the historically strongest of the additional weight classes, plays quite a dominant role as you'd expect. Along with Super-Feather, it's just about the only example of an additional division where an all-time top ten might conceivably look comparable to a top ten of some of the classic divisions, albeit in the case of both Light-Welter and Super-Feather (the latter in particular) some of the names near the top of those lists held titles in other divisions, too. As per the criteria, those names won't appear here.

1) Ricardo Lopez
2) Aaron Pryor
3) Antonio Cervantes
4) Nicolino Locche
5) Kostya Tszyu
6) Duilio Loi
7) Terry Norris
8) Flash Elorde
9) Jack 'Kid' Berg
10) Jung Koo Chang

Ten names, in no real order, who you might find in the wash not too far behind would include Khahosai Galaxy, Humberto Gonzalez, Michael Carbajal, Carl Froch, Frankie Randall, Mikkel Kessler, Daniel Zaragoza, Eddie Perkins, Carlos Hernandez and Ivan Calderon.

It does beg the question of how realistically a fighter can become a truly elite great, or one of the immortals of his time, without ever conquering one of the classic weight classes, even to this day. Any thoughts on this to share, along with my ratings or just general opinions on any of the guys mentioned here? Anyone you're a fan or sceptic of in particular?

The one glaring omission would be Ivan Calderon. The few years around his pair of wins over the much bigger Hugo Cazares he was just about the classiest operator in any division, his movement was as fluid as you could ever hope to see, his inability to knock out a small child goes against him somewhat. I'm not sure i'd regard him as truly great but with the exception I don't think that applies to anyone you've list aside from Ricardo Lopez and even then it's borderline. I'd drop Cervantes down significantly and find room for Khaosai.

*Kid Chocolate won the featherweight title

Interesting...I'll take it further and say greats that missed out on glory though being succesful and considered great at the old classes.

Here is a controversial one.........Evander Holyfield...

Greatest Cruiser of alltime.........But when he beat James Buster Douglas both Bowe and Lewis were in The Ring's top 10 Heavies....Both got the better of him....Of course Tyson was unquestionably the Man before.

44 year old George and Bert Cooper defences don't rock the boat.

Nice thread Soul..

Ps...Never understood Lopez...........Had the gifts to do it at Fly......but like GGG stayed in the comfort zone..

Completely forgot about Chocolate winning the Feather title, Soul! I'll drop him out for Chang at number ten, in that case.

A few years ago I'd have had Cervantes lower as well, but I think I was underrating him for a good while. Instinctively there was a time I'd have had him lower than Locche and possibly Tszyu as well, but he dealt with many of his best opponents (particularly in his first title reign) more emphatically than Locche, who definitely had one or two fishy verdicts in his favour in my opinion, based on the limited footage available of him. The number Cervantes did on De Jesus was very impressive and he comprehensively ironed out Frazer twice, too.

I wouldn't grumble too much with anyone putting Locche ahead of him (they were tied at 1-1 but I could concede that Locche's win over Cervantes is probably a shade more meaningful than vice versa), but the more I've delved into Locche over the years I've wondered if he flattered to deceive ever so slightly, relative to the praise he gets. Outside of their two fights, I'm more impressed with Cervantes' body of work.

Good shout on Calderon, who would certainly be worthy of being in that mix just after the top ten I mentioned.

It's a bit left field but I remember Saoul Mamby held the WBC jr welter for a while making a host of defences........Pretty much only because he was supposed to fight a unification with the aforementioned Pryor...

Lost a very controversial decision to Haley.......Think he was champ for three years or more..

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:Interesting...I'll take it further and say greats that missed out on glory though being succesful and considered great at the old classes.

Here is a controversial one.........Evander Holyfield...

Greatest Cruiser of alltime.........But when he beat James Buster Douglas both Bowe and Lewis were in The Ring's top 10 Heavies....Both got the better of him....Of course Tyson was unquestionably the Man before.

.

*champions in the sport who only held titles in the additional weight classes*

Edited because I raised Winky Wright and then remembered he’d won a belt or two at middle.

superflyweight wrote:Edited because I raised Winky Wright and then remembered he’d won a belt or two at middle.  

Winky Wright is a great shout, don't think he did win any titles at Middleweight.

Winky is indeed a great shout, and a bad oversight by myself. Especially considering I've got Norris in there, and it was a discussion of Norris which prompted this article. Should imagine a lot of fans have those two competing for third spot at Light-Middle, behind the clear top two of Hearns and McCallum.

Similar careers in one sense, but very different in others. Both guys caught some of their bigger and better wins at opportune times and / or under favourable circumstances, but whereas Norris peaked very young and was washed up at thirty, Winky only really started coming into his own in the second half of his career. Even allowing for the compromised state of some of his opponents, you'd probably have to say that Norris has a deeper pool of solid wins on his ledger than Winky (albeit Winky was very unlucly to pick up an outright 'L' against Vargas), but at the same time has more ignominious lows to his name, too.

Winky did give it a whirl at the higher weight(s) eventually, whereas Norris never did despite Middleweight just 6 lb north of him housing some frightening talent and big fights during his prime years in the first half of the nineties, which might get him some brownie points in direct comparison. But though I've not seen the fight in over a decade and would need to watch again to be sure, on the two occasions I did watch his draw with Taylor for the Middleweight title I was never convinced at the time that Winky had been totally hosed as many claimed.

I'd keep Norris a slither ahead, but Wright definitely deserves consideration here.

The dangers of posting after a few beers. Should have gone with my first instincts, but managed to convince myself that Winky had won an alphabet title at middle and I was too lazy to double check.

superflyweight wrote:The dangers of posting after a few beers.  Should have gone with my first instincts, but managed to convince myself that Winky had won an alphabet title at middle and I was too lazy to double check.  

Well I posted sober at the top and my post was worst than yours..

So don't worry about it..