My take on the all-time greats, for anyone who is interested

First topic message reminder :

Good afternoon fellas, hope your day so far hasn’t been as slow as mine! Due to that slow day, I’ve decided to offer up a little something to pass the time, and hope some of you will comment if you’re interested. Not all that original, but still, it’s either this or another article about a certain Bermondsey Heavyweight, and I think we can all do without that, Haye? Oops, sorry, I mean eh?

I’ve been criticised now and then in the past for being a little too biased to certain old time fighters when evaluating their place in history, and after a while of crying ‘not guilty’ I’ve decided that, in fact, one or two of those criticisms might have been justified. So I’ve had a reshuffle and reassessed the men who were, in my eyes, the finest twenty-five, pound for pound, to have graced the sport, and have surprised myself slightly, eliminating some names which I used to consider certainties. Joe Gans, ‘Barbados’ Joe Walcott and Kid Gavilan, who used to all feature (Gans as high as circa sixteen / seventeen) are all gone, though the ‘Old Master’ would still be my number twenty-six. And in come two or three other names from the more modern era who I used to consider ‘only’ top thrity-five / forty merchants, but who I’ve come to appreciate a little more recently.

Anyway, without further ado, here is my final reckoning.

1a) Henry Armstrong 1b) Ray Robinson (taking a leaf out of Jimmy Stuart’s book, there!) 3) Harry Greb 4) Sam Langford 5) Ezzard Charles 6) Muhammad Ali 7) Roberto Duran 8) Bob Fitzsimmons 9) Benny Leonard 10) Eder Jofre 11) Willie Pep 12) Ray Leonard 13) Barney Ross 14) Mickey Walker 15) Gene Tunney 16) Carlos Monzon 17) Joe Louis 18) Pernell Whitaker 19) Julio Cesar Chavez 20) Archie Moore 21) Sandy Saddler 22) Alexis Arguello 23) Michael Spinks 24) Tony Canzoneri 25) Bernard Hopkins

So there you have it. Debate and opinion is the name of the game, so if anyone’s interested then let me have it, lads. Cheers.

sugarrayb wrote:Not quite sure why all and sundry seem to rate Langford as a top 10 p4p fighter or even one of the best heavyweights of all time, due to political reasons he never got the opportunity to fight the best white guys of the time so it is surely impossible to judge how good he really was, the best guy he fought was possibley Harry Wills who whupped him something like 13 times out of 16!

What? Wills was in no way, shape or form the best opponent that Langford faced, and he actually did fight the top men (black or white) of his day - just not in title bouts. First off, his record against Wills isn't reflective of his career or abilities; Langford was a 5'6" fighter, never more than, at the absolute most, a natural Middleweight and was knocking on in years by the time he got up to Heavyweight to take on Wills. Before that he'd beaten one of the great Lightweights in Gans, drawn with one of the great Welterweights in Walcott and beaten some outstanding Middleweight and Light-Heavyweight world champions such as Ketchel and O'Brien. I think our own Jimmy Stuart summed it up perfectly when he stated that Langford 'made the term pound for pound almost meaningless.'

You're right in as much that his work is spread across too many divisions to have him near the top of any of them singularly, but as a whole, his record is phenomenal.

Chris have to be pedantic and say the Ketchel bout was a no decision affair and whilst some papers called it for Sam most had it for Ketchel. However even this has the caveat that most acknowledged Sam was fighting well within himself and holding back, a fact he admitted as he had been told he would be given a proper title shot at Stan and realised too strong a showing or knocking Stanley bandy would probably scupper this.

He admitted he didn't try his best?

And people criticise Haye's toe excuse....

Yes, it was a No Decision affair, but if we could ND's in the win column for men such as Greb and Benny Leonard, it's only fair we do it here. Just about every ND seems to have that 'he won, no he won' element to them, but given that Langford got the closest thing to an official nod, I think we can still count Ketchel amongst his victims. Regardless of that anyhow, his resume is still outstanding.

What would you suggest Scott, knocking Stanley out in the first round and never getting the title shot?

rowley wrote:What would you suggest Scott, knocking Stanley out in the first round and never getting the title shot?

Yeah honesty.

It's a factor people often overlook when romantically looking back at the glory days though and moaning about 1 fight not happening in the past few years though.

As I say Chris most of the reports I have read which obviously is not all called it for Stanley, by no means all did but my understanding was enough did to be considered a consensus. As you say though is pretty much moot because irrespective of the Ketchel bout his resume stacks up.

88Chris05 wrote:Comical stuff as always, Albert. Erdei's WBO fights against a series of non-entities tucked away in Germany made him a more worthy Light-Heavyweight opponent by 2006 than Tarver, and Adamek, already beaten by Dawson (who in turn lost to Pascal) was a more worthy Light-Heavyweight opponent than Pascal in 2010...Even though he didn't fight in that division anymore by then.

Seriously mate, you should do stand up!

~ No need for stand up when you provide the perfect comic foil for us, so I applaud your plucky cheek kind sir.

The Lineal Title is held in as much respect as the Ring title and without the Golden Boy Ring Politics to pollute it. Given that Mr. Roy not only never held the lineal title, but actively ducked the long time holder of such in the biggest money cruiserweight superfight in history, well sir, the lineal title in this case passing to the still undefeated Mr. Erdei is held in higher regard no matter if he is fighting Mr. Bambi's little sister.

Mr. Adamek was not beaten for his only career loss until 2007 sir, a year after Mr. Tarver was knocked off. Mr. Adamek knocked down the undefeated Mr. Dawson late but without the time to finish him off. Given his considerable accomplishments before and after such a competitive loss against a Ring P4Per, I consider Mr. Adamek to be the top LH in the division at the time, not the 40ish tubby Mr. Tarver who had to shed some 60 lbs of Hollywood lard to make weight against Mr. Hopkins.

.........and a jolly Ho~Ho sir and much thanks......tally ho~ho and away we go>>>>>>>>>

Great thread. Very enjoyable read.