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.

Don't really understand the elevated places for Mickey Walker, nor would I have Langford so high. There are people with better opposition, and better results against them than Walker below him.

mickey walker rates highly for me for the same reason that tommy hearns does, he went up from welter to heavy (cruiser for hearns case) and was competitive and beat the best at some of the weights, although on a different day walker might not get as high as 12, the top 10 is always the same for me though

He lost to almost all the better fighters he faced though.

Scottrf wrote:Don't really understand the elevated places for Mickey Walker, nor would I have Langford so high. There are people with better opposition, and better results against them than Walker below him.

Like who, though? Walker faced fifteen or sixteen world champions, in the days of only eight / nine divisions and one champion in each, from Lightweight all the way up to Light-Heavyweight, and scored wins over some respected Heavyweights, too. In his win column he has Tendler, Flowers, Britton, Rosenbloom, Berlenbach, Uzcudun, Bartfield and Shade, and he boxed a draw with Sharkey. For a Welterweight to win the crown at 147 lb, do the same at 160 lb, go the distance in two Light-Heavyweight title bouts (against all-time greats at 175 lb) and then, at the other end of the spectrum, be holding his own with Heavyweights is remarkable in my eyes. Gave Greb an almighty tussle, too. Can't see all that many with more solid credentials than Walker to be honest, but am definitely willing to hear the argument mate.

Tunney for one was beating quality opposition, not just facing it and sometimes coming out on top.

Moore has loads of world champions over three divisions and beat a list of great fighters.

He's just too inconsistent for me.

No matter how certain people gloss the past as wonderful. Muhammad Ali
would be the Greatest of all time end of.. have to agree with Trussman.

It's only a fine margin which separates Walker from Tunney in my estimations to be fair, Scott. I don't think Walker was any more inconsistent than Moore at the highest level either, to be honest. Like many others who fought as often, he lost a fair few on his way up as a 'kid', but once he was established as a championship winner in 1922 he lost only three or four fights over the next ten years, which probably included something like seventy-odd contests. One of them was to Greb (and who didn't lose to him at some stage?) and another in a bid for the Light-Heavyweight crown, which precious few other Welterweights in history would even dream of fighting for.

I think Walker, given his natural size, doing the Welterweight / Middleweight double and then coming close to adding the 175 lb title is a more impressive feat than Tunney cleaning out Light-Heavyweight and then taking the Heavyweight title from a 190 lb Jack Dempsey, who'd been inactive for three years. I think there's more than enough quality on his resume to warrant a top fifteen spot, but hey, horses for courses and all that.

I guess it's fine margins and different criteria. I wont pretent to know the circumstances but 1922!

Spoiler:

That's a bit red! Well, I'm no Walker expert.

Very true Scott, he was in a shocking run of form before he unexpectedly beat Britton for the Welterweight title. Was barely out of his teens though, so can perhaps forgive him a little. Once he became an established champion he was a model of consistency for the most part, and his record after that poor patch speaks for itself.

I believe Saddler lost three or four on the spin at one stage while in or around his prime, too. Did more than enough over the rest of his career to make up for it!

The problem is if a modern fighter had a similar run of form, they would never get near to any ATG list no matter what else they did or how many fights they had I'd be willing to venture. I know it's mainly because they don't tend to have the highs, but losses don't seem to have any emphasis on old records, just their wins. Mayweather would be crucified if he lost even to a very good fighter in Ortiz. Too hard to compare eras. It's part of the reason I don't particularly enjoy debating lists.

Scottrf wrote:The problem is if a modern fighter had a similar run of form, they would never get near to any ATG list no matter what else they did or how many fights they had I'd be willing to venture. I know it's mainly because they don't tend to have the highs, but losses don't seem to have any emphasis on old records, just their wins. Mayweather would be crucified if he lost even to a very good fighter in Ortiz.

In fairness Scott that's an excellent point, and you may well be right. Athough Mosley had a poor run of three / four fights a few years back and some still tout him as a modern great, mind you. Guess we'll never know for sure, rated fighters simply don't fight often enough and are managed too well to allow it to happen these days.

Let's face it only an idiot has Ali 9...

Gene Tunney 5 ...god help us!!!!!

Who on the list beats Ali...who on the list ttransended like Ali and who had his longevity...

Gene Tunney

Couple of minor quibbles with your excellent list, Chris. Think that Fitz and Langford, wherever you choose to place them, need to be closer together - similar CVs and weight-defying pyrotechnics, in my view. Same applies to Pep and Saddler. I don't mind people rating Willie a whisker ahead of Sandy as a feather, although I don't agree with them, but ten places apart on a pound for pound list, when Saddler also won a title at a higher weight and only lost one world title fight in his life is a bit unjust, if you ask me.

As others have said, Duran must be five or six spots too high - don't see why he should be ahead of Jofre or Benny Leonard. Walker would be just outside my top 25, as would Louis, and I'd certainly find a space for Pacquiao and Mayweather and maybe for Terry McGovern as well.

I'm nit-picking, of course; you've got most of the important names there and in a highly defensible order, for the most part.

captain carrantuohil wrote:As others have said, Duran must be five or six spots too high - don't see why he should be ahead of Jofre or Benny Leonard. Walker would be just outside my top 25, as would Louis, and I'd certainly find a space for Pacquiao and Mayweather and maybe for Terry McGovern as well.

You don't? Even though most people struggle to split Leonard and Duran at Lightweight and Duran has Leonard at Welter as well as a number of other performances at an advanced age/weight?

Good shout on Walker though!

Walker is certainly from left field.....

Wouldn't be high on mine....Armstrong's longevity would be a problem too.

Think that Duran's win at welter against Ray Leonard perhaps tilts the debate a little towards you and Chris, Scott. Would contend, however, that Benny Leonard beat far superior opposition at lightweight and that his performances against Britton and Kid Lewis are virtually as meritorious as Duran's at welter. As to the remainder of Duran's career - best to call that a no-score draw, it's kindest and fairest to him. For every heroic stand against Hagler and great win vs Cuevas, Moore and Barkley, there was a near-disaster against Batten and limp performance against Benitez, Laing and Hearns. Laing, Batten, Benitez and Cuevas weren't naturally that much bigger than Duran, either.

No, great, great lightweight, and not a bad welter, but don't think his record entitles him to number 7 - just too high for me.

I'm not sure if it's the fairest way to do it, but the more someone stacks odds against themselves (weight/age etc), the more the wins mean, less the losses mean for me.

I see your point, but based solely on that logic, you'll come dangerously close to making our Manny the greatest fighter who ever breathed! Which might make for a rather dispiriting thread....

I've always said the Leonard win has always elevated Duran to his way too lofty status....

1. Leonard fought the wrong fight and still won with 50% of the media...
2. People forget the rematch....

I think being a blue-collar fighter has always worked in Duran's favor.....

Barkley was a great win against a 160 pound 6ft 1 in middle...

6ft 1in 154 pound Hearns was too big for a lightweight..

If you're popular people forget the facts..

Thanks for posting, captain, will do my best to try and put forward a decent response to your points.

Langford and Fitzsimmons, first off. Given that the margins between most of the names here are very small, on any other given day I could have found myself separating them by only one or two places, rather than the four above. Fitzsimmons' feats were phenomenal, but Langford's just that little bit more so, in my book. An all-time top four Lightweight in Gans beaten at 140 lb, a draw with an all-time top five Welterweight in Walcott, wins over Middleweight and Light-Heavyweight champions of the calibre of Flowers and O'Brien, before taking on and beating men such as Wills right at the other end of the spectrum. For a natural Middleweight such as Fitzsimmons to even dip his toe in to the cream of the Heavyweight scene was impressive - for the 5'6" Langford to dive in to it completely, simply unbelievable.

Pep and Saddler is a tough one, and your very simple argument for why they need to be closer does make me feel a bit daft in a sense. I'll confess to not caring much for Saddler, and it's almost begrudgingly that I acknowledge him as an all-time great. Not a fan of his style, and certainly not as consistent as Pep was across his whole career. Outside of their series I see Pep's career as far superior, and the 3-1 in Saddler's favour, even with the one-sided nature of a couple of those wins, isn't quite enough to turn the tide back in his favour, for me. His inactivity in terms of title defences during his Featherweight tenure bugs me, too. I'm happy to keep Pep ahead, but will concede that your point about them being closer is a very understandable one.

I make Duran the greatest Lightweight of them all, which automatically puts him ahead of Benny Leonard. That said, there probably isn't a tougher division in which to decide the order of a top two. I feel that Duran's title reign was superior due to the high number of 'No Decision' affairs that Leonard had - in seven years after winning the crown I believe he only boxed three bouts that were observed under full championship conditions. Throw in the Ray Leonard victory, one of the best single wins of them all, and Duran has the edge for me. I have Jofre as top dog at Bantamweight, but as a division it isn't one which I rate quite as highly as Lightweight. I suppose Jofre's allround consistency and THAT comeback mean he has a case, but Duran scored some excellent improbable wins late in his career, too.

I've already argued for my ranking of Walker with Scott above, so have a look at that if you're interested. Whoever wins out of Pacquiao and Mayweather will make a revised version of my list without any bother.

And finally, McGovern. Seemed well on his way to legendary status but, for me, his peak was just too short, fantastic though he was. There's an unsavoury stench around his win over Gans to this day, and he did precious little after his early twenties. Wins over Dixon, Erne and Palmer at such a young age would give him a top forty spot perhaps, but no higher in my own opinion, for what it's worth.

Sorry my reply dragged on! Cheers.

Perhaps best to put it like this then: In no way is Duran eleven spots or so better than Whitaker, in my view. One of the three contenders for top lightweight ever (like Duran); almost as masterful as a welterweight, and stopped off at light-welter to boot, as well as beating a light-middle belt-holder who was certainly no worse than Davy Moore. Could argue that Ray Leonard aside, Pea's victims read better than Duran's. Got to say that the more I think about it, would have Whitaker at 10 or 11 right now and Duran one or two places below him.

Thanks Chris, lots of fair points there, as ever.

Langford and Burley for me get marked down for not being world champions....

Pedantic for sure....but is the pinnacle of the sport politics or not...

As we all know lot's of champions lost non-title affairs whether through motivation or other reasons...

Benny Leonard no 1 for me....at light.

Pep and sadler both top 10.....

fighters are right but not necessarily in the right order.

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:Langford and Burley for me get marked down for not being world champions....

Pedantic for sure....but is the pinnacle of the sport politics or not...

As we all know lot's of champions lost non-title affairs whether through motivation or other reasons...

I probably don't always show it in my lists but agree with you here.

Title fights mean more, and it's the mark of a great sportsman how they perform when the pressure is really on. Also, how well a champion can defend his crown etc.

would have Whitaker at 10 or 11 right now and Duran one or two places below him

i find it hard to put someone with under 50 fights in my top 25, i have done it with ray leonard but he has 4 names on his resume as good as anyone, whitaker's best wins were just nowhere near that calibre

No, I appreciate that line of thinking zx, although at 45 fights, or whatever it was, Whitaker isn't massively short. Thing is that Duran may have had three times the number of fights, but I'm not sure that it can be said that he beat superior opposition within that span. Leonard is better than Chavez (scored a draw, but let's not split hairs). De Jesus and Buchanan are comparable with Nelson and Ramirez, I would guess. After that? A gap of eleven seems quite large considering their respective achievements. It also seems a little harsh that Whitaker, a la Chavez or Duran, should be expected to have padded his record with a variety of relatively straightforward non-title fights. It's not as though Pea had any unfinished business, any missing opponent on his CV at any weight between 135 and 147.

My suspicion is that his style still bores people too much for them to consider him the equal of a Leonard or a Duran. He was, though. Ray Leonard was an almost peerless virtuoso at 147, but was pretty average at almost every other weight, other than his chutzpah-filled victory over the fading Hagler. Whitaker was pretty damned untouchable at his "main weight", but was a considerable force in at least two others as well.

Whitaker is a bit of a strange one, captain, and although I'm a massive fan, in a way I'm still unsure whether or not I've got him 'figured out', so to speak.

You'll have to forgive me for the shocking cliché I'm about to use, but he's one of those fighters that a lot of people just don't seem to 'get.' Maybe it was his style which you touched on captain, maybe it was that he emerged in the days of three or more titles per division, maybe it's because he was horribly robbed against Chavez of the win which would have defined him more than any other, I don't know. Have to confess that, up until a couple of years back, I never really considered him a top twenty man, and when I look back now I'm not sure why it took me so long to appreciate his considerable achievements.

Have to say that at Lightweight, I'd still have a bit of daylight between Duran and Whitaker. Duran reigned for longer, was utterly dominant on the big stage and, collectively, I'd say that Buchanan, De Jesus, Kobayashi, Fernandez and Ishimatsu represent a greater quality than Ramirez, Haugen, Nazario, Paez, Nelson (just not a Lightweight) and Pendleton.

Welterweight is a bit more tricky. Duran's win over Leonard is probably worth more than Whitaker's over Rivera, Jacobs and McGirt combined, and his win against Palomino is considerable, too. But alas, given that Whitaker reigned at 147 lb for, off the top of my head, four years and something like nine defences, he probably deserves the nod, especially as he was never beaten at the weight in circumstances as damaging as 'No Mas.'

Nothing in it at Light-Middleweight for me - on paper Vasquez is perhaps a better win than Moore, but at the time Moore was one of the hottest properties in the sport, and Duran had certainly seen better days by 1983. So that leaves us with Whitaker beating Pineda for a Light-Welterweight strap versus Duran upsetting Barkley for the Middleweight title, and I know which win carries easily more value as far as I'm concerned.

So for me, Duran still ahead. But I will say this, captain; even though I disagree, you've made a great argument for how that could be reversed, not least because you've managed to put it in such simple terms.

Good post again, Chris. I'd say that if you add Mayweather to the lightweight CV for Pea, there is very little between the best victims at the weight for him and Duran. As far as dominance is concerned, certainly, people made much of Duran's savagery, but I question that he ruled his division any more absolutely than Pea. Duran clearly has the edge in longevity, but Pea also did at least go to the trouble of unifying the crown, three belts or not, and when he moved up, he did so with not a rival in sight, just like Duran.

I think that at light-middle and middle, one has to be a bit careful with Duran. If it's right to give him the credit for Hagler, Moore, Cuevas and Barkley, I firmly believe that it's also right that he takes something of a shoeing for Laing, Hearns, Benitez and Batten, to say nothing of the no mas at welter. We can't just pick the great moments, alas. Duran had lots of great highs, arguably more than Whitaker. Pea never plumbed some of the depths that Duran touched, however; there is no hint of a performance like those against Batten or Laing on his record. Look how a great fighter past his best can lose with honour in Whitaker's performance against Trinidad. See also how competitive he was against de la Hoya, a generation after Pea was winning his first titles.

Duran may be ahead of Whitaker on the pound for pound rankings. If so, it can't be by anything approaching eleven places.

Have to say that your argument is getting more and more compelling, captain. Who knows, maybe I have Duran too high, Whitaker too low, or a mixture of both. However, I just can't envisage Sweet Pea higher out of the two, I just hope it's not subconscious favouritism that's leading me to that belief.

I agree that Duran's exploits anywhere above Welterweight need to be taken with a sense of perspective. But would Whitaker have fared any better against Hearns at 154 lb? Could he have pushed Hagler so close at 160 lb? I suppose that's beside the point, though.

Thinking about Whitaker's Welterweight days, I've often wondered why there was no unification bout with either Trinidad or Quartey between 1993 and 1997. A fight with De la Hoya was a natural given Oscar's appeal at the time, but while Whitaker defended the WBC title against, now and then, non-descript names, should he not have been seeking the above names out instead, as he had done at 135 lb? He argued in 1997 that a fight with either Trinidad and / or Quartey "would do nothing for Pernell Whitaker", but given that the two of them were absolute monsters at the weight, his claim to be above Duran would be looking a lot stronger in my eyes had he beaten one of them.

Still, if we go down that route I suppose we'd have to question why Duran didn't dip his toes at 140 lb or why he showed absolutely no intention of fighting McCallum at Light-Middleweight, and round and round we'd go.

This query is going to be eating away at me for days, now! Off to bed before I hit meltdown.

Duran may be ahead of Whitaker on the pound for pound rankings. If so, it can't be by anything approaching eleven places.

Agreed - that's why I'd move Duran up to 5 and Whittaker up to 10.

Got to say as someone who put Duran at number 10 and even now was wondering if that was generous I am very much with the Captain. Do definitely think as Truss has argued that for people to want to give him credit for the likes of Moore and Hagler but dismiss the Hearns loss and also the crushing nature is a bit have your cake and eat it. Personally don't downgrade him too much for the Hearns loss as Tommy was the kind of guy who could do that to you on his night. However losing to a domestic-euro level guy, even one as mercurial as Laing is less forgivable and Duran was not anywhere near as far past his prime as many would have you believe at this point, hell it was only two years after Leonard, rightly considered his greatest moment.

Overall I do think there is a risk with Duran of picking and choosing what performances suit our arguments and by putting an arbitrary cut off point on his career for these things he comes dangerously close to a PRIME Mike Tyson type argument. Will just about keep him in my top ten based on his lightweight antics and his win over Leonard but the arguments against this are pretty compelling and have to admit the more I think about it the more I am coming round to the opposite view as I do think a lot more leeway is applied to Roberto than other fighters out there.

I'm not sure about exactly where I'd put Duran, but my top 6 spots are taken and the top ten also needs to find room for Langford and Fitzsimmons. The very highest that he could be is therefore 9, and I'm not at all sure that his accomplishments are superior to those of Tunney and Pep, for example. Top 15, I imagine, would be fair; not sure whether it's 12, 13, 14 or 15, but don't think that this is a slight on him, whatever the case.

Captain apologies if you have already posted it but who are the six at the top spot that are locked in?

Found one I did months ago, and although I would change a few places, I don't think it would be wholly different. Whitaker probably being someone I underappreciated like yourself Chris. I'd probably move Ali above Charles (possibly Armstrong too) and Pep up a spot.

1 Sugar Ray Robinson
2 Harry Greb
3 Henry Armstrong
4 Ezzard Charles
5 Muhammad Ali
6 Sam Langford
7 Sugar Ray Leonard
8 Roberto Duran
9 Willie Pep
10 Bob Fitzsimmons
11 Benny Leonard
12 Eder Jofre
13 Archie Moore
14 Gene Tunney
15 Carlos Monzon
16 Julio Cesar Chavez
17 Joe Louis
18 Marvin Hagler
19 Sandy Saddler
20 Mickey Walker

Jeff, I go Robinson, Armstrong, Jofre, Ali, Greb, Charles in that order, and then try to make space for Langford and Fitz somewhere in the ten after them.

Like the look of that list very much, Scott, with the one proviso (aside from the Duran and Whitaker question) that I feel that Louis may be a little high. I know that he's the second best heavy ever, but I'm unsure whether that gives him the call over those who probably beat better men at a range of weights. However, splitting hairs aside, excellent work.

Thanks. Tough one Louis is. But I bear in mind that he wasn't able to weight jump, took on pretty much every challenge, was very dominant with a good skill set. Not sure if it's fair to mark a Heavyweight down because the selection of possible opponents is lower than for someone who can gain/lose a few pound. Another person may question why there is so much space between him and Ali but I've never had a problem splitting them at Heavyweight personally with Ali holding wins over 3 potential top 10ers.

With the excpetion of Jofre who I know embarassingly little about pretty much the names I have, Charles is the guy I think perhaps I view a little kinder as time passes, the more I learn and see of Moore and the black muderers row the more his achievments gain lustre. Even allowing for the size difference Burley was a guy who performed well in rematches, particularly against Zivic who he beat with something to spare second and third times round, for Charles to get the nod second time round speaks highly of him.

Can also see an argument for Fitz being right up there, to beat a great middle in Dempsey whilst weighing 151 in the ring in such style before going on to take the title off a superb heavy in Corbett and still have enough to beat Gardiner at 40 + is staggering, the phrase we will never see that again is overused but in terms of Fitz achievements it is almost certainly absolutely true, these lists are so hard because there are six or seven guys you can make an argument for and splitting them can only be done by the most tenuous margins and no matter how hard I try am never really happy with the outcome.

captain carrantuohil wrote:I'm not sure about exactly where I'd put Duran, but my top 6 spots are taken and the top ten also needs to find room for Langford and Fitzsimmons. The very highest that he could be is therefore 9, and I'm not at all sure that his accomplishments are superior to those of Tunney and Pep, for example. Top 15, I imagine, would be fair; not sure whether it's 12, 13, 14 or 15, but don't think that this is a slight on him, whatever the case.

I disagree with Pep, though it's an entirely understandable argument. Disagree a little more strongly with Tunney, though.

Timed his retirement far better than Duran did, of course, but that aside I'm not sure he has any claim to be higher than him. As I said before, Duran is my top Lightweight, Tunney my number two / three Light-Heavyweight, which makes them just about comparable to start with. Would add, though, that Duran stepping up to Welterweight and dethroning Leonard is significantly more impressive than Tunney, a relatively big Light-Heavyweight, dethroning a 190 lb Dempsey who'd been inactive for three years. Granted, Duran's career was very hit and miss after that, but I don't think the lows outnumbered the highs by a big enough margin to relegate him below the 'Fighting Marine', and I'll stress that I'm a real admirer of Tunney.

Would accept that Tunney was perhaps the more rounded boxer than Duran (though I think some people forget how complete he was down at Lightweight) but I certainly don't think he achieved as much as him. Though I'm sure others will be able to put forward a very good argument for him.

Chris the more I think about it it is the later part of his career I think he gets a pass for. As others have already argued there are people only too willing to put forward his herculean effort against Hagler forward to prove his greatness but airbrush out the likes of Laing, does seem a bit selective to me. Don't get me wrong would no more consider mentioning Joppy than I would counting McBride against Tyson but his subsequent results and the fact it was two years after Leonard suggests he was far from shot around the time of Benitez and Laing, for me they were just really poor performances unbecoming an all time great.

Used to drive us all insane when the Tyson fanboys trotted out the "he was not prime" lines when anyone mentioned Douglas or Holy in relation to Mike but think by picking and choosing which of Duran's performances we will and won't include we are dangerously close to doing the same. Which all must mean after 4 years of chipping away Truss is finally grinding me down.

rowley wrote:Chris the more I think about it it is the later part of his career I think he gets a pass for. As others have already argued there are people only too willing to put forward his herculean effort against Hagler forward to prove his greatness but airbrush out the likes of Laing, does seem a bit selective to me. Don't get me wrong would no more consider mentioning Joppy than I would counting McBride against Tyson but his subsequent results and the fact it was two years after Leonard suggests he was far from shot around the time of Benitez and Laing, for me they were just really poor performances unbecoming an all time great.

I'm not sure, he was very fat and lethargic against Laing.

But again Scott we are veering dangerously close to Tyson fanboy territory, how often do we hear the Douglas loss explained away along the grounds of Mike didn't train etc, may be true but is as much his own fault as it is of Duran turning up in poor shape for Laing, do think a certain amount of leeway is afforded him that is not given to others.

In fairness though, Rowley, the Duran-Tyson example is stretching it a bit. First off, even if we did produce this mystery cut off point for their 'primes' before Laing and Douglas respectively, Duran had already achieved a hell of a lot more than Tyson ever did.

Next, and probably more importantly, it's undeniable that against the likes of Laing and Benitez, Duran was operating outside his natural and best weight class. Tyson can have no such excuse.

For what it's worth, I've never ignored Duran's defeats to Laing, Benitez or Hearns, and nor do I think we should. I accept that his career post-Leonard is, to say the least, chequered. Good wins over Moore, Cuevas, Mamby, Barkley and even Castro, and a defiant stand against Hagler. Slip ups against Sims, Laing and, of course, the hammering against Hearns balance the ledger more or less, in my eyes. I think captain was more or less fair in calling Duran's post-Leonard career a 'no score draw' and while I agree it doesn't add massively to his legacy, I still think there are enough good moments there to make those years not entirely wasted.

Add that to his 1968-1980 career, which really was something else, and you've got a top ten pound for pound man in my eyes, just about.

I know the argument was a stretch Chris but could think of no more obvious example. However it is not so much the losses that I have issue with it is the willingness of many to include the likes of Moore and Hagler to boost his credentials but airbrush out the likes of Hearns and Laing as for me this is very much having your cake and eating it. Personally I tend to agree with you that his body or work between 68 and 80 is probably enough to warrant a place in the lower reaches of the top ten but no higher than that.

For me it is not a case of introducing an arbitrary cut off but accepting his career post this as a past his best fighter showing patchy form and I firmly believe his losses here, particularly the nature of some of them and who they came against in some instances balance out the wins and this stage of his career adds nothing to his legacy for me and when we take his career from 68-80 it is impressive but for me does level the playing field slightly with guys like Benny Leonard who are great but not guaranteed shoo-ins for the top ten.

For me, I see it like this: Imagine cutting off a guys arm and putting him in a boxing match. If he wins against a good opponent, then you have to think very highly of the win. If he loses you can hardly criticise him harshly. For me, that's like what Duran was doing at the higher weights at an advanced age.

I see your point Chris but that is kind of what I am getting at with having your cake and eating it, if you lose to a journeyman you get a pass, beat a decent fighter you get a bump. Does seem to stack the dice in his favour somewhat.

I'm not Chris, but yes you are right, and certainly in the cases where it was his fault for not training hard enough.

Apologies Scott, guess the thought of my impending spinning back fist beating is playing havoc with the mind

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!

Sugar, the Wills fights on the whole came when Sam was slightly on the wane. Have to remember when discussing Sam's heavyweight time he was 5ft 6 and at his heaviest rarely weighed above 180 and was probably more comfortable a good deal below that. At his peak between 1907-12 he lost something like 2 fights out of 51 (both avenged) when one considers he was regularly matching up with guys like Jeannette and McVea who were top tier guys at their time this is nothing short of remarkable.

Couple that with pushing all time greats like Gans and Walcott all the way when but a slip of a lad and for me Sam more than deserves the esteem he is held in. Another thing to remember is it was widely accepted sam often held back in fights in order to secure future fights. When one reads about Sam's career what becomes apparent is when he could secure fights with those he was more naturally matched with physically or when someone was unwise enough to get under his skin they tended to be dealt with in double quick time.