The Top 20 Junior Featherweights of All-Time

[BIGPOPPAPUMP]

By Cliff Rold - Follow the sweet science long enough and even a passing fan will hear, with sounds of awe, about an ‘original eight,’ about a bygone era when the sport’s weight classes were limited to just that number with (usually) just that many World champions. [details]

[OctoberRed]

By Cliff Rold - Follow the sweet science long enough and even a passing fan will hear, with sounds of awe, about an ‘original eight,’ about a bygone era when the sport’s weight classes were limited to just that number with (usually) just that many World champions. [details]

this is a good list

[talip bin osman]

where is chololo? larios has got to be there...

[cool-jupiter]

I can't wait to read the junior bantamweights list. That's the division at which many Japanese fighters became world champions. Jiro Watanabe will be included I guess. How about Masamori Tokuyama, he is a Korean though... Ceres Kobayashi, Satoshi Iida... I don't think they'll be there. Even so, it will be a good read. Post away ASAP Mr Rold.

[giacomino]

Can't argue with the first 6. Gomez is the gold standard of this division and probably always will be.
Ji-Won Kim is a huge reach at #7. The two "champions" he beat, Berna and Sung In-Suh, were C-level fighters who were put into the first IBF title fight and they beat each other in two fights before losing to Kim (Berna was coming off a brutal second-round knockout loss to Jaime Garza for the WBA title). Kim's most significant win was over longtime contender Ruben Dario Palacious in Korea.
Zaragoza, on the other hand, should be in the top 10. He fought 19 fights against champions, finishing with a 10-6-3 record against them

[El Dominicano]

Good list!

[oldgringo]

Good list overall. I know you have specific criteria to stick to, but Erik Morales is greater than Barrera at 122. 36-0, faced all of the best, beat all of the best. He was the man.

[Albert Maximo]

True

Yeah man is true i agree finally someone give credit a Puerto Rican fighter

[Dave Rado]

this is a good list

It's funny how everyone has pooh poohed the lists Cliff has done in divisions containing a relative dearth of great talent, but when he does a list in a division brimming with great talent, everyone says it's a good list. Seems to me that shows the statistical method he's using is fundamentally sound, but that like all statistical methods, it gives the best results when there is a lot of data (in this case by "data" I mean a lot of great fighters at the weight - and a lot of fighters who stayed at the weight for a significant time, rather than just passing through for a couple of fights on their way up).

[DarkSpyder]

I'd swap Morales for Barrera, but I suppose that it interchangeable depending on who you had winning the first fight.