P4P list is bull****

[Mr.MojoRisin']

I don't think that it is fair to compare fighters from flyweight to Heavyweight. Heavyweights are extremely favored on the p4p list when it takes less skill than the lighter weights to become champ, at least nowadays.

What are your thoughts?

[Scott9945]

I don't think that it is fair to compare fighters from flyweight to Heavyweight. Heavyweights are extremely favored on the p4p list when it takes less skill than the lighter weights to become champ, at least nowadays.

What are your thoughts?

I agree that P4P lists are generally a waste of time, just like comparing ATG's from much different era's.

[juggernaut666]

When was a HW ever extremely favored? If anything it takes more from them now because they are bigger and throw less punches.the smaller weight classes in general make it easier to obtain a higher ranking,i disagree.

[Mr.MojoRisin']

I agree that P4P lists are generally a waste of time, just like comparing ATG's from much different era's.

Yeah, most ATG's from pre 1970s/80s fought in one division while other in the last 30-40 years fought multiple divisions which ruined some of their legacies like Roy Jones Jr.

You really can only accurately rank someone on the weight class they fought in mainly with the exception of Sugar Ray Robinson who fought impressively in both Welterweight and Middleweight. He's number 1 on my list for both of those classes.

[billeau2]

Regarding P4p things are indeed different in the different weight classes. One example of this which greatly affects these lists, is WHY fighters may move up or down. A great light heavy is almost expected to fight heavyweight if the competition is weak in either the light heavy weight, or heavy weight, division...Now this is where it gets interesting...We can say Tunney was a great fighter, but as Joseph has said (and I agree) Tunney was a great light heavy....He just happened to be so good he challenged for and beat heavies...yet Michael Spinks ran into a problem doing this (shall we say?) a problem called Iron Mike!

The point here is that Tunney is on a lot of these P4P lists while in fact many people think Spinks was as good, or better as a light heavy. Why? well it may be a duty of the light heavy champ to grab that heavyweight prize, a function of the weight class. On the other hand Duran, and other great light weights often change divisions because they fill out. Even Mayweather was felt to be better by many at 135. A guy can be a great lightweight without considering a move up.

And in the midle weight divisions particularly, there are many issues related to fighting at different weights.

[Weltschmerz]

Yeah, most ATG's from pre 1970s/80s fought in one division while other in the last 30-40 years fought multiple divisions which ruined some of their legacies like Roy Jones Jr.

You really can only accurately rank someone on the weight class they fought in mainly with the exception of Sugar Ray Robinson who fought impressively in both Welterweight and Middleweight. He's number 1 on my list for both of those classes.

P4P was for Ray Robinson (for instance), wasn't it. Back in the day where heavies would generally be more popular (and better paid).

[billeau2]

P4P was for Ray Robinson (for instance), wasn't it. Back in the day where heavies would generally be more popular (and better paid).

During the early days of boxing in England, while its hard to imagine now, there was still a tangible link to a time before the printing press and the subsequent mass production of materials. Monasteries which became universities, were centers of learning where books could be copied by hand, and read in the library...guarded by the monastery.

remnants of this culture suggest an oral culture where a fighter's expliots were dissected among the pugilist intelligencia, no doubt over beers in the pub.

Sometimes time seems fleeting and some times its amazing what we still have...there are precious few but one can still actually talk to a human being born just before the end of the 18 hundreds. And during the "Gotham" stage of New York in the forties there was a network of gyms where fighters learned their trade and men, some of whom were around for the first gloved fight, imbuede in discussion about who where the best fighters.

My point is...if we can imagine a smoke filled alcove in Gleason's gym, and two men with cigars and fedoras: "Max your a bum there aint no way no how Louis coulda licked Dempsey...." etc etc etc. That was how opinions were waged.

As interest faded and scribes from law school (Bert Sugar) took off their overcoats and loafers an abstraction was required, a way to memorialize, create a hollogram of that guy with a fedora, cigar and opinion in the gym. A way to condense the wisdom of pugialistic sages in refined form, and bring it to the less knowleagable masses...and these type of lists became very important.

For quite a time in combatives a man's reputation preceded him...Ja,es Fig hardly needed an intro at the fairs where he had a booth and even Dempsey, sitting at a table in his restaurant, was a commodity known primarily by reputation.

Do we lose something with these lists? I certainly think so.

[Tom Cruise]

I think trying to magically make all fighters the same size while keeping all their attributes in some mythical H2H list is kind of pointless.

What you can do is compare how well the fighters do relative to the quality of their opposition. Obviously thats a very subjective criteria, but P4P lists are there to be talked about and debated.

[ironalex]

I don't think that it is fair to compare fighters from flyweight to Heavyweight. Heavyweights are extremely favored on the p4p list when it takes less skill than the lighter weights to become champ, at least nowadays.

What are your thoughts?

Lol if it's anyone who should be in the pound for pound rankings it's the heavyweights. They give 30-40 pounds plus away in weight sometimes. And what lower class weights are u meaning? Welter, lightweight... I agree. But flyweights etc... No way, it's much easier to come up quicker in those weights as there are less fighters at that category as opposed to the others

[NChristo]

Yeah, most ATG's from pre 1970s/80s fought in one division while other in the last 30-40 years fought multiple divisions which ruined some of their legacies like Roy Jones Jr.

You really can only accurately rank someone on the weight class they fought in mainly with the exception of Sugar Ray Robinson who fought impressively in both Welterweight and Middleweight. He's number 1 on my list for both of those classes.

Not sure what you're talking about, most ATG's from all eras have fought through multiple divisions, don't know what you mean by Heavyweight being favored on the lists either.

Everyone likes the idea of seeing 1 man on top of the rest of the boxing world, p4p lists are a way of sorting that

P4P was for Ray Robinson (for instance), wasn't it.

Just a myth that Bert Sugar (I think) created, the p4p term was used further back then Robinson for Canzoneri and a few others.