ring magazine's 80 greatest fighters of the last 80 years

[Kinetic Linking]

dempsey cleaned out the heavyweight division fighting at 180 pounds during the golden age of boxing. GOAT

[BennyST]

I've noticed a couple of guys saying 'Fighting' Harada was much too high. I don't know about that fellas. Harada may be one of the most overlooked and underrated fighters of contemporary times. The guy was a bona fide madman in his time and he fought so many truly great fighters. I mean really great! I'm not sure how you could put him much lower than that if you actually examine what he did.

I was first introduced to him through my dad and Harada's amazing fight series with the Aussie's Lionel Rose and Johnny Famechon and as such he became one of my favourite fighters. The Rose fight was at his peak and the Famechon fight was towards the end when he moved up to try and capture his third divisional world title.

Before that though, let's look at his incredible record and who he beat.

His two biggest wins are of course over the legendary Eder Jofre. Jofre is of course one of the true ATG's and was number 19 on that list. In his entire career there was only one fighter he could not beat and that was Harada. Jofre's only two losses were both to Harada taking Jofre's record to 72-2. Even after he lost both those fights. Jofre went on to become the world FW champion moving up in weight and beating the ATG's Jose Legra and Vincente Saldivar, showing that was indeed still in his prime when he fought Harada.

Harada's second greatest win and his first world title at Flyweight is over one of Thailand's greatest fighters Pone Kingpetch. Kingpetch was the undisputed, unified Flyweight champion and one of that divisions greatest ever champions beating quite possibly the best fighter in that weight division ever twice, Pascual Perez. Kingpetch was a three time world champion and a truly legendary Flyweight fighter.

Apart from these great wins, his other title defense fights were against some truly amazing opposition and didn't take the soft road like some Japanese and Asian champions tended toward around that time. He fought by far the greatest opposition available.

Alan Rudkin had three title shots in his career and lost all. Saying that though is certainly no put down as very few would ever have beaten any of the fighters in each title shot. His title shots were against Harada, Lionel Rose and Ruben Olivares. Rudkin was one of the UK's best fighters and the top contender for a long time then. Some of his great wins were over the likes of Johnny Caldwell (world BW champion), and Walter McGowan (WBC Flyweight champ).
Jose Medel also never won a world title but was one of the greatest fighters of the BW division from the late fifties to the mid sixties. His title losses came to Eder Jofre and Harada. Some of his greatest wins include Harada (non title bout), Walter McGowan, Jose Lopez, Jesus Pimentel and Chuchu Castillo.
Bernado Caraballo was a great fighter. Another one of the best of that time who never won his title shot. His two were also against Jofre and Harada. Caraballo has beaten some of the great fighters of our time though, including Pacsual Perez, Antonio Herrera (who beat HOF'ers Ismael Laguna, Joe Brown, etc). His losses during his prime (non title losses) were only to HOF type fighters such as Ernesto Marcel, Chucho Castillo, Alfredo Marcano as he went unbeaten from 1960, apart from his one title loss to Jofre, to late 1967 when he then lost his last title shot to Harada.

Some other great non title wins of his include Antonio Herrera, Katsutoshi Aoki, and Ray Asis. He eventually lost his title to the great undisputed BW champion Lionel Rose, who was a stunningly skillful boxer with a very fast, slick counter punching style. After this, Harada moved up to challenge Johnny Famechon for his world FW title, won from Jose Legra. Famechon was an amazingly skilled defensive fighter who fought in the style that you see from Floyd Mayweather today using the shoulder roll to fend of attacks and create his own counter opportunities. His slick boxing and high counter output offset the aggressive Harada who lost a close, great first fight leading to a highly publicised rematch in Japan in which Famechon fought one of the best fights of his career with incredible skill, rarely seen today apart from from fighters such as Mayweather/Toney/Hopkins etc, and knocked Harada out for only the second time in his long career after a fantastic fight.

[mickey malone]

Ref: BennyST.... Good post.. Feel I may have underrated him..

[GJC]

I'm a big fan of **** tiger but he is too high in that company

[T.Horton]

dempsey cleaned out the heavyweight division fighting at 180 pounds during the golden age of boxing. GOAT

Dempsey didn't clean out anything except his bar at closing time.

[Tyson Jr.]

Tyson is ranked 72??!!
he deserves more
way more
not even under the 40s
the fact that he bitten Holyfield's ear
doesnt make him ranked 72
...........
Sonny Liston is ranked 71??!!
he knocked out Floyd Patterson twice
and they rank him as 71
...........
Lennox Lewis is ranked 52??!!!
even when I dont like Lewis alot
but he still knocked out Tyson fairly
..........
and Evander Holyfield is ranked 22??!!
if they ranked Tyson 72 because he bit Holyfield's ear
they must do the same to Holyfield
because he took steriods after all
and they ranked Lewis 52
while he defeated Holyfield
...........
it is my opinion after all
no need to agree or disagree
peace

[Obama]

If its primarily based on resumes then Pernell is too high...Aaron Pryor is too high...and how the hell is Trinidad at 51 and DLH at 75?

I personally like ESPN's list better...

2002. Trinidad didn't get clowned by Winky Wright yet. And De La Hoya didn't become Middleweight Champion yet.

[mickey malone]

Glad this post has come back.. Thanks *****..
Don't think I mentioned it on the History section..
It's where The Rings concerned..
About 5 months ago, I was doing some research on the HW journeyman, Rocky Sekorski (one of Foremans come back fodder).. Was spellbound, when Boxrec stated he was no 25 on The Ring's Greatest 100 Punchers of AT list.. I checked it out, & **** me! It was true!... Considering Frank Bruno hadn't even made the list, I felt insensed, & emailed Douggie Fischer to take the piss a bit..
Well.. Needless to say, I never recieved either a thankyou or a reply, & haven't had much time for it or it's idiotic opinions, ever since.. As a point of interest though, Sekorski has since been removed, & Julian Jackson now, mysteriously sits there.. A joke in itself!... Furthermore, Bruno STILL doesn't make the list!.. So biased to US fighters, it's unnavigable..

[Obama]

Glad this post has come back.. Thanks *****..
Don't think I mentioned it on the History section..
It's where The Rings concerned..
About 5 months ago, I was doing some research on the HW journeyman, Rocky Sekorski (one of Foremans come back fodder).. Was spellbound, when Boxrec stated he was no 25 on The Ring's Greatest 100 Punchers of AT list.. I checked it out, & **** me! It was true!... Considering Frank Bruno hadn't even made the list, I felt insensed, & emailed Douggie Fischer to take the piss a bit..
Well.. Needless to say, I never recieved either a thankyou or a reply, & haven't had much time for it or it's idiotic opinions, ever since.. As a point of interest though, Sekorski has since been removed, & Julian Jackson now, mysteriously sits there.. A joke in itself!... Furthermore, Bruno STILL doesn't make the list!.. So biased to US fighters, it's unnavigable..

Frank Bruno never jumped out as a devastating puncher to me. I think he would have KOed suspect chin Lewis inside of the first 5 rounds when he was giving him a tough fight if that was the case.

I do believe Nigel Benn made the list, and he's another fighter from the UK. So I'm not sure it's all that biased...

[mikeyh1015]

Roy jones should easily be #1 he would beat any of those guys easy. Modern day fighters would destroy srr.