What is more impressive?

[Rick Taylor]

archies moores ko record is impressive and will probably never be beaten

[Rick Taylor]

Wilfred Benitez not only winning the title at 140 but beating Cervantes, at 17.

17 is just a ridiculously young age to be competing professionally, let alone winning a legit World Title against a world class fighter.

i dont count that one.

benitez stole that belt and ruined a great title run.

f%ck benitez

[billeau2]

I really depend on people who have a feel for making distinctions of the sort needed to compare such incredible fiats. I guess I would logically remove those feats that could be repeated: Its possible for a 17 year old to win big... and on the other spectrum, its possible for a late forties guy to win big, so lets take those off the roster.

Now we can look at some of the other achievements carefully.

Lets look at Moore's KO amount... incredible because he was not even a KO guy... thing is, as a percentage of his wins, it loses some of its luster... many guys per capita have more KO's and the Mongoose fought in many weight classes. So he could have had some nice size advantages.

Louis' reign could partially be a product of his competition...

Leaving us with Armstrong and Pep. Both records kind of speak to the same thing, the ability to win... a lot.

Pepe's impressive feat was somewhat duplicated by Ray Robinson who also went for long stretches of being undefeated... What about Hank?

To understand how special this record is lets gain some perspective. Adrian Broner fought for championships... But it was an obvious grab for low hanging fruit. Armstrong fought for these championships in weight categories that, to this day, contain the most aggregate human beings... In other words, Most people in the world will fight in the lower to welter weight divisions in professional combatives.

In Thai Boxing, the heavyweight champ is not even an important distinction, it is the middle and light weigh champ that carries the prestige. So Armstrong fought where most of the talent was... and indeed talent there was a plenty!

With that said, Armstrong wins it for me.

[phallus]

Greb beating 18 Hall of Famers.

greb was an incredible fighter

I really depend on people who have a feel for making distinctions of the sort needed to compare such incredible fiats. I guess I would logically remove those feats that could be repeated: Its possible for a 17 year old to win big... and on the other spectrum, its possible for a late forties guy to win big, so lets take those off the roster.

Now we can look at some of the other achievements carefully.

Lets look at Moore's KO amount... incredible because he was not even a KO guy... thing is, as a percentage of his wins, it loses some of its luster... many guys per capita have more KO's and the Mongoose fought in many weight classes. So he could have had some nice size advantages.

Louis' reign could partially be a product of his competition...

Leaving us with Armstrong and Pep. Both records kind of speak to the same thing, the ability to win... a lot.

Pepe's impressive feat was somewhat duplicated by Ray Robinson who also went for long stretches of being undefeated... What about Hank?

To understand how special this record is lets gain some perspective. Adrian Broner fought for championships... But it was an obvious grab for low hanging fruit. Armstrong fought for these championships in weight categories that, to this day, contain the most aggregate human beings... In other words, Most people in the world will fight in the lower to welter weight divisions in professional combatives.

In Thai Boxing, the heavyweight champ is not even an important distinction, it is the middle and light weigh champ that carries the prestige. So Armstrong fought where most of the talent was... and indeed talent there was a plenty!

With that said, Armstrong wins it for me.

it has to be Armstrong, because in his day there were no alphabet soup titles and extra weight classes. he beat all the greatest fighters in the world at the time, and it should have been 4 division world champion

[drablj]

billy bird has 138 or 139 kos (more than archie moore). langford was 20 at the time of his fight with gans. just a couple of corrections.

17 year old benitez beating cervantes is the most impressive to me.

[Anthony342]

I like Louis here 25 defenses.

[billeau2]

greb was an incredible fighter



it has to be Armstrong, because in his day there were no alphabet soup titles and extra weight classes. he beat all the greatest fighters in the world at the time, and it should have been 4 division world champion

Green K. Thank you for making the point about the different "champions" via alpha soup. I was actually going to edit post to make that point and forgot... It is an important point.

[Willie Pep 229]

While I wouldn't want in anyway to diminish Armstrong's achievement it may be unfair to other title holders to emphasis the singular nature of his achievement, i.e. after Armstrong, both he NYSAC and the NBA (WBA) enacted policies that forced title holders to relinquish a title before allowing them to campaign for a different (weight) title.

Obviously with only eight weight classes they didn't 'gate wise' need/want one guy holding four of the titles (which Armstrong came close to pulling off) that would be a lot of lost title fights (and much less money).

It is not unreasonable to think that others may have been able (even before the alphabet soup) to hold multiple (different weight class) titles at the same time, maybe (maybe SRR), maybe not.

[GhostofDempsey]

I think it comes down to Pep and Armstrong. I probably have to favor Pep when you consider he went on a 73 fight winning streak after his first loss. He served two years in the military during his prime, and in 1947 he is severely injured in a plane crash that broke his leg and some vertebrae in his spine. No one thought he would ever fight again. He wins a title less than eight months later.

Armstrong's accomplishment is impressive, especially during a time when there were only eight champions, the leap between weight classes was considerably longer.

[drablj]

Green K. Thank you for making the point about the different "champions" via alpha soup. I was actually going to edit post to make that point and forgot... It is an important point.

although armstrong's achievement is great, alphabet soup existed even then. for example, ceferino garcia was only nysac champion when he fought armstrong for the last time. it wasn't an official defense either. nba champ was al hostak and he was considered greater. there were ibu/ebu champions too.
armstrong's 3 championships were completely legit though.