My rankings: Featherweights

[Welsh Jon]

1. Wille Pepp, USA
2. Abe Attell, USA
3. Sandy Saddler, USA
4. Vicente Saldivar, Mexico
5. Salvador Sanchez, Mexico
6. Henry Armstrong, USA
7. Kid Chocolate, Cuba
8. Johnny Kilbane, USA
9. Alexis Arguello, Nicaragua
10.Eusebio Pedroza, Panama
11.Jim Driscoll, UK
12.Marco Antonio Barrera, Mexico
13.George Dixon, Canada
14.Azumah Nelson, Ghana
15.Terry McGovern, USA
16.Johnny Dundee, USA/Italy
17.Young Griffo, Australia
18.Owen Moran, UK
19.Johnny Famechon, Australia/France
20.Jeff Fenech, Australia

[Sugar Adam Ali]

Good list,,,

H2H armstrong beats all those guys IMO

Manny should be on the list,, his feather campaign wasnt too long but he destroyed a prime barrera and ended his run as feather kingpin, and also should have won the first jmm fight which was a feather unification if the knockdowns had been scored right.. Should have been a 10-6 round and judge gave it 10-7,, and that point gave jmm a draw..

[Humean]

What are the reasons you and others rate Pep so highly? I know it has become almost canonical to have Pep as either the best or top 3 best featherweight of all time and as a top 10/20 all time pound for pound but what are the reasons that you think justify that? That question goes to anyone who rates Pep that highly.

[IronDanHamza]

What are the reasons you and others rate Pep so highly? I know it has become almost canonical to have Pep as either the best or top 3 best featherweight of all time and as a top 10/20 all time pound for pound but what are the reasons that you think justify that? That question goes to anyone who rates Pep that highly.

Whilst I do have Pep Top 3 last time I did a Featherweight list, he is slowly but surely getting further and further down my ATG list.

I could easily have Armstrong, Attell, maybe even Saldivar and Sanchez above him at Featherweight really.

[Sugar Adam Ali]

What are sanchez's best wins at feather,,, I know his reign was cut short but he had gomez, lopez, azumah.... Any others that im leaving off,, He was just before i started watching boxing,, Are there anymore top guys he fought that may be overlooked or forgotten about over time

[Welsh Jon]

What are the reasons you and others rate Pep so highly? I know it has become almost canonical to have Pep as either the best or top 3 best featherweight of all time and as a top 10/20 all time pound for pound but what are the reasons that you think justify that? That question goes to anyone who rates Pep that highly.

Yeah he is almost universally rated as number 1 featherweight and I can't see a reason to disagree with that.

He has a good resume. He beat 6 featherweight titlists I believe as well as several Bantamweights and a couple of lightweights. Looked awesome on film. Gets bonus points for coming back from a plane crash and still fighting at an elite level.

I won't comment on p4p ratings because I don't like doing pound for pound ratings.

[IronDanHamza]

What are sanchez's best wins at feather,,, I know his reign was cut short but he had gomez, lopez, azumah.... Any others that im leaving off,, He was just before i started watching boxing,, Are there anymore top guys he fought that may be overlooked or forgotten about over time

Caldwell, Castillo, Laporte solid fighters.

I mean, the fighters you listed alone are pretty damn awesome, right?

His resume's better than Pep's really, from what I can see.

[Sugar Adam Ali]

Caldwell, Castillo, Laporte solid fighters.

I mean, the fighters you listed alone are pretty damn awesome, right?

His resume's better than Pep's really, from what I can see.

For sure, the fighters i listed are pretty awesome.. I was just curios if i was leaving anyone off that may get overlooked....

Its remarkable how many big fights he had in such a short time.. That must have been a trend in the early 80s because sanchez, SRL, the lightheavy fights and a few other greats seem to have all their biggest fights between 80-83... Must have been a great time to be a boxing fan...

[Humean]

Yeah he is almost universally rated as number 1 featherweight and I can't see a reason to disagree with that.

He has a good resume. He beat 6 featherweight titlists I believe as well as several Bantamweights and a couple of lightweights. Looked awesome on film. Gets bonus points for coming back from a plane crash and still fighting at an elite level.

I won't comment on p4p ratings because I don't like doing pound for pound ratings.

I suppose it depends on how much you rate Sandy Saddler, Chalky Wright, Ray Famechon, Sal Bartolo, Phil Terranova, and Paddy DeMarco.

I think his career is very padded. Certainly his career at world level pretty much ended in 1951 in his fourth and final fight with Saddler. He really only had one proper (as far as I can tell) 'world level' fight after that in 1958 when he was stopped by Hogan Kid Bassey. So in terms of judging his career it is best to focus on 1940-1951. I think the plane crash stuff is largely bull****, if you look on google you can find newspaper articles from the day after the crash that dispute the extent of the injuries that always seem to get repeated about the crash. I have said this before on here but I think the idea that he was never as good because of the plane crash, and hence why he was able to lose to Sandy Saddler, is simply nonsense. Saddler, albeit no where near as elegant a fighter as Pep, was nevertheless better than Pep. Also im not sure if I have ever seen Pep being criticized for being a 'quitter' but you would have thought that the way he quit on his stool against Saddler in the final fight would draw criticism amongst boxing fans, particularly ones who wax lyrical about the toughness of the fighters of old.

I think that bar probably Henry Armstrong he was the best and greatest featherweight there had been up until that point in time and until the emergence of Saddler and the sport, and the featherweight division in particular, becoming more 'international'. I think the press he got in his day was typically glorious and that not enough criticism has been made of him and his career ever since.

I'm not saying there isn't much to admire about him and his career but I think he has been grossly overrated all these years.


I posted this thread a few months back comparing Pep and Saddler's best wins: http://www.boxingscene.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=622938

[joemama]

Nice list but at feather I wouldn't have Barrera so high. I might at super bantamwt though