Comments Thread For: Daily Bread Mailbag: The 10 best fighters in history, Andy Ruiz, Hamzah Sheeraz, and more

[BoxingUpdates]

Stephen "Breadman" Edwards answers your questions about boxing eras past and present in his first mailbag of 2026...
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[bobjones1235]

Tyson is the greatest!

[SouthpawRight]

max's list sucks ass his severe recency bias betrays his historical illiteracy. Need to study history to do ALL TIME lists

Steph missed Benny Leonard

Steph's list:

1. Sugar Ray Robinson
2. Muhammad Ali
3. Henry Armstrong
4. Sam Langford
5. *Sugar Ray Leonard
6. Roberto Duran
7. *Ezzard Charles
8. *Roy Jones Jnr
9. Willie Pep
10. Joe Louis

Honorable mention to the greats who could easily be in the top 10 – Floyd Mayweather, Pernell Whitaker, Harry Greb, Manny Pacquiao, Tony Canzoneri and Salvador Sanchez. Greb’s resume may be the best ever. But there is no footage of his fights. I actually have a hard time not having Mayweather and Whitaker outside of my top 10, and if you asked me this on a different day they most likely would’ve been included.

*Charles is the best light heavyweight ever. And his run from 1943-51 is as good as anyone’s run in boxing history. Charles fought in the 1940s and he was overshadowed by Robinson, Pep and Louis. But he was every bit as good and his competition may have been stiffer.

*Sugar Ray Leonard was the best fighter of possibly the best era (the 1980s) in boxing history. He was a gold medalist in a ridiculously tough Olympics (1976), and he has the best collection of Mt Rushmore scalps in boxing history – Benitez, Duran, Hearns and Hagler.

*Roy Jones Jnr beat seven hall of famers. On top of that he’s the bridge between Pernell Whitaker and Floyd Mayweather. I saw Roy next to both of them in their primes in real time. Roy’s prime coincided with the back end of Whitaker’s prime and the front end of Floyd’s. I thought Roy was slightly over both.

I didn’t mention Terence Crawford because he literally just retired and I’m still trying to quantify where he is exactly. That’s very hard to do when a fighter is still active or recently retired because the assessment is fluid. I need a little more time to place Crawford and I don’t want to misplace him. Respect to Max, Shady and Malik. They got the boxing world buzzing with their list. It makes for interesting banter.

[SouthpawRight]

Steph ranks welterweight eras

The best welterweight eras I have seen since color TV…

1. Leonard-Hearns-Duran-Cuevas-Benitez-Palomino. That particular era produced six HOFs. That’s unreal for any era.
2. Whitaker-Quartey-De La Hoya-Trinidad-Carr-Campas. This era produced three HOFs and some very serious contenders and champions.
3. Mayweather-Pacquiao-Cotto-Margarito-Mosley. This was a rough era that produced two of the best fighters ever.
4. Crawford-Spence-Thurman-Manny-Garcia-Porter. This era was better than people watching it in real time realized. The only critique is it took Crawford-Spence too long to happen.

[SouthpawRight]

In Nakatani vs Hernandez, I didn’t have a pen and paper. But I did watch it intently. There were about two or three swing rounds that were very hard to score. But from an objective observation I have an easier time giving the fight to Hernandez than I do Nakatani. The fight most likely should’ve been a draw. It was a very tough fight to score but Hernandez had the better, more consistent, moments in my opinion.

I didn’t have expectations because this was my first time seeing Hernandez fight. I always thought Junto was the truth, but times tells all. While he’s very effective with fighters who can’t get inside of his reach and/or can’t take his punch, he just showed serious vulnerability to being crowded and forced to fight inside. Now the question is was Hernandez undervalued, or is a lack of inside fighting an issue for Nakatani? Again, time will tell.

Inoue-Nakatani next is the elephant in the room. I think it’s clear that Inoue is on a higher tier. Matching Nakatani and Hernandez killed some of the lustre off the proposed super fight. The odds will be over 75/25 in Inoue’s favor. But I only have it 60/40 in Inoue’s favor. Inoue fights nothing like Hernandez. And Nakatani is very creative and sudden with his counter punches and attacks. Inoue is very susceptible when he disengages after he attacks, or when he’s not first in an exchange. Nakatani may not be more talented, twitchy or as fast as Inoue. But he has a skill set and punch that can KO Inoue. Stylistically this can be a difficult for Inoue.

[DeeMoney]

I dont like the accepted difference between "best of all time" and "greatest of all time"; best being how good you actually were in the ring where greatest is mostly resume. Problem is greatest rewards fighters more who control the factors outside the ring (A-sides) while hurting those fighters who get ducked and avoided.

[Moz_boxing]

P4P All Time Lists are a waste of time to many great fighters but one thing for sure Max Kellerman Malik Scott and that other guy don't know anything about boxing.

What happend to Andy Ruiz Jr. Well that is not tough to answer he beat AJ and the he lost his hunger or maybe a wron phrasing when talking about Ruiz since he never lost his hunger but lost his career by overeating instead of training. He tried to come back and looked horrible in all of his fights past the AJ win. He should have lost against Miller and by now he would not beat any top10 fighter if he shows up like he did the last years.

"Why go to the fight if you’re going to be on your phone watching social media? We live in a very strange world these days"

Amen to that. People nowadays are crazy but the sad thing is, it is not by choice they trapped by the system and programmed. Anyways the real topic while talking about GGG is did nobody saw the clip in which GGG told Cristiano Ronaldo that he will have 1 last fight in 2026?

Inoue vs Nakatani breakdown is exactly the same as i see it. I have some other points which even make it a true 50/50 but the main point is Nakatani is the supreme counter puncher with 1 punch knockout power and Inoue has one big flaw and this is him being open for big counter punches. Inoue is not ****** and will fight super cautious and this will end up in a cagey chess match but i can still see both fighters getting dropped. Inoue can't fight like Hernandez and i honestly think nobody can and i think not even Hernandez could pull of such a performance twice. It was absurd how much punches he took and was never slowing down even one bit very strange to see. Everyone gets tired even Marvin Hagler, Joe FRazier Chavez etc. but this guy was not showing any signs and yet Nakatani still won in my opinion.

Inoue vs Nakatani has to happen next style make fights, lets not get it twisted Nakatani would have stopped Picasso in my opinion and Inoue might would have stopped Hernandez.

[SteveM]

P4P All Time Lists are a waste of time to many great fighters but one thing for sure Max Kellerman Malik Scott and that other guy don't know anything about boxing.

What happend to Andy Ruiz Jr. Well that is not tough to answer he beat AJ and the he lost his hunger or maybe a wron phrasing when talking about Ruiz since he never lost his hunger but lost his career by overeating instead of training. He tried to come back and looked horrible in all of his fights past the AJ win. He should have lost against Miller and by now he would not beat any top10 fighter if he shows up like he did the last years.

"Why go to the fight if you’re going to be on your phone watching social media? We live in a very strange world these days"

Amen to that. People nowadays are crazy but the sad thing is, it is not by choice they trapped by the system and programmed. Anyways the real topic while talking about GGG is did nobody saw the clip in which GGG told Cristiano Ronaldo that he will have 1 last fight in 2026?

Inoue vs Nakatani breakdown is exactly the same as i see it. I have some other points which even make it a true 50/50 but the main point is Nakatani is the supreme counter puncher with 1 punch knockout power and Inoue has one big flaw and this is him being open for big counter punches. Inoue is not ****** and will fight super cautious and this will end up in a cagey chess match but i can still see both fighters getting dropped. Inoue can't fight like Hernandez and i honestly think nobody can and i think not even Hernandez could pull of such a performance twice. It was absurd how much punches he took and was never slowing down even one bit very strange to see. Everyone gets tired even Marvin Hagler, Joe FRazier Chavez etc. but this guy was not showing any signs and yet Nakatani still won in my opinion.

Inoue vs Nakatani has to happen next style make fights, lets not get it twisted Nakatani would have stopped Picasso in my opinion and Inoue might would have stopped Hernandez.

Bread is super cautious with reason about accusing fighters of PED use - but you phrased it in a way that he could have done - it 'was strange to see' Hernandez fight like that. I'll be more forthright - if that guy never gets busted for PEDS in his career then whichever fighter wants to use PEDS without getting busted needs to find out who Hernandez's S&C trainer is. Same exact play as Francisco Rodriguez vs Yafai.
I'm thinking Junto's most recent fight might have taken something out of him - but even so, he has the style to give Inoue a lot of trouble. Inoue's best strategy is to just outbox him like Ahkmadaliev.

[hugh grant]

Id put pac above SRL. He had better longevity and seemed tougher. Pac at no5 seems fair on this list

[Jab jab boom]

Id put pac above SRL. He had better longevity and seemed tougher. Pac at no5 seems fair on this list

Seemed tougher? The same pac who was stopped 3x?? Leonard’s fight against hearns alone is tougher than anything pax has ever done. His peak is also better than pacs as he was beating all time greats. Not just champions or future hall of famers, all time greats. Pac is beneath Leonard for sure.