My top 20 greatest all time IF YOU DONT AGREE I WILL EXPLAIN

[BattlingNelson]

Yeah, I was surprised by the inclusion of fighters like Benny Leonard, Canzoneri, Chocolate etc, not to speak of Jones and Floyd, yet the exclusion of Gans, Moore and McLarnin in particular.

Though somewhat inconsistent, he still holds, unarguably, one of the greatest resumes over many divisions in the history of the sport. Arguably better than anyone else in that respect.

Yeah Floyd is an amazing talent no doubt. I reckon he is closing in on the top 20, but the top 10 will probably forever be locked by fighters fighting before 1980.

Good shout JC Chavez BTW. Your Duran argument is a must read for new fans of the sport as well.

[prinzemanspopa]

Leonard didnt fight Aaron Pryor who begged for a fight,

That may have something to do with he fact he was busy fighting the best available competition who were actually competing in his division. Fighters actually better and more accomplished, I might add. But even still, Pryor was offered a career high purse to fight Leonard in 1981, and he rejected it. So there goes your argument.




And if Leonard's win over Hagler was the result of perfect timing, what you call Mayweather fighting De La Hoya, Mosley and Cotto well beyond their best years? None of those guys were universally considered to be the absolute best in the sport, and no intelligent beings were predicting Floyd to be destroyed by any of them. And more importantly: none of them are anywhere near as great as Hagler was.

[SBleeder]

That may have something to do with he fact he was busy fighting the best available competition who were actually competing in his division. Fighters actually better and more accomplished, I might add. But even still, Pryor was offered a career high purse to fight Leonard in 1981, and he rejected it. So there goes your argument.

Yep. Pryor never fought above 140 until his ill-fated comback; Leonard never fought below 147 in his career.

[Russian Crushin]

Btw TS, Duran started at bantamweight, not featherweight. He beat his first HOfer at featherweight in Ernesto Marcel, but fought future champion Carlos Mendoza at bantamweight.

As for Floyd and his lineal titles as a reason for being above Duran and so high, I guess Duran wouldn't have beaten Hernandez (maybe top 20 at 130), Castillo (maybe top 30 at 135), Baldomir (unrated at 147) and Canelo (unrated at 154) and was incredibly lucky instead to have had to fight Marvin Hagler (top 3-5 at 160), Tommy Hearns (top 1-3 at 154), Sugar Ray Leonard (top 2-3 at 147), Buchanan (top 15-20 at 135) and De Jesus for his.

That's not even going into the fact that he has one of the very, very greatest wins in the history of boxing, arguably the greatest. As for your banal, typical excuse of Ray Leonard fought the wrong fight, as usual, that's just some bad Legendary Nights parroting.

The original game plan, by Dundee and Leonard was to fight as he normally did. Revisionist history now has people thinking that Leonard normally fought as he did in the rematch and as he did against Hagler.
Those two fights were the exceptions, and the first Duran fight the rule.

He had never fought like that in his pro career and the way he fought Duran in the rematch was the first, and one of the only times, he ever fought like that with so much movement, very little engagement off the backfoot.

He fought 95% of his career as he did against Duran in the first fight and as it was thought Duran was slightly past it heading into it, they expected his youth, massive size and reach advantage, natural strength and punching power at 147 would prevail. Dundee also wanted Leonard to target Duran's body and back him up because they knew he was ageing and blew up in between fights and thus thought that they would wear him down and overpower him. They expected to be able to hit him with the jab easily, but Leonard had it taken away in the first two rounds with a series of slip and counter right hands over it which hurt him and stopped him throwing it as much.

Because he lost, people suddenly started in with all the typical excuses you hear now.

Anyway, I am probably one of the very few people that agree that Mayweather is one of the best of all times and rates very highly as such, but the excuses you use to have him in the top 10 and above someone like Duran is absurd.

You say you base your list on resume plus skill, dominance, and longevity. Duran beat better fighters and has a greater resume over as much and more weight divisions, dominated one division better and longer, and showed off an equally high level of skill against fighters of greater skill, though in a different style. What he did lack was Floyds consistency and longevity at the top after 30, though that is also due to Floyd not going above 154 and a great lack of talent overall in today's era, along with Duran's lack of discipline and fat ass. If the hardest guys Duran had had to fight at 147-154 was Hatton, Judah, Cotto and Canelo, instead of HOFers Carlos Palomino, Ray Leonard, Benitez, Hearns, Cuevas etc he wouldn't have lost either. If he also only moved from 130-154 (though only a few fights at 154) rather than 118-168 it would have been different, but that's what he did, so it's not. A moot point either way.

Apart from two fights, both against HOFers who he also has wins over, all his losses came after 30 and at 154 and above. Considering he is only a natural lightweight of 5'7" and really never belonged any higher than 140-147 at most, it's not surprising.

Anyway, I admire anyone that does these lists, but resume always comes first and foremost. Who you beat is everything. The other stuff builds on that, but cannot replace it. It's why guys like Ricardo Lopez will never be rated truly high. Dominance, longevity, great skill, everything....except the résumé.

[BennyST]

Yeah Floyd is an amazing talent no doubt. I reckon he is closing in on the top 20, but the top 10 will probably forever be locked by fighters fighting before 1980.

Good shout JC Chavez BTW. Your Duran argument is a must read for new fans of the sport as well.

While the quantity is certainly there, the quality is good, but lacking nonetheless for the ATG heights he is probably well and truly capable of. That's the one problem with ****ty eras. You can never say with any degree of certainty just what would happen when they get in against someone of equal capabilities. I think we can agree that Floyd would probably handle it as well as any, but we still don't truly know. We've seen him hit, struggle (very arguably lose a fight already), get hurt and rocked and all against just decent opposition.

What happens when he fights someone who can hit him like Mosley did, but follow it up for twelve rounds and adjust themselves to keep landing rather than folding the moment Floyd adjusts? All legitimate questions we will never see answered sadly. The one and only fighter of similar standard in the same division...well, we all know what happened there.

I can't ever see him reaching the top 10, though his skill level is worthy, like Jones. They just don't have the necessary wins and Jones has the two greatest wins out of both, BHop and Toney being greater than any wins of Floyds.

Man, the Chavez revision is weird and slightly amusing. Is it because of Jr? Is it because so many of his old detractors still go on about the taxi driver résumé that new fans actually believe it now, or is it the Whitaker robbery and Oscar/Tszyu losses? People forgotten that he had fought nearly 100 fights before then and already amassed one of the greatest, record breaking championship runs and resumes of all time?

If you think that the WBO didn't get recognised as a legitimate title until 2004 and the IBF until the late 80's and early 90's, and Chavez was active and beat most of his opposition through the 80's and 90's, to have beaten 16, from memory, champions is a pretty staggering feat for that time and much more than anyone else of the time. 16 champions is outstanding today with an extra title or two available and apart from Mayweather, I think only Pac probably has a similar amount of active fighters.

People rave today about someone doing a quarter of what Chavez did. I think people have either forgotten just how dominant and good he was or they don't even know and just assume.

To still have the records for most successful consecutive defenses of world titles ever (27), most title fights ever (37), most title-fight victories ever (31) and he is after Joe Louis with (23) for most title defenses won by knockout (21). Of course he still also has the longest undefeated streak in boxing history, 13 years and 87 fights or whatever it was until the loss to Whitaker.

All this against opposition like champions Jose Luis Ramírez, Rafael Limón, Rocky Lockridge, Meldrick Taylor, Roger Mayweather, Lonnie Smith, Sammy Fuentes, Héctor "Macho" Camacho, Juan Laporte, Edwin Rosario, Greg Haugen, Tony López, Giovanni Parisi, Joey Gamache and Frankie Randall. He lost to Tszyu, his only legitimate KO loss, Oscar, Whitaker, and Randall and at the very end Wiley and wise.

Most guys probably don't even remember someone like Haugen, a tough rugged champion, and yet he himself was able to beat well known names like Vinny Paz, Camacho, Ray Mancini etc and Chavez literally toyed with him before eventually blowing him out when he felt like it. I guess it gives an understanding of the level some of the 'unknown' lesser champions he fought were at when they are beating guys like Mancini, Macho and prime Paz.