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Has an Al Haymon fighter ever fought another Al Haymon fighter? I don't recall ever seeing it happen. If that's the case any combination of Trout, Lara, Mayweather is not going to happen. What a bummer.
Official 2013 Boxing Thread: Year is over, please lock.
- Thread in 'Sports & Training' Thread starter Started by proshares,
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No. Al Haymon has never put two fighters against each other.
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someone find one time it happened but it was 2 lower level fighters
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Well then Broner and Danny Garcia are definitely not going to face each other either.
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I frequent a boxing site and one of the most respected and knowledgeable posters has made a Top 100 P4P, with help from the community.
He's made a couple of write ups of each fighter, here are some:
#100 George Foreman (76-5)
You start a list like this backwards, #1 up. The first twenty come away easy. By the thirty mark you begin to doubt yourself. By sixty you are staring mostly at a blank page. At ninety you are tearing your hair out. As the win résumés become thinner and the dominance becomes less total, separating the fighters becomes trickier. Foreman’s was not the first name to be penciled in at #100. He was not the second or the third. He was the tenth. He was not on the original list of candidates at all.
All of this is not to suggest that Foreman is unworthy of consideration. His professional career is replete with unique and exciting aspects. After turning professional his tear through the ripened tomatoes served up to him by a management team eager for mayhem was as destructively violent as anything seen since Sonny Liston, but it was that astonishing night in Kingston, Jamaica when Foreman made his real statement. In a fight he was widely expected to lose he bounced world champion Joe Frazier around the ring like the heel turn in a Rocky movie. George Foreman looked, quite simply, like the greatest heavyweight that had ever stepped into the ring. There was speculation he would rule twenty years.
They never do the behemoths. Foreman was no different. Gregorio Peralta hinted at it when he became the first man to win a meaningful number of rounds against Foreman whilst extending him the distance in 1970 and Muhammad Ali’s extraordinary defeat of Foreman in 1974 perhaps confirmed it. Foreman was vulnerable to thinking boxers—and he had stamina issues. When Jimmy Young outboxed him to a twelve-round decision in 1974, the verdict was well and truly in. Foreman was a steam locomotive that burned propane and weapons grade plutonium, but he could be outboxed and outthought. He retired in 1977 with a reputation as one of heavyweight’s more devastating punchers, arguably an all-time great but without the years at the top or title defenses to prove it.
And then he came back.
Not, like they always do, ten sheepish months later, fending off the taxman with one hand and an awestruck sparring partner with the other, but ten years later, fat, happy, with a set of arms so enormous his prestigious power had survived the dilution of torque that time never fails to mix up with what is almost always a depressing cocktail. There was nothing depressing about this. Up and up the rankings he slithered, self-deprecating at every step, the menacing “black forest” of Norman Mailer psychobabble no longer, but Big George, funny, approachable, beloved. In 1994 when he stood ring-center and allowed heavyweight champion Michael Moorer to beat the crap out of him for ten rounds, we shook ourselves out of the dream he had passed across our eyes and told one another that this was enough, time to pack it in Big George—so when George instead chucked out one of those torque-less right hands, more a man passing bread across the table than a trained fighter throwing a punch, and Moorer collapsed to the canvas we were stunned, less so when he could raise no further than his knees by the count of ten. Guys he hit stayed hit.
In the end, that was the vision I couldn’t quite banish when I was tidying up the end of this list; Foreman, looking mildly to the heavens before turning and kneeling and praying to his God, heavyweight champion of the world once more, twenty years removed from his prime.
He's made a couple of write ups of each fighter, here are some:
#100 George Foreman (76-5)
You start a list like this backwards, #1 up. The first twenty come away easy. By the thirty mark you begin to doubt yourself. By sixty you are staring mostly at a blank page. At ninety you are tearing your hair out. As the win résumés become thinner and the dominance becomes less total, separating the fighters becomes trickier. Foreman’s was not the first name to be penciled in at #100. He was not the second or the third. He was the tenth. He was not on the original list of candidates at all.
All of this is not to suggest that Foreman is unworthy of consideration. His professional career is replete with unique and exciting aspects. After turning professional his tear through the ripened tomatoes served up to him by a management team eager for mayhem was as destructively violent as anything seen since Sonny Liston, but it was that astonishing night in Kingston, Jamaica when Foreman made his real statement. In a fight he was widely expected to lose he bounced world champion Joe Frazier around the ring like the heel turn in a Rocky movie. George Foreman looked, quite simply, like the greatest heavyweight that had ever stepped into the ring. There was speculation he would rule twenty years.
They never do the behemoths. Foreman was no different. Gregorio Peralta hinted at it when he became the first man to win a meaningful number of rounds against Foreman whilst extending him the distance in 1970 and Muhammad Ali’s extraordinary defeat of Foreman in 1974 perhaps confirmed it. Foreman was vulnerable to thinking boxers—and he had stamina issues. When Jimmy Young outboxed him to a twelve-round decision in 1974, the verdict was well and truly in. Foreman was a steam locomotive that burned propane and weapons grade plutonium, but he could be outboxed and outthought. He retired in 1977 with a reputation as one of heavyweight’s more devastating punchers, arguably an all-time great but without the years at the top or title defenses to prove it.
And then he came back.
Not, like they always do, ten sheepish months later, fending off the taxman with one hand and an awestruck sparring partner with the other, but ten years later, fat, happy, with a set of arms so enormous his prestigious power had survived the dilution of torque that time never fails to mix up with what is almost always a depressing cocktail. There was nothing depressing about this. Up and up the rankings he slithered, self-deprecating at every step, the menacing “black forest” of Norman Mailer psychobabble no longer, but Big George, funny, approachable, beloved. In 1994 when he stood ring-center and allowed heavyweight champion Michael Moorer to beat the crap out of him for ten rounds, we shook ourselves out of the dream he had passed across our eyes and told one another that this was enough, time to pack it in Big George—so when George instead chucked out one of those torque-less right hands, more a man passing bread across the table than a trained fighter throwing a punch, and Moorer collapsed to the canvas we were stunned, less so when he could raise no further than his knees by the count of ten. Guys he hit stayed hit.
In the end, that was the vision I couldn’t quite banish when I was tidying up the end of this list; Foreman, looking mildly to the heavens before turning and kneeling and praying to his God, heavyweight champion of the world once more, twenty years removed from his prime.
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#99 Jung Koo Chang (38-4)
Still a teenager and with only fourteen professional fights to his name, Chang stopped former WBA light-flyweight strapholder Alfonso Lopez in just three rounds, the final minutes of the fight a clinic in fluidity on offense and variance of such maturity it belied his tender years and limited experience. Other fighters might have shoe-shined their way to the title shot behind this impressive display. Instead “The Korean Hawk” opened up the face of future light-flyweight strapholder and countryman, Jong-Kwan Chung, stopping him in six, and then knocked down and outpointed former linear world champion, Amado Ursua. Chang was cleaning house.
In September of 1982, he dropped a split decision to the superb divisional ruler Hilario Zapata and slipped to 18-1. His prime lay before him.
It was realized six months later when he rematched Zapata and stopped him in three glittering rounds. Chang, by now, was slipping punches before they were thrown, leading with that same ferocity. When Zapata handled him or steered him now, he found a step and punched, slipping from orthodox to southpaw and back again, always ready to hit. Zapata quit. The body attack was too deep. Chang had crested.
Over the next five years, he successfully defended his title an astonishing sixteen times. His pre-title run taken in tandem with his championship years makes for an incredible period of dominance and in a heavyweight would have seen him lauded and feted beyond measure. Unfortunately Chang’s title run took place in an unfashionable in-between division and almost exclusively in Korea where he was considered a national treasure. When he retired from the ring in 1987, his record stood at 35-1. Had money worries not forced him back into the ring a year later for a disastrous 1-3 run, his single loss would have been inflicted upon him by a world champion during his apprenticeship. His talents and achievements make him deserving of recognition as one of the greatest fighters of all time.
Still a teenager and with only fourteen professional fights to his name, Chang stopped former WBA light-flyweight strapholder Alfonso Lopez in just three rounds, the final minutes of the fight a clinic in fluidity on offense and variance of such maturity it belied his tender years and limited experience. Other fighters might have shoe-shined their way to the title shot behind this impressive display. Instead “The Korean Hawk” opened up the face of future light-flyweight strapholder and countryman, Jong-Kwan Chung, stopping him in six, and then knocked down and outpointed former linear world champion, Amado Ursua. Chang was cleaning house.
In September of 1982, he dropped a split decision to the superb divisional ruler Hilario Zapata and slipped to 18-1. His prime lay before him.
It was realized six months later when he rematched Zapata and stopped him in three glittering rounds. Chang, by now, was slipping punches before they were thrown, leading with that same ferocity. When Zapata handled him or steered him now, he found a step and punched, slipping from orthodox to southpaw and back again, always ready to hit. Zapata quit. The body attack was too deep. Chang had crested.
Over the next five years, he successfully defended his title an astonishing sixteen times. His pre-title run taken in tandem with his championship years makes for an incredible period of dominance and in a heavyweight would have seen him lauded and feted beyond measure. Unfortunately Chang’s title run took place in an unfashionable in-between division and almost exclusively in Korea where he was considered a national treasure. When he retired from the ring in 1987, his record stood at 35-1. Had money worries not forced him back into the ring a year later for a disastrous 1-3 run, his single loss would have been inflicted upon him by a world champion during his apprenticeship. His talents and achievements make him deserving of recognition as one of the greatest fighters of all time.
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#98 Nicolino Locche (117-4-14)
When a fighter gets to have over one hundred fights and fewer than ten losses, he is going to be something special. On paper, Locche’s gaining over-but-under status is even more impressive in that two of those losses—the rematch with Antonio Cervantes and his failed title defense against Alfonso Frazier—came in title matches past his prime rather than in a terrible trudge through journeyman mire, the way great careers fought by men in search of money so often end up. With Locche though, nothing is ever straightforward.
His 1966 draw with the great Carlos Ortiz, almost certainly an illegitimate result, does call some aspects of his career, those fourteen draws paramount among them, into question.
He unquestionably dominated a deep South American scene between 1958 and 1968 posting just two losses in those ten years and there is absolutely no doubting his 1968 domination of the ultra-aggressive and heavily favored Takeshi Fuji in his December light-welterweight title tilt. Locche was brilliant. At his best, the Argentine redefined “unhittable,” standing rather than dancing, sometimes seeking out the ropes and corners and inviting his bigger-hitting opponents to lash out at him, making them miss by centimeters and then countering. In a sporting culture obsessed with technique we hear a great deal about the rule-breakers who seemingly bend space and time to their very will, but even amongst the Alis and the Peps of the sport, Locche is King Maverick. On offense, his left hand was his weapon of choice and his left-hook was extraordinary, part feint every time he threw it because the arch of the punch was impossible to pick until the very last instant before it would land on head or body. Against Fuji he absolutely brutalized the ribs, forcing his guard down and taxing him with one of the neatest right uppercuts of his era, which he used in part to close one of Fuji’s eyes. When the Japanese shook his head at the end of the ninth you don’t feel the typical disgust of the fight fan in the face of quittage but rather a little sorry for him. Fuji, an alpha-dog who embraced machismo in boxing as much as any great Mexican you care to mention had been utterly befuddled.
On this type of form it is easy to believe the legend that has Locche winning every single round of his first contest with the wonderful Cervantes. Indeed, benefit of the doubt is key when ranking “El Intocable.” Taking his paper record at face value, he should perhaps be higher. Finding consistently against him would leave him languishing just outside. Here, we strike the middle ground and find him nestling just inside the top one-hundred.
#97 James Toney (74-7-3)
James Toney was and remains one of the more compelling characters in boxing, a comic-book anti-hero with just enough moments of real danger tossed in to what has been a tumultuous career to prevent his becoming a caricature of himself. Still calling out each of the heavyweight strapholders whenever someone waves a microphone in his general direction, that same braggadocios birthed one of the most beautiful moments of the 1990s when, clearly being outboxed by superb IBF middleweight titlist Michael Nunn, Toney returned to his corner and told them there that he was going to win by knockout. Nunn was starting to puff; the workrate necessary to keep the slippery Toney in his place was proving too much. Like all displays of arrogance in the ring, it is only arrogance if you don’t deliver and Toney did, stopping a newly befuddled Nunn in the eleventh round to lift the strap.
A handful of successful defenses followed including two against the superb Mike McCallum (a draw and a split decision win), the only slip being a gift decision over the workmanlike Dave Tiberi who found the machinations of world-title boxing so unfathomable he quit. Cementing a legacy at 168 lbs. where he annexed an additional title, Toney was matched with a fighter we now know was close to unbeatable in Roy Jones. He was outclassed.
After, there were good nights and bad but the stoppage of light-heavy Anthony Hembrick, cruiserweight props culminating in the domination of the superb Vassily Jirov and some heavyweight jollies the pinnacle of which was the stoppage defeat of Evander Holyfield, the tainted victory over John Ruiz and the life-and-death go with Samuel Peter, does plenty to enhance his all-time standing. He swapped punches with fighters weighing between 160 and 260 lbs. and was never stopped, but it is for that original run that he should be most remembered, stepping into the ring against Roy Jones at 44-0-2, regarded by many as the greatest fighter on the planet.
#96 Philadelphia Jack O’Brien (93-8-14; 53-8 Newspaper Decisions)
Jack O’Brien is one of the few fighters in history to have an attempted fix completely exposed; his involvement in the conspiracy surrounding his 1906 fight with Tommy Burns creating quite the stink. As a fight it is a fine demonstration of the difficulties in appraising an era where very few of the fights were filmed, where no governing body existed to enforce the rules. But we are not picking and choosing times and places in the construction of this list; if a fight was fought under a version of the Marquis of Queensberry rules we are interested in it.
O’Brien’s record, then, is to be respected. In fights where decisions were to be rendered in the eventuality that nobody scored the knockout, he lost just eight times. Fighting in a time where a boxer making five fights in a given year was not considered busy, this is impressive and permits us to forgive his numerous draws.
A brief look over his record reveals two results in particular that impress: the 1905 stoppage of Bob Fitzsimmons and the 1909 disputed draw with Jack Johnson. In stopping the aged Fitzsimmons (then 44), O’Brien became the recognized light-heavyweight champion of the world and took a tilt at claiming the heavyweight title too, a claim that was heralded in some corners such was the confusion caused by the retirement of Jim Jeffries. Whilst Fitzsimmons was old, he had beaten O’Brien himself in 1904 and the excellent George Gardner in 1903, and was still regarded as a scalp. It was an impressive result and the Johnson draw was perhaps even more so. Johnson was in his pomp, and although he arrived out of shape for the fight, he was still by far the bigger man, a legitimate heavyweight to O’Brien’s super-middleweight. No fight provides more insight into O’Brien’s style and strengths.
According to The Times Dispatch O’Brien was “in and out in a flash, stabbing Johnson in the face [with his left]” whilst his “fast footwork and superior blocking saved him from damage in close.”
O’Brien boxed beautifully on the back foot, but even against Johnson he was happy to mix it on occasion, his cleverness sparing him the worst of Johnson’s abuse. Such was his display that some papers, including The New York Sun, had O’Brien shading the reigning heavyweight champion but the overall picture is a mixed one.
These two results aside, O’Brien offers up plenty. Famed as a light-heavyweight, he made his bones in a middleweight division being dominated by Tommy Ryan and the Barbados Demon, Joe Walcott. O’Brien met both of them over the six-round distance, fighting a disputed draw with Ryan and beating Walcott. But it was the four-fight series with Jack Sullivan that really underpins his resume. As late as 1907, Sullivan was still being listed amongst the very best fighters on the planet, but 1903 through 1905, he couldn’t beat O’Brien in four tries, going 0-1-3. In many ways Sullivan was O’Brien’s direct peer; clever, quick, cerebral and trapped between weights. O’Brien’s clear superiority to him indicates the quality of fighter he was.
Toss in such notables as Joe Choynski, Tommy West, Jack Blackburn, heavyweights Al Kaufman and Jim Flynn, Young Peter Jackson, Hugo Kelly and a (legitimate) six-round win over future heavyweight champion Tommy Burns and you have a fighter who clearly belongs.
Here's the actual thread:
http://www.boxingforum24.com/showthread.php?t=459918
I'll post more as he continues to right them up (and if people want me to)
When a fighter gets to have over one hundred fights and fewer than ten losses, he is going to be something special. On paper, Locche’s gaining over-but-under status is even more impressive in that two of those losses—the rematch with Antonio Cervantes and his failed title defense against Alfonso Frazier—came in title matches past his prime rather than in a terrible trudge through journeyman mire, the way great careers fought by men in search of money so often end up. With Locche though, nothing is ever straightforward.
His 1966 draw with the great Carlos Ortiz, almost certainly an illegitimate result, does call some aspects of his career, those fourteen draws paramount among them, into question.
He unquestionably dominated a deep South American scene between 1958 and 1968 posting just two losses in those ten years and there is absolutely no doubting his 1968 domination of the ultra-aggressive and heavily favored Takeshi Fuji in his December light-welterweight title tilt. Locche was brilliant. At his best, the Argentine redefined “unhittable,” standing rather than dancing, sometimes seeking out the ropes and corners and inviting his bigger-hitting opponents to lash out at him, making them miss by centimeters and then countering. In a sporting culture obsessed with technique we hear a great deal about the rule-breakers who seemingly bend space and time to their very will, but even amongst the Alis and the Peps of the sport, Locche is King Maverick. On offense, his left hand was his weapon of choice and his left-hook was extraordinary, part feint every time he threw it because the arch of the punch was impossible to pick until the very last instant before it would land on head or body. Against Fuji he absolutely brutalized the ribs, forcing his guard down and taxing him with one of the neatest right uppercuts of his era, which he used in part to close one of Fuji’s eyes. When the Japanese shook his head at the end of the ninth you don’t feel the typical disgust of the fight fan in the face of quittage but rather a little sorry for him. Fuji, an alpha-dog who embraced machismo in boxing as much as any great Mexican you care to mention had been utterly befuddled.
On this type of form it is easy to believe the legend that has Locche winning every single round of his first contest with the wonderful Cervantes. Indeed, benefit of the doubt is key when ranking “El Intocable.” Taking his paper record at face value, he should perhaps be higher. Finding consistently against him would leave him languishing just outside. Here, we strike the middle ground and find him nestling just inside the top one-hundred.
#97 James Toney (74-7-3)
James Toney was and remains one of the more compelling characters in boxing, a comic-book anti-hero with just enough moments of real danger tossed in to what has been a tumultuous career to prevent his becoming a caricature of himself. Still calling out each of the heavyweight strapholders whenever someone waves a microphone in his general direction, that same braggadocios birthed one of the most beautiful moments of the 1990s when, clearly being outboxed by superb IBF middleweight titlist Michael Nunn, Toney returned to his corner and told them there that he was going to win by knockout. Nunn was starting to puff; the workrate necessary to keep the slippery Toney in his place was proving too much. Like all displays of arrogance in the ring, it is only arrogance if you don’t deliver and Toney did, stopping a newly befuddled Nunn in the eleventh round to lift the strap.
A handful of successful defenses followed including two against the superb Mike McCallum (a draw and a split decision win), the only slip being a gift decision over the workmanlike Dave Tiberi who found the machinations of world-title boxing so unfathomable he quit. Cementing a legacy at 168 lbs. where he annexed an additional title, Toney was matched with a fighter we now know was close to unbeatable in Roy Jones. He was outclassed.
After, there were good nights and bad but the stoppage of light-heavy Anthony Hembrick, cruiserweight props culminating in the domination of the superb Vassily Jirov and some heavyweight jollies the pinnacle of which was the stoppage defeat of Evander Holyfield, the tainted victory over John Ruiz and the life-and-death go with Samuel Peter, does plenty to enhance his all-time standing. He swapped punches with fighters weighing between 160 and 260 lbs. and was never stopped, but it is for that original run that he should be most remembered, stepping into the ring against Roy Jones at 44-0-2, regarded by many as the greatest fighter on the planet.
#96 Philadelphia Jack O’Brien (93-8-14; 53-8 Newspaper Decisions)
Jack O’Brien is one of the few fighters in history to have an attempted fix completely exposed; his involvement in the conspiracy surrounding his 1906 fight with Tommy Burns creating quite the stink. As a fight it is a fine demonstration of the difficulties in appraising an era where very few of the fights were filmed, where no governing body existed to enforce the rules. But we are not picking and choosing times and places in the construction of this list; if a fight was fought under a version of the Marquis of Queensberry rules we are interested in it.
O’Brien’s record, then, is to be respected. In fights where decisions were to be rendered in the eventuality that nobody scored the knockout, he lost just eight times. Fighting in a time where a boxer making five fights in a given year was not considered busy, this is impressive and permits us to forgive his numerous draws.
A brief look over his record reveals two results in particular that impress: the 1905 stoppage of Bob Fitzsimmons and the 1909 disputed draw with Jack Johnson. In stopping the aged Fitzsimmons (then 44), O’Brien became the recognized light-heavyweight champion of the world and took a tilt at claiming the heavyweight title too, a claim that was heralded in some corners such was the confusion caused by the retirement of Jim Jeffries. Whilst Fitzsimmons was old, he had beaten O’Brien himself in 1904 and the excellent George Gardner in 1903, and was still regarded as a scalp. It was an impressive result and the Johnson draw was perhaps even more so. Johnson was in his pomp, and although he arrived out of shape for the fight, he was still by far the bigger man, a legitimate heavyweight to O’Brien’s super-middleweight. No fight provides more insight into O’Brien’s style and strengths.
According to The Times Dispatch O’Brien was “in and out in a flash, stabbing Johnson in the face [with his left]” whilst his “fast footwork and superior blocking saved him from damage in close.”
O’Brien boxed beautifully on the back foot, but even against Johnson he was happy to mix it on occasion, his cleverness sparing him the worst of Johnson’s abuse. Such was his display that some papers, including The New York Sun, had O’Brien shading the reigning heavyweight champion but the overall picture is a mixed one.
These two results aside, O’Brien offers up plenty. Famed as a light-heavyweight, he made his bones in a middleweight division being dominated by Tommy Ryan and the Barbados Demon, Joe Walcott. O’Brien met both of them over the six-round distance, fighting a disputed draw with Ryan and beating Walcott. But it was the four-fight series with Jack Sullivan that really underpins his resume. As late as 1907, Sullivan was still being listed amongst the very best fighters on the planet, but 1903 through 1905, he couldn’t beat O’Brien in four tries, going 0-1-3. In many ways Sullivan was O’Brien’s direct peer; clever, quick, cerebral and trapped between weights. O’Brien’s clear superiority to him indicates the quality of fighter he was.
Toss in such notables as Joe Choynski, Tommy West, Jack Blackburn, heavyweights Al Kaufman and Jim Flynn, Young Peter Jackson, Hugo Kelly and a (legitimate) six-round win over future heavyweight champion Tommy Burns and you have a fighter who clearly belongs.
Here's the actual thread:
http://www.boxingforum24.com/showthread.php?t=459918
I'll post more as he continues to right them up (and if people want me to)
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That's pretty cool, but I'm not a big fan of ATG lists. For one, everything is subjective and with limited footage of a lot of fighters it can be pretty challenging to come up with a credible list. 1-10 is debatable, let alone the next 90 spots. I'm only 20 years old, but I've been in and around the sport of boxing since the age of 7. With that being said, I'm content with my top 3 haha.
1. Sugar Ray Robinson
2. Muhammad Ali
3. Henry Armstrong
1. Sugar Ray Robinson
2. Muhammad Ali
3. Henry Armstrong
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I'd say it's the best Top 100 I've ever seen, this guy really knows his stuff, plus we have another 30 or so posters presenting arguments for fighters.
Would you like for me to keep posting them? I'd say a bit of knowledge is never wrong.
You're gonna see at least 40 or more fighters you've never known or never had a chance to know about.
That's worth it for me anyway.
EDIT- your #3 is ranked pretty fairly in the list I think and your #1 isn't #1. For good reason.
Would you like for me to keep posting them? I'd say a bit of knowledge is never wrong.
You're gonna see at least 40 or more fighters you've never known or never had a chance to know about.
That's worth it for me anyway.
EDIT- your #3 is ranked pretty fairly in the list I think and your #1 isn't #1. For good reason.
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Definitely, post 'em up man. I'm a member on ESB and Boxing Scene, so I'll have to check that thread out.
You'd put Ali over Robinson?
You'd put Ali over Robinson?
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No, not Ali.
You can take a gander of McGrain's list but until he gets there I kinda want it to be a surprise.
But Robinson is in the Top 5. I'll post more tomorrow.
You can take a gander of McGrain's list but until he gets there I kinda want it to be a surprise.
But Robinson is in the Top 5. I'll post more tomorrow.
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aepps20
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PBF ain't right to go at Andre Ward like that 
.
.
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PBF ain't right to go at Andre Ward like that
What happened?
I just saw it. Mayweather loves to play this game where he says he really doesn't know so and so. Knowing damn well he dropped half a mill on Ward vs Kessler and gave him a pre fight speech.
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aepps20
Supporter
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He's only acting like this because a few weeks back fighthype interviewed Dre about the PBF Ghost matchup and Dre said that he's a PBF fan but because he grew up with Ghost he's pulling for him.
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Still uncalled for. Mayweather might just be doing this to bring more attention to his upcoming fight.
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#95 Jack “Kid” Berg (157-26-9)
The legendary Kid Chocolate did not make the list. Jack Berg is the reason.
With a relentlessness that typified his ring style, Berg amassed 157 wins at the expense of just 26 losses in a 1930s lightweight division as deep as it was wide. Ten of those defeats came as he wound down his career over shorter distances in the US having lost his British title to Jimmy Walsh in 1936 (a bizarre trip to the Caribbean to win the Bermuda Welterweight title aside).
He first ran into Chocolate, or rather Chocolate ran into him, in August of 1930, his fifty-six fight unbeaten streak on the line. The bigger man by some nine pounds, The Whitechapel Whirlwind used every drop of that extra weight to harass and harangue the superior boxer and betting favorite back. Chocolate dominated the early exchanges but Berg finished the stronger of the two—with no more than a round between them in any newspaper report, Berg took the split. Two years later they met again and again Chocolate was beaten, this time over the longer distance of fifteen rounds. erg was no craftsman, he was nothing like The Cuban Bon-Bon’s equal in that regard, any more than he was the equal of the great Tony Canzoneri but he, too, was bested, absorbing what the New York Times called the worst beating of his career. Canzoneri was able to reverse this loss in subsequent rematches but like Joe Glick, Billy Petrolle, Billy Wallace or Tippy Larkin, he found himself coming up short at least once against Jack Berg in what was a stellar hall of fame career.
#94 Lennox Lewis (41-2-1)
A discussion of Lennox Lewis’s all-time great status generally descends into an argument about step-aside money paid by Don King and/or a disagreement about the legitimacy of the British heavyweight’s TKO victory over Vitali Klitschko.
I am not conflicted on either of these issues. The circumstances surrounding the payment of step-aside money that Lewis accepted from Don King to postpone a fight with Mike Tyson doesn’t matter. Lewis is great without any provisos. The Vitali Klitschko victory is very simple to appraise: a 256 lb. man punched a 248 lb. man in the face until he was no longer able to continue with the fight. That is what boxing is, precisely.
Aside from the outstanding achievement of beating his immediate successor as the world’s best heavyweight, Lewis beat every man he ever faced as a professional. He beat more Ring ranked contenders at heavyweight than anyone aside from Joe Louis and Muhammad Ali. He won the European title in his thirteenth fight, the British title in his fourteenth (from the enormously tough Gary Mason) and was still matching top contenders thirteen years later.
Lewis has not inspired the fans in the same way that Joe Frazier and George Foreman have, but he has terrified the opposition. David Tua, Andrew Golota, Henry Akinwande and even Mike Tyson are the world-class heavyweights who quit to him in one way or another. Capable of outboxing the boxers and outpunching the punchers, his chin will remain in doubt based upon those two knockout losses to Oliver McCall and Hasim Rahman but it is also true that beating heavy hitters was his meat and bread. He destroyed the opposition (Michael Grant KO2, Hasim Rahamn KO4, Donovan Ruddock KO2), he patiently outboxed the opposition (Evander Holyfield twice, Zeljco Mavrovic, Tony Tucker, all UD12).
He beat a huge array of fighters and styles and is the most dominant heavyweight champion since Joe Louis.
#92 Joe Frazier (32-4-1)
Frazier snorted his way from an Olympic gold medal to the professional ranks without fanfare; perhaps the frustration informed his killing style.
He hit the ground running and by 17-0 had dispatched top names Oscar Bonavena, Eddie Machen, Doug Jones and George Chuvalo. The legend that belongs to Mike Tyson and Sonny Liston in truth should be hung upon Joe Frazier who ripped the massed ranks of the deepest heavyweight contendership in history to pieces before he had boxed twenty times.
Buster Mathis, Manuel Ramos, Jerry Quarry and Jimmy Ellis all followed before 1970 was out and then Frazier painted his first legitimate masterpiece by breaking a helpless Bob Foster into two clean pieces in two scintillating rounds. Frazier had mounted one of the most rarefied peaks in heavyweight boxing history.
For all that Marciano is the pressure fighting juggernaut that ranks highest upon this list—you’ll have to wait to see where—it was Frazier who executed the definitive pressure-fighting performances at the weight. Even upon investigating the more mobile pressure fighters who occupy the lower weights it might be the case that no lesser a fighter than Henry Armstrong is the only boxer that bears a positive comparison. In the 1971 Fight of the Century, in spite of high blood pressure, in spite of deteriorating eyesight, Joe Frazier turned in arguably the best performance ever filmed at the weight. Watch carefully as Ali, still in possession of some of the fastest feet in the division’s history, bounces from rope to rope and the attack dog Frazier moves with him, never more than a half step behind and usually in perfect tandem. The left hook he threw to drop Ali to the canvas in the fifteenth round is said to be amongst the best ever thrown; it’s nonsense, of course, but not many men other than Joe himself threw better.
He eventually lost the series to Ali and would later be rag-dolled by the formidable George Foreman. What these two proved between them was that you had to all but kill Frazier to beat him.
What is clear is that in his savage prime, there are but a handful of men that could have held out the merest hope of doing so.
The legendary Kid Chocolate did not make the list. Jack Berg is the reason.
With a relentlessness that typified his ring style, Berg amassed 157 wins at the expense of just 26 losses in a 1930s lightweight division as deep as it was wide. Ten of those defeats came as he wound down his career over shorter distances in the US having lost his British title to Jimmy Walsh in 1936 (a bizarre trip to the Caribbean to win the Bermuda Welterweight title aside).
He first ran into Chocolate, or rather Chocolate ran into him, in August of 1930, his fifty-six fight unbeaten streak on the line. The bigger man by some nine pounds, The Whitechapel Whirlwind used every drop of that extra weight to harass and harangue the superior boxer and betting favorite back. Chocolate dominated the early exchanges but Berg finished the stronger of the two—with no more than a round between them in any newspaper report, Berg took the split. Two years later they met again and again Chocolate was beaten, this time over the longer distance of fifteen rounds. erg was no craftsman, he was nothing like The Cuban Bon-Bon’s equal in that regard, any more than he was the equal of the great Tony Canzoneri but he, too, was bested, absorbing what the New York Times called the worst beating of his career. Canzoneri was able to reverse this loss in subsequent rematches but like Joe Glick, Billy Petrolle, Billy Wallace or Tippy Larkin, he found himself coming up short at least once against Jack Berg in what was a stellar hall of fame career.
#94 Lennox Lewis (41-2-1)
A discussion of Lennox Lewis’s all-time great status generally descends into an argument about step-aside money paid by Don King and/or a disagreement about the legitimacy of the British heavyweight’s TKO victory over Vitali Klitschko.
I am not conflicted on either of these issues. The circumstances surrounding the payment of step-aside money that Lewis accepted from Don King to postpone a fight with Mike Tyson doesn’t matter. Lewis is great without any provisos. The Vitali Klitschko victory is very simple to appraise: a 256 lb. man punched a 248 lb. man in the face until he was no longer able to continue with the fight. That is what boxing is, precisely.
Aside from the outstanding achievement of beating his immediate successor as the world’s best heavyweight, Lewis beat every man he ever faced as a professional. He beat more Ring ranked contenders at heavyweight than anyone aside from Joe Louis and Muhammad Ali. He won the European title in his thirteenth fight, the British title in his fourteenth (from the enormously tough Gary Mason) and was still matching top contenders thirteen years later.
Lewis has not inspired the fans in the same way that Joe Frazier and George Foreman have, but he has terrified the opposition. David Tua, Andrew Golota, Henry Akinwande and even Mike Tyson are the world-class heavyweights who quit to him in one way or another. Capable of outboxing the boxers and outpunching the punchers, his chin will remain in doubt based upon those two knockout losses to Oliver McCall and Hasim Rahman but it is also true that beating heavy hitters was his meat and bread. He destroyed the opposition (Michael Grant KO2, Hasim Rahamn KO4, Donovan Ruddock KO2), he patiently outboxed the opposition (Evander Holyfield twice, Zeljco Mavrovic, Tony Tucker, all UD12).
He beat a huge array of fighters and styles and is the most dominant heavyweight champion since Joe Louis.
#92 Joe Frazier (32-4-1)
Frazier snorted his way from an Olympic gold medal to the professional ranks without fanfare; perhaps the frustration informed his killing style.
He hit the ground running and by 17-0 had dispatched top names Oscar Bonavena, Eddie Machen, Doug Jones and George Chuvalo. The legend that belongs to Mike Tyson and Sonny Liston in truth should be hung upon Joe Frazier who ripped the massed ranks of the deepest heavyweight contendership in history to pieces before he had boxed twenty times.
Buster Mathis, Manuel Ramos, Jerry Quarry and Jimmy Ellis all followed before 1970 was out and then Frazier painted his first legitimate masterpiece by breaking a helpless Bob Foster into two clean pieces in two scintillating rounds. Frazier had mounted one of the most rarefied peaks in heavyweight boxing history.
For all that Marciano is the pressure fighting juggernaut that ranks highest upon this list—you’ll have to wait to see where—it was Frazier who executed the definitive pressure-fighting performances at the weight. Even upon investigating the more mobile pressure fighters who occupy the lower weights it might be the case that no lesser a fighter than Henry Armstrong is the only boxer that bears a positive comparison. In the 1971 Fight of the Century, in spite of high blood pressure, in spite of deteriorating eyesight, Joe Frazier turned in arguably the best performance ever filmed at the weight. Watch carefully as Ali, still in possession of some of the fastest feet in the division’s history, bounces from rope to rope and the attack dog Frazier moves with him, never more than a half step behind and usually in perfect tandem. The left hook he threw to drop Ali to the canvas in the fifteenth round is said to be amongst the best ever thrown; it’s nonsense, of course, but not many men other than Joe himself threw better.
He eventually lost the series to Ali and would later be rag-dolled by the formidable George Foreman. What these two proved between them was that you had to all but kill Frazier to beat him.
What is clear is that in his savage prime, there are but a handful of men that could have held out the merest hope of doing so.
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#91 Fritzie Zivic (158-65-10)
Fritzie Zivic is another fighter to haul in more than 150 wins, but unlike Jack Berg, Zivic suffered a whopping 65 defeats. He lost a few. So what is the justification for ranking him so highly?
In part it is down to the way Zivic vetted his opponents: he didn’t. He makes Berg’s matchmaking policy look rather conservative. Zivic would fight anyone. He faced Ray Robinson twice, Billy Conn, Kid Azteca, Bob Montgomery, Beau Jack, Bummy Davis, Phil Furr, Izzy Jannazzo, Sam Angott, Lou Ambers, Jimmy Leto, the list goes on and on. It can be argued quite convincingly that Fritzie Zivic met the best array of fighters out of anyone on the entire list. I’ll say that again: Zivic may have fought the highest level of competition in the history of boxing.
And he won a fair share.
The jewel in his crown is unquestionably the twin wins over Henry Armstrong. Over the years it has become truth by repetition that Armstrong was past prime for those fights. I suspect it is true that he had slipped a little, but in the previous five months he had knocked out welterweight contenders Ralph Zannelli (TKO5), Paul Junior (TKO3), Lew Jenkins (TKO6) and Phil Furr (KO4). He was and remained the welterweight champion of the world, in full bloom—until Fritzie got a hold of him.
The first fight was close—Zivic had to knock Armstrong onto his *** in the last round to take the decision. The second fight was not. Armstrong had lost one fight in the last fifty-eight, down at lightweight to the rampant Lou Ambers, but it was Zivic who called time on the Armstrong party, stopping him for the first time since his pro debut.
Second and third are Fritzie’s wins over two fighters that were among the black murderer’s row of welter and middleweights that populated the era, ducked almost universally by the white contenders and champions of that time. Zivic ducked no one. He really had no business beating Charley Burley, who was faster, stronger, harder hitting and longer, but he did so over ten rounds in March of ’38. Similar things could be said of Eddie Booker, who narrowly missed out on this list and who was unbeaten in forty-one fights coming into his 1939 eight rounder with Zivic. Fritzie brought that streak to a juddering halt, snapping off five of the last six rounds with an aggressive punching performance against a man that would spend the rest of his career boxing as a middleweight.
Speaking of middleweights, Zivic met a great one in Jake LaMotta, on four separate occasions. The first, a split decision win for Jake LaMotta over ten, was a fight that Zivic swore all the way to the grave that he had won; it is true that, neither available wire report saw the fight for Jake, one scoring it a draw, the other having it to Fritzie. In a rematch over fifteen, LaMotta was said to be taking the fight “more seriously” but was confident that the longer distance would suit him. Zivic beat him out of sight, LaMotta getting as few as two of the fifteen rounds on some cards. LaMotta did win their two remaining bouts but wait a moment—what the hell was Zivic doing even fighting LaMotta? This was a smaller, older, past-prime welterweight taking on one of the strongest middles in history, ceding every single conceivable style advantage in existence and giving him nightmares. Beating him should have been impossible.
Yes, Zivic lost a few.
#90 Young Griffo (69-9-44; 9-1-3 Newspaper Decisions)
Say hello to the list-maker’s nightmare, the inscrutable, the irascible, the mercurial Young Griffo. Just look at that record—forty-four mysterious draws and one hideous robbery to be investigated and interpreted. The temptation to leave him out was enormous—in the end that proved impossible.
From the beginning then: Griffo (real name, Albert Griffo) boxed his way through the forest of featherweights then competing in his native Australia mostly in no decision bouts where a draw would be declared in the event that no knockout was scored—which was often for Griffo who hit without power but was almost impossible to tag clean. He picked up the Australian featherweight title in 1889 and after a couple of defenses annexed the world’s featherweight title with a fifteenth round stoppage of the hard-swinging “Torpedo” Billy Murphy who had rather impressively dropped Griffo twice in the first couple of rounds but by the eleventh was struggling. In the fifteenth, he quit, a bare-knuckle fighter by nature he seemed displeased at having to wear gloves, which he claimed had been tampered with; this seems not to have been the case but either way and although it was amidst no little controversy, Griffo was now the champion. His first defense ended in a 13th round knockout of Paddy Moran, a routine win, but the next day report in the Barrier Miner contains a line of great interest—“Moran had plenty of supporters and was in better condition than Griffo.” Whether Griffo was yet the alcoholic he surely became during his years in America is unknown to me but he seems to have developed distaste for hard training and a habit for turning up to important fights out of shape very early in his career.
With me so far? Good. Because things are about to get worse. Unless you are a director in search for a project for your next biopic, in which case things are about to get better.
First George Powell quit to Griffo in March of ’91 and then Griffo beat Murphy in a rematch that July after he pushed or punched Griffo to the canvas then threw himself on top of him, continuing the attack for which he was subsequently disqualified in a fight he was apparently controlling. Griffo defended his featherweight title once more, renounced it, and sailed for America where the deepest lightweight division in all of history was stirring.
Griffo met them all. He met the long-reigning lightweight champion Jack McAuliffe. He met the future champion Frank Erne. He met tombstone puncher Kid Lavigne. He met the brilliant Joe Gans three times. He met the genius that was George Dixon three times. And Griffo did not win a single one of these fights. Worse, many of them were total farces.
Nevertheless, this is the time from which is reputation as the most physically talented boxer of his era springs. Lavigne, who met him first over a drawn eight-rounder of which he had the better, described him as the cleverest and best boxer he had ever met. When the two fought again over twenty rounds in 1895, Lavigne again got the better of their draw although unfortunate reproductions of the Nat Fleischer story concerning the fight may have given the opposite impression over the years. Next day reports are clear; the draw was “inevitable” but Lavigne had the better of Griff—or perhaps Griff had the better of Griff. By this time he was drinking heavily and “carried a paunch.”
Against Erne, he fought a drawn four-rounder almost universally regarded as a fake. He claimed himself that his first fight with Joe Gans, fought in November of 1895, was also faked, although the 1897 rematch was a superb performance. “He completely out-boxed me,” Gans is said to have told The Washington Post. “He was the greatest defensive boxer that ever lived.” A draw was the result. Gans caught up with the shot version of Griffo and stopped him in eight rounds three years later.
The smaller George Dixon fought three draws with the Australian. Many sources have him holding the tiniest of margins over Griffo the first time around over twenty, both men boxing with utter brilliance in their second drawn fight over twenty-five. Griffo had gone to fat by the time of their third fight over ten and my impression is of a fighter who just doesn’t want to get hit rather than one who wants to win a fight. Such were his abilities in this area that nobody thought to complain. Another draw was declared.
Finally, to Griffo’s contest with the legendary Jack McAuliffe. It is in keeping with the perversity of Griffo’s career arch that his greatest win was a loss.
I am uncomfortable turning over the judges’ verdict for the purposes of historical rankings even when we have the film of the fight, so for me, naming Griffo a winner over McAullife is no small matter. It is a fact, however, that not a single next day report labels the reigning lightweight champion the winner. The best that can be seen for him is the draw declared by the San Francisco Call. The Witchita Daily Eagle wrote that Griffo had “punched [McAuliffe] all over Coney Island, slapped his face and wiped up the United States with Mr. Jack, the referee bobbed up and takes the battle away from him.” The Salt Lake Herald wrote that “there was never such a demonstration against a referees decision…McAuliffe attempted to speak to the crowd but was hissed down.” Griffo’s chance to be named lightweight champion was snatched from him.
Where does all that leave us? At #90, but you could rank him almost anywhere. If we were ranking fighters purely based upon their physical abilities he would be right there alongside Harry Greb and Roy Jones. If we were ranking him based upon squandered potential he would be #1. In an overall sense, I don’t think he can be higher than I have him here, however. His best results are draws and a loss, and my job is not to unpick what might have been had he turned up for his biggest fights sober and in shape but to appraise what actually occurred and what actually occurred was his matching some of the greatest fighters in all of history based upon a defensive style of boxing the like of which may not have been seen in the sport again until Nico Locche hit his stride nearly seventy years later.
Fritzie Zivic is another fighter to haul in more than 150 wins, but unlike Jack Berg, Zivic suffered a whopping 65 defeats. He lost a few. So what is the justification for ranking him so highly?
In part it is down to the way Zivic vetted his opponents: he didn’t. He makes Berg’s matchmaking policy look rather conservative. Zivic would fight anyone. He faced Ray Robinson twice, Billy Conn, Kid Azteca, Bob Montgomery, Beau Jack, Bummy Davis, Phil Furr, Izzy Jannazzo, Sam Angott, Lou Ambers, Jimmy Leto, the list goes on and on. It can be argued quite convincingly that Fritzie Zivic met the best array of fighters out of anyone on the entire list. I’ll say that again: Zivic may have fought the highest level of competition in the history of boxing.
And he won a fair share.
The jewel in his crown is unquestionably the twin wins over Henry Armstrong. Over the years it has become truth by repetition that Armstrong was past prime for those fights. I suspect it is true that he had slipped a little, but in the previous five months he had knocked out welterweight contenders Ralph Zannelli (TKO5), Paul Junior (TKO3), Lew Jenkins (TKO6) and Phil Furr (KO4). He was and remained the welterweight champion of the world, in full bloom—until Fritzie got a hold of him.
The first fight was close—Zivic had to knock Armstrong onto his *** in the last round to take the decision. The second fight was not. Armstrong had lost one fight in the last fifty-eight, down at lightweight to the rampant Lou Ambers, but it was Zivic who called time on the Armstrong party, stopping him for the first time since his pro debut.
Second and third are Fritzie’s wins over two fighters that were among the black murderer’s row of welter and middleweights that populated the era, ducked almost universally by the white contenders and champions of that time. Zivic ducked no one. He really had no business beating Charley Burley, who was faster, stronger, harder hitting and longer, but he did so over ten rounds in March of ’38. Similar things could be said of Eddie Booker, who narrowly missed out on this list and who was unbeaten in forty-one fights coming into his 1939 eight rounder with Zivic. Fritzie brought that streak to a juddering halt, snapping off five of the last six rounds with an aggressive punching performance against a man that would spend the rest of his career boxing as a middleweight.
Speaking of middleweights, Zivic met a great one in Jake LaMotta, on four separate occasions. The first, a split decision win for Jake LaMotta over ten, was a fight that Zivic swore all the way to the grave that he had won; it is true that, neither available wire report saw the fight for Jake, one scoring it a draw, the other having it to Fritzie. In a rematch over fifteen, LaMotta was said to be taking the fight “more seriously” but was confident that the longer distance would suit him. Zivic beat him out of sight, LaMotta getting as few as two of the fifteen rounds on some cards. LaMotta did win their two remaining bouts but wait a moment—what the hell was Zivic doing even fighting LaMotta? This was a smaller, older, past-prime welterweight taking on one of the strongest middles in history, ceding every single conceivable style advantage in existence and giving him nightmares. Beating him should have been impossible.
Yes, Zivic lost a few.
#90 Young Griffo (69-9-44; 9-1-3 Newspaper Decisions)
Say hello to the list-maker’s nightmare, the inscrutable, the irascible, the mercurial Young Griffo. Just look at that record—forty-four mysterious draws and one hideous robbery to be investigated and interpreted. The temptation to leave him out was enormous—in the end that proved impossible.
From the beginning then: Griffo (real name, Albert Griffo) boxed his way through the forest of featherweights then competing in his native Australia mostly in no decision bouts where a draw would be declared in the event that no knockout was scored—which was often for Griffo who hit without power but was almost impossible to tag clean. He picked up the Australian featherweight title in 1889 and after a couple of defenses annexed the world’s featherweight title with a fifteenth round stoppage of the hard-swinging “Torpedo” Billy Murphy who had rather impressively dropped Griffo twice in the first couple of rounds but by the eleventh was struggling. In the fifteenth, he quit, a bare-knuckle fighter by nature he seemed displeased at having to wear gloves, which he claimed had been tampered with; this seems not to have been the case but either way and although it was amidst no little controversy, Griffo was now the champion. His first defense ended in a 13th round knockout of Paddy Moran, a routine win, but the next day report in the Barrier Miner contains a line of great interest—“Moran had plenty of supporters and was in better condition than Griffo.” Whether Griffo was yet the alcoholic he surely became during his years in America is unknown to me but he seems to have developed distaste for hard training and a habit for turning up to important fights out of shape very early in his career.
With me so far? Good. Because things are about to get worse. Unless you are a director in search for a project for your next biopic, in which case things are about to get better.
First George Powell quit to Griffo in March of ’91 and then Griffo beat Murphy in a rematch that July after he pushed or punched Griffo to the canvas then threw himself on top of him, continuing the attack for which he was subsequently disqualified in a fight he was apparently controlling. Griffo defended his featherweight title once more, renounced it, and sailed for America where the deepest lightweight division in all of history was stirring.
Griffo met them all. He met the long-reigning lightweight champion Jack McAuliffe. He met the future champion Frank Erne. He met tombstone puncher Kid Lavigne. He met the brilliant Joe Gans three times. He met the genius that was George Dixon three times. And Griffo did not win a single one of these fights. Worse, many of them were total farces.
Nevertheless, this is the time from which is reputation as the most physically talented boxer of his era springs. Lavigne, who met him first over a drawn eight-rounder of which he had the better, described him as the cleverest and best boxer he had ever met. When the two fought again over twenty rounds in 1895, Lavigne again got the better of their draw although unfortunate reproductions of the Nat Fleischer story concerning the fight may have given the opposite impression over the years. Next day reports are clear; the draw was “inevitable” but Lavigne had the better of Griff—or perhaps Griff had the better of Griff. By this time he was drinking heavily and “carried a paunch.”
Against Erne, he fought a drawn four-rounder almost universally regarded as a fake. He claimed himself that his first fight with Joe Gans, fought in November of 1895, was also faked, although the 1897 rematch was a superb performance. “He completely out-boxed me,” Gans is said to have told The Washington Post. “He was the greatest defensive boxer that ever lived.” A draw was the result. Gans caught up with the shot version of Griffo and stopped him in eight rounds three years later.
The smaller George Dixon fought three draws with the Australian. Many sources have him holding the tiniest of margins over Griffo the first time around over twenty, both men boxing with utter brilliance in their second drawn fight over twenty-five. Griffo had gone to fat by the time of their third fight over ten and my impression is of a fighter who just doesn’t want to get hit rather than one who wants to win a fight. Such were his abilities in this area that nobody thought to complain. Another draw was declared.
Finally, to Griffo’s contest with the legendary Jack McAuliffe. It is in keeping with the perversity of Griffo’s career arch that his greatest win was a loss.
I am uncomfortable turning over the judges’ verdict for the purposes of historical rankings even when we have the film of the fight, so for me, naming Griffo a winner over McAullife is no small matter. It is a fact, however, that not a single next day report labels the reigning lightweight champion the winner. The best that can be seen for him is the draw declared by the San Francisco Call. The Witchita Daily Eagle wrote that Griffo had “punched [McAuliffe] all over Coney Island, slapped his face and wiped up the United States with Mr. Jack, the referee bobbed up and takes the battle away from him.” The Salt Lake Herald wrote that “there was never such a demonstration against a referees decision…McAuliffe attempted to speak to the crowd but was hissed down.” Griffo’s chance to be named lightweight champion was snatched from him.
Where does all that leave us? At #90, but you could rank him almost anywhere. If we were ranking fighters purely based upon their physical abilities he would be right there alongside Harry Greb and Roy Jones. If we were ranking him based upon squandered potential he would be #1. In an overall sense, I don’t think he can be higher than I have him here, however. His best results are draws and a loss, and my job is not to unpick what might have been had he turned up for his biggest fights sober and in shape but to appraise what actually occurred and what actually occurred was his matching some of the greatest fighters in all of history based upon a defensive style of boxing the like of which may not have been seen in the sport again until Nico Locche hit his stride nearly seventy years later.
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Pretty much. Floyd always finds a way to get his name out there. It helps Andre Ward too, but I agree with Floyd in the sense that Andre really needs to get out of Oakland and start fighting at bigger venues on a routine basis.
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I've said that all along, he won an Olympic gold medal, won the super 6, and is currently #2 p4p in the world. Yet he can walk down the street without anyone knowing who he is.
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- Feb 2, 2013
#89 Marco Antonio Barrera (67-7)
#88 Erik Morales (52-9)
There are no ties on this list.
Nevertheless some fighters are so closely linked that it is not possible to write about one without discussing the other. How, in the end, do you go about separating Erik Morales and Marco Antonio Barrera? They couldn’t even do so themselves, in a trilogy as good as anything that side of Vazquez-Marquez.
I disagreed with the judges on every occasion in those three fights. The first, perhaps the best fight of 2000 and a split decision win for Morales, was a Barrera win on my card, Marco Antonio breaking off the last two rounds against a tired Erik to sneak the decision; the second, I saw a close Morales win whilst all three judges found it for Barrera. The third, another absolutely outstanding contest, I scored a draw whilst the judges again were split but came out with a Barrera win. Having said all that, I wasn’t ringside for these fights—the decision of the judges should be respected.
Part of Erik’s problem with Barrera was the difference in speed. Marco Antonio is quicker and so in a round where neither man excels themselves or momentarily overpowers the other the only way for Morales to win the round is to outwork an opponent who is an excellent counterpuncher and works well with angles. In other words, Barrera’s superior versatility made life hard for Morales, who was working at a slight style deficit.
But in the second fight I thought Barrera showed some tactical naivety, going away jabbing, taking the wrong range. Yes, he was more versatile but that versatility was not always put to the perfect use and it gave Morales space to box his fight here. In the tenth round of this fight Morales perfected his thinking aggressor’s offense for three breathtaking minutes in which he dominated with three different styles, arguably the highest level either of these men reached in the ring, stopping a rush by Barrera on the scorecards. I came away from these first two fights with the strange impression that Barrera had more but that Morales knew better what to do with what he had. This impression was confirmed for me by their respective go-rounds with the great Manny Pacquiao. Morales did not just beat Pacquiao, he told us before the fight exactly how he was going to do it, mixing boxing and punching to produce the “intelligent fight” he needed to defeat the Filipino. In the build-up, Freddie Roach spoke endlessly of “the Manilla Ice”, his nickname for Pacquiao’s newly included right hand, the final piece of the puzzle in making Manny the complete fighter. Prime-for-prime, Morales bested the Filipino.
At their respective bests each was a wonderful talent that probably failed to distinguish one from the other, but whilst Morales was beaten only by Barrera, Barrera himself lost to stop-start herky-jerky stylings of Junior Jones in their 1997 contest. Outboxed and, bizarrely out-dogged, Barrera not for the last time seemed a tiny bit confused by his own possibilities. A more accomplished fighter overall that Morales in my opinion, he won straps at super-bantamweight, featherweight and super-featherweight.
Erik won titles of various meaning at these weights and added a bauble at light-welterweight.
Beating Cesar Cano for the vacant WBC 140 lb. trinket is not what separates him from Barrera by the tiniest of margins though. That would be preposterous. It’s a feeling—you have one too. It could be the same as mine, or it could be quite different and I am satisfied with either one—we only have two things we must agree upon.
One: it is close.
Two: they are great.
#87 Nonpareil Jack Demspey (50-4-11)
In April of 1887, Jack Dempsey stepped into the ring with Billy Baker, a heavyweight out of Buffalo New York and knocked the bigger man around the ring for four rounds. Due to the rules the two men had agreed, however, Baker took the win—the 145 lb. Jack Dempsey had agreed that if the 180 lb. Billy Baker remained upon his feet after just four rounds, he would be named as the winner. And that was it. That was the only loss Jack Dempsey posted between turning professional in 1883 and the infamous “lucky punch” landed upon him by George LaBlanche in 1889. For six years he was undefeated and for much of that time was regarded as the best fighter on the planet pound-for-pound, to the extent where he was considered a serious proposal as an opponent for the then legendary heavyweight champion, John L. Sullivan, who frequently carried more than 200 lbs. to the ring with him. This may have been something of a reach, even for Jack, but it is true that he made a habit out of thrashing men who were bigger than he.
“Denny Kelliher,” wrote The New York Evening World of Kelliher’s 1887 contest with Jack Dempsey, “is a big muscular pugilist whose weight is upward of 220 lbs.…still, Dempsey defeated him in the usual invincible way…Kelliher could no more land his right in the neighborhood of his small but wonderfully scientific opponent than he could wing a swallow with an ape.”
This was the essence of Dempsey’s boxing, and it worked at odds with what had gone before him. Fighters worked always to avoid being hit, but the Nonpareil seems to have been the man to make this de rigueur. His contribution to boxing, in conjunction with the wonderful lightweight champion Jack McAuliffe, seems to have been nothing less than the legitimization of defensive boxing at the expense of the heartfelt slog to the finish—but nor can he be accused of abandoning his offense.
“Dempsey made a chopping block of the big Philadelphian in the fourth and last round. He counted on Kelliher with both hands. The audience went wild over the wonderful exhibition of cleverness.”
A legitimately two-handed boxer-puncher, Dempsey was the sublime general of his generation with the ability and the fighting intellect to adopt whatever strategy was necessary for winning, sans drama. ITALICThe New York Evening World is quite right; the “usual invincible way” is the exact manner in which he dominated an era.
Dempsey lost two fights during his extraordinary prime, the 1889 shocker against previous victim LaBlanche (“Chance blow”—The Helena Independent, “Dempsey had the best of it”—The St.Paul Globe, “Demspey was considered a sure winner at all times during the contest”—The Sacramento Daily Record-Union) and the 1891 drubbing by Bob Fitzsimmons. Fitzsimmons represented yet another evolution in boxing’s lightning development in that late part of the 19th century and he marked the end of what was likely the most clear domination of a division by any fighter up until that point.
Only a lack of truly great opposition keeps him from scaling the very heights; but the ease with he dominated the thirty-plus men he bested during his prime assures his inclusion.
#88 Erik Morales (52-9)
There are no ties on this list.
Nevertheless some fighters are so closely linked that it is not possible to write about one without discussing the other. How, in the end, do you go about separating Erik Morales and Marco Antonio Barrera? They couldn’t even do so themselves, in a trilogy as good as anything that side of Vazquez-Marquez.
I disagreed with the judges on every occasion in those three fights. The first, perhaps the best fight of 2000 and a split decision win for Morales, was a Barrera win on my card, Marco Antonio breaking off the last two rounds against a tired Erik to sneak the decision; the second, I saw a close Morales win whilst all three judges found it for Barrera. The third, another absolutely outstanding contest, I scored a draw whilst the judges again were split but came out with a Barrera win. Having said all that, I wasn’t ringside for these fights—the decision of the judges should be respected.
Part of Erik’s problem with Barrera was the difference in speed. Marco Antonio is quicker and so in a round where neither man excels themselves or momentarily overpowers the other the only way for Morales to win the round is to outwork an opponent who is an excellent counterpuncher and works well with angles. In other words, Barrera’s superior versatility made life hard for Morales, who was working at a slight style deficit.
But in the second fight I thought Barrera showed some tactical naivety, going away jabbing, taking the wrong range. Yes, he was more versatile but that versatility was not always put to the perfect use and it gave Morales space to box his fight here. In the tenth round of this fight Morales perfected his thinking aggressor’s offense for three breathtaking minutes in which he dominated with three different styles, arguably the highest level either of these men reached in the ring, stopping a rush by Barrera on the scorecards. I came away from these first two fights with the strange impression that Barrera had more but that Morales knew better what to do with what he had. This impression was confirmed for me by their respective go-rounds with the great Manny Pacquiao. Morales did not just beat Pacquiao, he told us before the fight exactly how he was going to do it, mixing boxing and punching to produce the “intelligent fight” he needed to defeat the Filipino. In the build-up, Freddie Roach spoke endlessly of “the Manilla Ice”, his nickname for Pacquiao’s newly included right hand, the final piece of the puzzle in making Manny the complete fighter. Prime-for-prime, Morales bested the Filipino.
At their respective bests each was a wonderful talent that probably failed to distinguish one from the other, but whilst Morales was beaten only by Barrera, Barrera himself lost to stop-start herky-jerky stylings of Junior Jones in their 1997 contest. Outboxed and, bizarrely out-dogged, Barrera not for the last time seemed a tiny bit confused by his own possibilities. A more accomplished fighter overall that Morales in my opinion, he won straps at super-bantamweight, featherweight and super-featherweight.
Erik won titles of various meaning at these weights and added a bauble at light-welterweight.
Beating Cesar Cano for the vacant WBC 140 lb. trinket is not what separates him from Barrera by the tiniest of margins though. That would be preposterous. It’s a feeling—you have one too. It could be the same as mine, or it could be quite different and I am satisfied with either one—we only have two things we must agree upon.
One: it is close.
Two: they are great.
#87 Nonpareil Jack Demspey (50-4-11)
In April of 1887, Jack Dempsey stepped into the ring with Billy Baker, a heavyweight out of Buffalo New York and knocked the bigger man around the ring for four rounds. Due to the rules the two men had agreed, however, Baker took the win—the 145 lb. Jack Dempsey had agreed that if the 180 lb. Billy Baker remained upon his feet after just four rounds, he would be named as the winner. And that was it. That was the only loss Jack Dempsey posted between turning professional in 1883 and the infamous “lucky punch” landed upon him by George LaBlanche in 1889. For six years he was undefeated and for much of that time was regarded as the best fighter on the planet pound-for-pound, to the extent where he was considered a serious proposal as an opponent for the then legendary heavyweight champion, John L. Sullivan, who frequently carried more than 200 lbs. to the ring with him. This may have been something of a reach, even for Jack, but it is true that he made a habit out of thrashing men who were bigger than he.
“Denny Kelliher,” wrote The New York Evening World of Kelliher’s 1887 contest with Jack Dempsey, “is a big muscular pugilist whose weight is upward of 220 lbs.…still, Dempsey defeated him in the usual invincible way…Kelliher could no more land his right in the neighborhood of his small but wonderfully scientific opponent than he could wing a swallow with an ape.”
This was the essence of Dempsey’s boxing, and it worked at odds with what had gone before him. Fighters worked always to avoid being hit, but the Nonpareil seems to have been the man to make this de rigueur. His contribution to boxing, in conjunction with the wonderful lightweight champion Jack McAuliffe, seems to have been nothing less than the legitimization of defensive boxing at the expense of the heartfelt slog to the finish—but nor can he be accused of abandoning his offense.
“Dempsey made a chopping block of the big Philadelphian in the fourth and last round. He counted on Kelliher with both hands. The audience went wild over the wonderful exhibition of cleverness.”
A legitimately two-handed boxer-puncher, Dempsey was the sublime general of his generation with the ability and the fighting intellect to adopt whatever strategy was necessary for winning, sans drama. ITALICThe New York Evening World is quite right; the “usual invincible way” is the exact manner in which he dominated an era.
Dempsey lost two fights during his extraordinary prime, the 1889 shocker against previous victim LaBlanche (“Chance blow”—The Helena Independent, “Dempsey had the best of it”—The St.Paul Globe, “Demspey was considered a sure winner at all times during the contest”—The Sacramento Daily Record-Union) and the 1891 drubbing by Bob Fitzsimmons. Fitzsimmons represented yet another evolution in boxing’s lightning development in that late part of the 19th century and he marked the end of what was likely the most clear domination of a division by any fighter up until that point.
Only a lack of truly great opposition keeps him from scaling the very heights; but the ease with he dominated the thirty-plus men he bested during his prime assures his inclusion.
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#86 Wilfred Benitez (55-6-1)
Wilfred Benitez was only seventeen years old when he tenderly slipped into the Puerto Rican ring to meet 4-1 favorite and champion Antonio Cervantes, lifting the WBA light-welterweight title over fifteen rounds, boxed with the earnest sincerity of youth. Benitez was arguably never better, although he would impress many times between this, the first victory of his prime in March of 1976 and his July 1983 defeat by the brawling Mustafa Hamsho up at middleweight. In between he was beaten just twice and by men who lie further up this list, Thomas Hearns and Ray Leonard. When he stepped into the ring with Leonard in November of 1979, his record stood at 38-0-1 and he was about to impress once more, albeit in defeat.
Benitez assuaged aggression in fighters as well as anyone in boxing with a combination of direct and hurtful counterpunching and that tricky head-movement that bought him the nickname “El Radar.” “Chasing a ghost,” is how Leonard described boxing him. “He slipped one punch after another…I never missed so many punches.”
Losing that fight and a later one to Tommy Hearns pegged Benitez as a fighter that belongs in the bottom half rather than the top half of this list, but wins against Roberto Duran, Harold Weston, Carlos Palomino and his lifting straps from light-welterweight to light-middleweight make him a lock for the lower reaches.
#85 Juan Manuel Marquez (55-6-1)
So what did Juan Manuel do to distinguish himself from Barrera and Morales? He may have spent several years chasing both but failed to get Morales into the ring with him at all, and his eventual win over Barrera, although clear, is hardly a victory over a fighter in his pomp.
The answer, of course, is Manny Pacquiao.
In many ways, Morales did the more impressive work by getting a clean win over the Filipino at or near his best, but the career arch of Juan Manuel is more complex. Squint just a little when you look at his stats and you will see a fighter with arguably only one legitimate loss, to the P4P #1 and much bigger Floyd Mayweather. The early career loss to Freddy Norwood is eminently arguable (I have it to Marquez) and the loss to Chris John has always perplexed me. Before anyone cared, it was seen as a clean win for John. As Marquez became more and more crucial to the perception of Manny Pacquiao’s legacy, it became a robbery. Then, when some kindly soul uploaded the full fight to YouTube, it became fashionable to deem it a clean win again. For me, Marquez won the fight top to tail and I can never find more than four rounds for John, so I have the Mexican winning out of sight despite the two legitimate deductions for low blows.
Another myth concerning this fight is that it is the fight that “changed Marquez’s style,” that he somehow became more aggressive behind this injustice (if injustice it was). That too is inaccurate. Marquez fought very aggressively in this very match, it was in part the reason he dominated. Nevertheless it is true that at some point between his 2004 draw with Manny Pacquiao and his 2006 loss to Chris John, Marquez seemed to accept that he was going to be hit, quite a lot. A classic counterpuncher with an instinctive understanding of range this attribute never translated on defense; Marquez is leaky. On offense, he is amongst the best of his generation, arguably the best, certainly he is the most fluid combination puncher of the last decade and this has resulted in a surprising 40 stoppages in 55 victories—all the way up to welterweight.
Perhaps this is the reason Marquez ranks higher than Barrera and Morales. He’s traveled all the way to welterweight and in one of the most stunning stoppages in recent boxing history he knocked Manny Pacquiao unconscious with a single punch. Their rivalry has been a great one and in many ways it does define Marquez despite two razor thin decision losses. For the record, I don’t feel that Pacquiao has beaten Marquez once, my cards read 3-1-0 in the Juan Manuel’s favor. The judges, of course, had a better view than I did and in the end their decision must be respected, but either way, it is Marquez that has shaken more stardust from Pacquiao than any other fighter. Taken in tandem with his longevity, devastating the #2 pound-for-pound fighter in the world nearly twenty years after his professional debut, and you can see the daylight creeping in between him and his Mexican brethren.
And he’s not done yet.
Wilfred Benitez was only seventeen years old when he tenderly slipped into the Puerto Rican ring to meet 4-1 favorite and champion Antonio Cervantes, lifting the WBA light-welterweight title over fifteen rounds, boxed with the earnest sincerity of youth. Benitez was arguably never better, although he would impress many times between this, the first victory of his prime in March of 1976 and his July 1983 defeat by the brawling Mustafa Hamsho up at middleweight. In between he was beaten just twice and by men who lie further up this list, Thomas Hearns and Ray Leonard. When he stepped into the ring with Leonard in November of 1979, his record stood at 38-0-1 and he was about to impress once more, albeit in defeat.
Benitez assuaged aggression in fighters as well as anyone in boxing with a combination of direct and hurtful counterpunching and that tricky head-movement that bought him the nickname “El Radar.” “Chasing a ghost,” is how Leonard described boxing him. “He slipped one punch after another…I never missed so many punches.”
Losing that fight and a later one to Tommy Hearns pegged Benitez as a fighter that belongs in the bottom half rather than the top half of this list, but wins against Roberto Duran, Harold Weston, Carlos Palomino and his lifting straps from light-welterweight to light-middleweight make him a lock for the lower reaches.
#85 Juan Manuel Marquez (55-6-1)
So what did Juan Manuel do to distinguish himself from Barrera and Morales? He may have spent several years chasing both but failed to get Morales into the ring with him at all, and his eventual win over Barrera, although clear, is hardly a victory over a fighter in his pomp.
The answer, of course, is Manny Pacquiao.
In many ways, Morales did the more impressive work by getting a clean win over the Filipino at or near his best, but the career arch of Juan Manuel is more complex. Squint just a little when you look at his stats and you will see a fighter with arguably only one legitimate loss, to the P4P #1 and much bigger Floyd Mayweather. The early career loss to Freddy Norwood is eminently arguable (I have it to Marquez) and the loss to Chris John has always perplexed me. Before anyone cared, it was seen as a clean win for John. As Marquez became more and more crucial to the perception of Manny Pacquiao’s legacy, it became a robbery. Then, when some kindly soul uploaded the full fight to YouTube, it became fashionable to deem it a clean win again. For me, Marquez won the fight top to tail and I can never find more than four rounds for John, so I have the Mexican winning out of sight despite the two legitimate deductions for low blows.
Another myth concerning this fight is that it is the fight that “changed Marquez’s style,” that he somehow became more aggressive behind this injustice (if injustice it was). That too is inaccurate. Marquez fought very aggressively in this very match, it was in part the reason he dominated. Nevertheless it is true that at some point between his 2004 draw with Manny Pacquiao and his 2006 loss to Chris John, Marquez seemed to accept that he was going to be hit, quite a lot. A classic counterpuncher with an instinctive understanding of range this attribute never translated on defense; Marquez is leaky. On offense, he is amongst the best of his generation, arguably the best, certainly he is the most fluid combination puncher of the last decade and this has resulted in a surprising 40 stoppages in 55 victories—all the way up to welterweight.
Perhaps this is the reason Marquez ranks higher than Barrera and Morales. He’s traveled all the way to welterweight and in one of the most stunning stoppages in recent boxing history he knocked Manny Pacquiao unconscious with a single punch. Their rivalry has been a great one and in many ways it does define Marquez despite two razor thin decision losses. For the record, I don’t feel that Pacquiao has beaten Marquez once, my cards read 3-1-0 in the Juan Manuel’s favor. The judges, of course, had a better view than I did and in the end their decision must be respected, but either way, it is Marquez that has shaken more stardust from Pacquiao than any other fighter. Taken in tandem with his longevity, devastating the #2 pound-for-pound fighter in the world nearly twenty years after his professional debut, and you can see the daylight creeping in between him and his Mexican brethren.
And he’s not done yet.
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It's wild. I too have him as #2 P4P and like you said, only hardcore fans know who he is. Despite the fact that he's one of the most talented fighters in the sport, he won't ever be a PPV star due to the fact that he's an American that isn't very vocal and his style isn't the most exciting to the casual fan.
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#84 Jake LaMotta (83-19-4)
“I was able to convince my body that I could take it and nobody could hurt me. I might’ve got cut, stitches over my eyes. Broken nose. Broken hands. But I never really got hurt.”
Jake LaMotta’s ability to absorb punishment is legendary and perhaps even unparalleled but it has led to an eclipse of his other fine attributes, which actually includes an outstanding jab, a crucial augmentation punch for his relentless stalking style.
Priceless ringside-eye view footage of his famous middleweight title tilt against French idol Marcel Cerdan gives us the best insight into his fighting style as he jabs and stalks the champion back whilst dipping and slipping, searching relentlessly for the opening for his left hand, which he used liberally to head and body. LaMotta’s punches were crude in the sense that he tended to throw them wide but there is actually a certain thuggish fluidity to these shots which he pours on with the wanton abandon only a granite chin can support. Getting hit for Jake was just a part of going to the office; punches held no fear for him. Despite his apparent feather-fistedness, it made him dangerous. Nobody ever managed to make LaMotta go away. Whatever poison you fed him he was there from the first bell until the last, begging for more.
These brutal stylings brought Jake wins over Fritzie Zivic, Tommy Bell, Bert Lytell, Jose Basora, George Costner, the great Holman Williams, Robert Villemain, Tiberio Mitri and Bob Murphy, returns that give him one of the more pleasing win resumes in the division’s history. He also beat Sugar Ray Robinson, and although the great welter and middleweight dominated the series between them it is as glittering a win as exists in boxing, Jake being the only man to beat Robinson in 130 tries.
Prime losses to the smaller Fritzie Zivic, Cecil Hudson and Laurent Dauthuille and the one-sided drubbing he suffered at the hands of the brilliant Lloyd Marshall means ranking him higher than the eighties is a bit of a stretch, but one of the most unpleasant styles in ring history combined with a litany of middleweight and a smattering of light-heavyweight scalps make him difficult to leave out.
I freaking love the first quote. What a strong (Mentally and Physically) man LaMotta was.
But anyway what you guys think so far of the list?
“I was able to convince my body that I could take it and nobody could hurt me. I might’ve got cut, stitches over my eyes. Broken nose. Broken hands. But I never really got hurt.”
Jake LaMotta’s ability to absorb punishment is legendary and perhaps even unparalleled but it has led to an eclipse of his other fine attributes, which actually includes an outstanding jab, a crucial augmentation punch for his relentless stalking style.
Priceless ringside-eye view footage of his famous middleweight title tilt against French idol Marcel Cerdan gives us the best insight into his fighting style as he jabs and stalks the champion back whilst dipping and slipping, searching relentlessly for the opening for his left hand, which he used liberally to head and body. LaMotta’s punches were crude in the sense that he tended to throw them wide but there is actually a certain thuggish fluidity to these shots which he pours on with the wanton abandon only a granite chin can support. Getting hit for Jake was just a part of going to the office; punches held no fear for him. Despite his apparent feather-fistedness, it made him dangerous. Nobody ever managed to make LaMotta go away. Whatever poison you fed him he was there from the first bell until the last, begging for more.
These brutal stylings brought Jake wins over Fritzie Zivic, Tommy Bell, Bert Lytell, Jose Basora, George Costner, the great Holman Williams, Robert Villemain, Tiberio Mitri and Bob Murphy, returns that give him one of the more pleasing win resumes in the division’s history. He also beat Sugar Ray Robinson, and although the great welter and middleweight dominated the series between them it is as glittering a win as exists in boxing, Jake being the only man to beat Robinson in 130 tries.
Prime losses to the smaller Fritzie Zivic, Cecil Hudson and Laurent Dauthuille and the one-sided drubbing he suffered at the hands of the brilliant Lloyd Marshall means ranking him higher than the eighties is a bit of a stretch, but one of the most unpleasant styles in ring history combined with a litany of middleweight and a smattering of light-heavyweight scalps make him difficult to leave out.
I freaking love the first quote. What a strong (Mentally and Physically) man LaMotta was.
But anyway what you guys think so far of the list?
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