Commentary: Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s place among the modern greats
Doug Fischer
September 13, 2014
Jimmy Bivins, who was once THE RING’s No. 1 contender at both light heavyweight and heavyweight but never received a title shot, was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1999.
In late June, Michael Rosenthal sent me an email with the words “top 20 pd4pd” in the subject line. THE RING editor wanted to know if I could rank the 20 greatest fighters of all time, in my opinion. My list would be presented along with those of nine other “historians” in a feature for the October 2014 edition of the magazine previewing the Floyd Mayweather Jr.-Marcos Maidana rematch.
The point of what became a rankings poll that eventually expanded to include 20 “knowledgeable boxing historians and writers” was, in Rosenthal’s words, “to give readers an idea of where (Floyd) Mayweather stands according to ‘experts.’”
You all know me; I won’t turn down the request of anyone who refers to me as a “boxing expert” (just look at how many YouTube interviews I’ve done with Elie Seckbach). I accepted Rosenthal’s task and took it seriously, making a list of active boxers that are consensus locks for first-ballot hall of fame induction – Mayweather, Manny Pacquiao, Bernard Hopkins, Juan Manuel Marquez, Wladimir Klitschko and Miguel Cotto among others – and then I cracked open my most recent edition of The Boxing Register, the official record book of the International Boxing Hall of Fame (IBHOF), so I could compile the established legends and standouts of the sport.
I put together a list of nearly 70 fighters, which also included those who aren’t yet in the hall of fame but are no longer considered “elite” active boxers – stubborn, semi-retired former champions such as Roy Jones Jr., James Toney and Evander Holyfield.
After several days of meticulous research and internal debate, I had my top 20. No active fighter made my list, but a few came close and many populated a second list of 40 “honorable mention” fighters that I compiled for future articles (such as this one). I promptly emailed my 20 all-time greats to Rosenthal, who thanked me for my time, complimented me on my selection, but then added that the list was meant for “modern” boxers as defined by the IBHOF, which categorizes any fighter whose last bout was prior to 1943 as an “Old-Timer.”
Well, with such legendary Old-Timers as Sam Langford, Harry Greb, Mickey Walker, Benny Leonard, Jack Johnson, Tony Canzoneri and Lou Ambers automatically jettisoned from my list, there was potentially room for some of the most accomplished boxers of recent decades to make my top 20.
Holyfield and Hopkins made my list – barely.
But why those two? Why not Mayweather, Jones, Pacquiao or Marquez? It’s a reasonable question – one that I’m often asked by fans who write into my weekly mailbag columns – and I’ll try to answer it with this article. First I’ll present my requirements for the boxers who made my top 20, and then the list.
My main criteria:
1. Quality of opposition. The more hall-of-fame enshrined opponents – or fighters that most knowledgeable observers believe will one day be in the IBHOF – that a fighter has faced, the higher he was ranked on my list.
In general, a victory over a hall of famer earned more points than a loss or draw, but not in every case. I took into account the natural weight classes of the fighters and the division the bout took place in.
For example, Marvin Halger and Roberto Duran, two hall of famers, fought in 1983. Halger defended his undisputed middleweight championship with a unanimous but competitive 15-round decision. However, Duran – a natural lightweight – received more credit for that bout in my rankings analysis than did Hagler, a natural middleweight and one of the best 160 pounders of all time.
I also took into account where the fighters were in their respective careers. A victory over a faded hall of famer obviously counted less than a victory – or even a draw or competitive loss – against a hall of famer who was at or near his prime.
For example, Rocky Marciano – who made the lists of eight out of the 20 experts polled – has victories over fellow hall of famers Joe Louis, Jersey Joe Walcott and Archie Moore; however, the advanced ages of that trio was enough to keep “The Rock” out of my top 20.
Fighters also received consideration for the number of champions, titleholders, and bona-fide top-10 contenders they faced. Titleholders didn’t necessarily rate higher than top contenders. For example, a fight with Bert Lytell, a top middleweight contender during the 1940s who never received a shot at the title and isn’t in the hall of fame, is worth a hell of a lot more than a victory over a modern alphabet titleholder, such as Victor Ortiz or Andre Berto, in my view. (This stuff goes without saying, right?)
2. Consensus recognition as the best, or one of the top fighters of all time, in a specific division. Fighters who have established themselves – in the eyes of historians, media and fans – as being among the five-to-10 best boxers ever in a single weight class received a huge boost in my ratings. And I wasn’t alone with this criterion.
True legends, such as Sugar Ray Robinson – widely regarded as the one of the best welterweights and middleweights ever (if not the best) – Muhammad Ali, one of the top two heavyweights of all time (along with Louis), and Duran, the people’s choice for greatest lightweight ever, made the lists of all 20 experts polled for the magazine feature.
Louis, Willie Pep, who is widely regarded as the best featherweight ever, and Henry Armstrong, who often makes the all-time top 10 in three weight classes (featherweight, lightweight and welterweight), made almost all 20 lists.
This criterion helped both Holyfield, regarded as the best cruiserweight ever and one of the 10 greatest heavyweights, and Hopkins, who is considered one of the top five middleweights by many historians, to make my top 20.
Also, I gave more consideration to fighters who are among the all-time best of the original weight classes – such as lightweight, middleweight and heavyweight, which were established in the 1880s – than those who top the modern divisions that were started up in the 1980s, such as strawweight, junior bantamweight, super middleweight and cruiserweight. So Ricardo Lopez, the consensus choice as the greatest 105 pounder, and Jones, who I view as the top 168 pounder ever, didn’t get the same push that B-Hop did for establishing himself as one of the all-time best 160 pounders (or that Holyfield got for being recognized as one of the great heavyweight champs).
3. Being a top contender in multiple weight classes. One didn’t have to win championships or even alphabet belts in separate divisions for this consideration because I realize the sport wasn’t handing out world titles like candy on Halloween during the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s. So standouts such as Archie Moore, Billy Conn and Ezzard Charles, who fought hall of fame opposition in three divisions – middleweight, light heavyweight and heavyweight – but “only” held championships in one division (Moore and Conn at light heavyweight; Charles at heavyweight) still received extra consideration.
Fighters who were multiple division champs or top contenders during the eras of eight, 10 and 12 weight classes received more consideration than those of the current era of 17 weight classes.
4. Winning world titles. The undisputed championships that fighters won in the era before multiple “world” titles are worth more than single sanctioning organization belts in my view. Fighters who were part of the fractured-titles era (post-1960s) who held or unified all of the major titles in their weight classes, as Holyfield did at both cruiserweight and heavyweight, Hagler and Hopkins did at middleweight, Pernell Whitaker did at lightweight, and Tyson did at heavyweight, received more consideration than fighters who only held one or two belts in a particular weight class.
Bonus points/considerations (the following accomplishments resulted in an extra push in my ratings):
* Fighters who won 150 or more bouts – Pep, who won a sublime 229 prize fights and is the only “modern boxer” with over 200 victories, received a tremendous push up my rankings for this accomplishment. Moore (who came close to the 200-win club with 185 victories), Robinson (173) and Armstrong (150) were also boosted in my rankings for winning as many fights as they did. All four are in my top 10. The boxing world will never see these kinds of stats again.
* Fighters who won more than 100 bouts – Holman Williams, one of the great African-American contenders of the 1930s/‘40s who never received a title shot, tops this group with 146 career victories. I was pleased to see his name on three lists. Sandy Saddler (144), who was on 11 lists, Ike Williams (127), Kid Gavilan (108), Luis Rodriguez (107), Chavez (107), Marcel Cerdan (105) and Duran (103) all received extra consideration from Yours Truly.
* Fighters who set divisional and all-time records – Armstrong (for simultaneously holding three world titles and setting the welterweight title defense record), Louis (for the all-time title defense record in any weight class), Chavez (for the most title-bout victories and title bouts in history) and Hopkins (for being the oldest champion, having the longest middleweight title reign and setting the middleweight title defense record) all cleaned up with this one.
* Fighters who faced the fellow elite fighters of their divisions/eras – Ali and Joe Frazier received a push for facing each other when both were undefeated with legitimate claims to the heavyweight championship. So did Sugar Ray Leonard and Thomas Hearns, who fought each other in their primes, when both were clearly the top two welterweights in the world and among the best of any weight. So did Salvador Sanchez and Wilfredo Gomez for settling who was better when the Mexican master was the best featherweight in the world and the Puerto Rican star was the top junior featherweight (arguably ever). So did Whitaker and Chavez, who fought each other when they topped the mythical pound-for-pound lists of every boxing publication and sports writer.
Mayweather and Pacquiao dropped the ball bigtime with this one, and it cost them both in my final analysis. Even Jones, who is rightfully criticized for cherry picking opponents during his prime years, fought James Toney when Lights Out was considered the best super middleweight in the game and was near the top of most pound-for-pound rankings.
Young fans who bytch and moan about how unfair it is to compare modern boxers to Golden Age legends like Pep, Moore and Robinson, who fought more than 200 bouts, should take note that Ali “only” had 61 fights. Whitaker (who fought 46 pro bouts) and Leonard (who fought 40) were on almost every list for the magazine poll (usually in the top 10). Gomez (48), Sanchez (46) and Frazier, who had less than 40 bouts (37), made it onto a handful of lists. All six are considered great fighters by most historians. It’s not always about volume or longevity. Sometimes it’s about making the most of your prime (and in Sanchez’s case, taking advantage of a tragically short time on this earth).
***
Doug Fischer
September 13, 2014
![Jimmy-Bivins.jpg](http://cdn3-www.ringtv.craveonline.com/assets/uploads/2014/09/Jimmy-Bivins.jpg)
Jimmy Bivins, who was once THE RING’s No. 1 contender at both light heavyweight and heavyweight but never received a title shot, was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1999.
In late June, Michael Rosenthal sent me an email with the words “top 20 pd4pd” in the subject line. THE RING editor wanted to know if I could rank the 20 greatest fighters of all time, in my opinion. My list would be presented along with those of nine other “historians” in a feature for the October 2014 edition of the magazine previewing the Floyd Mayweather Jr.-Marcos Maidana rematch.
The point of what became a rankings poll that eventually expanded to include 20 “knowledgeable boxing historians and writers” was, in Rosenthal’s words, “to give readers an idea of where (Floyd) Mayweather stands according to ‘experts.’”
You all know me; I won’t turn down the request of anyone who refers to me as a “boxing expert” (just look at how many YouTube interviews I’ve done with Elie Seckbach). I accepted Rosenthal’s task and took it seriously, making a list of active boxers that are consensus locks for first-ballot hall of fame induction – Mayweather, Manny Pacquiao, Bernard Hopkins, Juan Manuel Marquez, Wladimir Klitschko and Miguel Cotto among others – and then I cracked open my most recent edition of The Boxing Register, the official record book of the International Boxing Hall of Fame (IBHOF), so I could compile the established legends and standouts of the sport.
I put together a list of nearly 70 fighters, which also included those who aren’t yet in the hall of fame but are no longer considered “elite” active boxers – stubborn, semi-retired former champions such as Roy Jones Jr., James Toney and Evander Holyfield.
After several days of meticulous research and internal debate, I had my top 20. No active fighter made my list, but a few came close and many populated a second list of 40 “honorable mention” fighters that I compiled for future articles (such as this one). I promptly emailed my 20 all-time greats to Rosenthal, who thanked me for my time, complimented me on my selection, but then added that the list was meant for “modern” boxers as defined by the IBHOF, which categorizes any fighter whose last bout was prior to 1943 as an “Old-Timer.”
Well, with such legendary Old-Timers as Sam Langford, Harry Greb, Mickey Walker, Benny Leonard, Jack Johnson, Tony Canzoneri and Lou Ambers automatically jettisoned from my list, there was potentially room for some of the most accomplished boxers of recent decades to make my top 20.
Holyfield and Hopkins made my list – barely.
But why those two? Why not Mayweather, Jones, Pacquiao or Marquez? It’s a reasonable question – one that I’m often asked by fans who write into my weekly mailbag columns – and I’ll try to answer it with this article. First I’ll present my requirements for the boxers who made my top 20, and then the list.
My main criteria:
1. Quality of opposition. The more hall-of-fame enshrined opponents – or fighters that most knowledgeable observers believe will one day be in the IBHOF – that a fighter has faced, the higher he was ranked on my list.
In general, a victory over a hall of famer earned more points than a loss or draw, but not in every case. I took into account the natural weight classes of the fighters and the division the bout took place in.
For example, Marvin Halger and Roberto Duran, two hall of famers, fought in 1983. Halger defended his undisputed middleweight championship with a unanimous but competitive 15-round decision. However, Duran – a natural lightweight – received more credit for that bout in my rankings analysis than did Hagler, a natural middleweight and one of the best 160 pounders of all time.
I also took into account where the fighters were in their respective careers. A victory over a faded hall of famer obviously counted less than a victory – or even a draw or competitive loss – against a hall of famer who was at or near his prime.
For example, Rocky Marciano – who made the lists of eight out of the 20 experts polled – has victories over fellow hall of famers Joe Louis, Jersey Joe Walcott and Archie Moore; however, the advanced ages of that trio was enough to keep “The Rock” out of my top 20.
Fighters also received consideration for the number of champions, titleholders, and bona-fide top-10 contenders they faced. Titleholders didn’t necessarily rate higher than top contenders. For example, a fight with Bert Lytell, a top middleweight contender during the 1940s who never received a shot at the title and isn’t in the hall of fame, is worth a hell of a lot more than a victory over a modern alphabet titleholder, such as Victor Ortiz or Andre Berto, in my view. (This stuff goes without saying, right?)
2. Consensus recognition as the best, or one of the top fighters of all time, in a specific division. Fighters who have established themselves – in the eyes of historians, media and fans – as being among the five-to-10 best boxers ever in a single weight class received a huge boost in my ratings. And I wasn’t alone with this criterion.
True legends, such as Sugar Ray Robinson – widely regarded as the one of the best welterweights and middleweights ever (if not the best) – Muhammad Ali, one of the top two heavyweights of all time (along with Louis), and Duran, the people’s choice for greatest lightweight ever, made the lists of all 20 experts polled for the magazine feature.
Louis, Willie Pep, who is widely regarded as the best featherweight ever, and Henry Armstrong, who often makes the all-time top 10 in three weight classes (featherweight, lightweight and welterweight), made almost all 20 lists.
This criterion helped both Holyfield, regarded as the best cruiserweight ever and one of the 10 greatest heavyweights, and Hopkins, who is considered one of the top five middleweights by many historians, to make my top 20.
Also, I gave more consideration to fighters who are among the all-time best of the original weight classes – such as lightweight, middleweight and heavyweight, which were established in the 1880s – than those who top the modern divisions that were started up in the 1980s, such as strawweight, junior bantamweight, super middleweight and cruiserweight. So Ricardo Lopez, the consensus choice as the greatest 105 pounder, and Jones, who I view as the top 168 pounder ever, didn’t get the same push that B-Hop did for establishing himself as one of the all-time best 160 pounders (or that Holyfield got for being recognized as one of the great heavyweight champs).
3. Being a top contender in multiple weight classes. One didn’t have to win championships or even alphabet belts in separate divisions for this consideration because I realize the sport wasn’t handing out world titles like candy on Halloween during the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s. So standouts such as Archie Moore, Billy Conn and Ezzard Charles, who fought hall of fame opposition in three divisions – middleweight, light heavyweight and heavyweight – but “only” held championships in one division (Moore and Conn at light heavyweight; Charles at heavyweight) still received extra consideration.
Fighters who were multiple division champs or top contenders during the eras of eight, 10 and 12 weight classes received more consideration than those of the current era of 17 weight classes.
4. Winning world titles. The undisputed championships that fighters won in the era before multiple “world” titles are worth more than single sanctioning organization belts in my view. Fighters who were part of the fractured-titles era (post-1960s) who held or unified all of the major titles in their weight classes, as Holyfield did at both cruiserweight and heavyweight, Hagler and Hopkins did at middleweight, Pernell Whitaker did at lightweight, and Tyson did at heavyweight, received more consideration than fighters who only held one or two belts in a particular weight class.
Bonus points/considerations (the following accomplishments resulted in an extra push in my ratings):
* Fighters who won 150 or more bouts – Pep, who won a sublime 229 prize fights and is the only “modern boxer” with over 200 victories, received a tremendous push up my rankings for this accomplishment. Moore (who came close to the 200-win club with 185 victories), Robinson (173) and Armstrong (150) were also boosted in my rankings for winning as many fights as they did. All four are in my top 10. The boxing world will never see these kinds of stats again.
* Fighters who won more than 100 bouts – Holman Williams, one of the great African-American contenders of the 1930s/‘40s who never received a title shot, tops this group with 146 career victories. I was pleased to see his name on three lists. Sandy Saddler (144), who was on 11 lists, Ike Williams (127), Kid Gavilan (108), Luis Rodriguez (107), Chavez (107), Marcel Cerdan (105) and Duran (103) all received extra consideration from Yours Truly.
* Fighters who set divisional and all-time records – Armstrong (for simultaneously holding three world titles and setting the welterweight title defense record), Louis (for the all-time title defense record in any weight class), Chavez (for the most title-bout victories and title bouts in history) and Hopkins (for being the oldest champion, having the longest middleweight title reign and setting the middleweight title defense record) all cleaned up with this one.
* Fighters who faced the fellow elite fighters of their divisions/eras – Ali and Joe Frazier received a push for facing each other when both were undefeated with legitimate claims to the heavyweight championship. So did Sugar Ray Leonard and Thomas Hearns, who fought each other in their primes, when both were clearly the top two welterweights in the world and among the best of any weight. So did Salvador Sanchez and Wilfredo Gomez for settling who was better when the Mexican master was the best featherweight in the world and the Puerto Rican star was the top junior featherweight (arguably ever). So did Whitaker and Chavez, who fought each other when they topped the mythical pound-for-pound lists of every boxing publication and sports writer.
Mayweather and Pacquiao dropped the ball bigtime with this one, and it cost them both in my final analysis. Even Jones, who is rightfully criticized for cherry picking opponents during his prime years, fought James Toney when Lights Out was considered the best super middleweight in the game and was near the top of most pound-for-pound rankings.
Young fans who bytch and moan about how unfair it is to compare modern boxers to Golden Age legends like Pep, Moore and Robinson, who fought more than 200 bouts, should take note that Ali “only” had 61 fights. Whitaker (who fought 46 pro bouts) and Leonard (who fought 40) were on almost every list for the magazine poll (usually in the top 10). Gomez (48), Sanchez (46) and Frazier, who had less than 40 bouts (37), made it onto a handful of lists. All six are considered great fighters by most historians. It’s not always about volume or longevity. Sometimes it’s about making the most of your prime (and in Sanchez’s case, taking advantage of a tragically short time on this earth).
***