Originally Posted by LuciferTheGreat
Although I am no fan of Tyson's because of his out of the ring antics, I'd have to pick him as the best at his peak. Destroying his division's best from 1986-89 was great. Even those who made it the distance with him (Tucker, Bonehugger Smith) never amounted to much afterwards.
Ali and Leonard lost out as they went away from boxing as they hit their peaks, Ali due to his political views and his fight against the draft, and Leonard due to the eye injury. So we never saw the truly best they could be. Sure Leonard got the decision over Hagler, but many still cry robbery and it was downhill from there for Leonard. He managed 2 wins, 2 losses and a draw after the Hagler fight.
Floyd, I believe, is at his peak and if he stays at 147 and cleans out his division, then I will change my vote to him. (I guess I can't change my vote but you know what I mean) If he had stayed in one division for awhile and beat every one of the four major title holders (WBO, WBC, WBA and IBF) I would have voted for him for that reason too.
Jones was, I admit, a dominate fighter at LH for like 8 years but there was one guy he bypassed. The then-WBO champion Michalczewski is one of them. Whether or not Dariusz wanted to leave Europe to fight Jones, I am not sure of. But it never seemed like Jones ever told him to put up or shut up. That and the fact that while Jones was picking up the then-vacant WBC LH title, Dariusz was unifying the WBO, IBF and WBA titles against Virgil Hill (he ended up dumping the WBA and IBF titles, probably because dealing with the hassles ofthree sanctioning bodies would make a fighter want to drink Drano) kind of dampens his reign a little for me.
Just my thoughts. Sad click if you take this as a Jones hate thing, cool click me if you agree about the Michalczewski thing.