Quote Originally Posted by Rantcatrat View Post

I think @Beanflicker is on to something although I would emphasize that the boxing community is not perfect. Remember when Adrian Broner was ranked in the top 5 p4p by Ring Magazine? How ridiculous was that? On the other hand, at least to an extent, it is most often correct. It usually gets right the top 20 fighters in the sport. Where they rank individually is subjective. Whether you have Rigo at number 5 or number 3 depends on taste. Wlad at 3 or 5 depends on taste too etc. But, that they're both in the top 10 is definite.
Yeah it's pretty far from an exact science. Even hardened boxing fans will get fooled into thinking a guy is better than he is, and I think there definitely is a "squeaky wheel gets the grease" aspect where guys like Adrian Broner who talk and command a lot of attention will get overrated. And I do agree that when you get up to like top 5-10 p4p it gets kind of "pick em choose em".

I do think being a top 5 p4p in general carries a lot of weight. If we go back and look at the guys over the last 30 years or so who were consistently considered top 5 p4p over years and even decades - Whitaker, JCC, Roy Jones, De La Hoya, Mosley, Pacquiao, Floyd, ect, it really doesn't get better than those guys and I think that's more telling of the impact and legacy they had than any WBC/WBA/ABC/whatever belt they won along the way.