Two Questions

[marbleheadmaui]

I determine it by:

Quality of opposition & how they beat them

Title wins (number of divisions & lineal important)

Dominance in particular divisions, unifying belts is good although with the problems of alphabets & protected beltholders in modern times I don't hold it against them.

I should have just said Mick's list

In terms of my list it's done by division, because I'd miss someone out. Obviously light-welters go into welter etc & I'd go with the division where I feel they were best or more likely where I think of them first. Ironically doing it this way doesn't automatically conjure up my top 10 or near it in those weight-classes.

I've also asterisked those I've not seen any footage of. I include them for those criteria above, but do so hesitantly. I remember in another thread Maui saying he shouldn't have questions about a fighter, but I've got a ton about plenty I consider ATG who I've either not seen or not seen enough of. It's the one way modern fighters have a much tougher time in that they face much more scrutiny that old guys.

Heavyweight

John L. Sullivan*
Bob Fitzsimmons*
Jack Johnson
Jack Dempsey
Gene Tunney
Joe Louis
Muhammad Ali
Joe Frazier
Lennox Lewis

Light-Heavyweight

Tommy Loughran*
Georges Carpentier*
Billy Conn
Archie Moore
Bob Foster
Michael Spinks
Roy Jones Jr

Middleweight

Jack Dempsey (the other one)*
Stanley Ketchel
Harry Greb*
Mickey Walker*
Tony Zale
Jake LaMotta
Carlos Monzon
Marvin Hagler
Dick Tiger
Nino Benevenuti
Bernard Hopkins

Welterweight

Ted 'Kid' Lewis*
Jack Britton*
Jimmy McLarnin*
Barney Ross
Sugar Ray Robinson
Carmen Basilio
Emile Griffith
Kid Gavilan
Sugar Ray Leonard
Tommy Hearns
Julio Cesar Chavez
Oscar De La Hoya
Shane Mosley

Lightweight

Jack McAuliffe*
Joe Gans*
Benny Leonard
Tony Canzoneri
Lou Ambers*
Henry Armstrong
Ike Williams
Carlos Ortiz
Roberto Duran
Alexis Arguello
Azumah Nelson
Pernell Whitaker
Floyd Mayweather Jr

Featherweight

Abe Atell*
Kid Chocolate*
Willie Pep
Sandy Saddler
Eder Jofre
Vicente Saldivar
Salvador Sanchez
Wilfredo Gomez
Manny Pacquiao
Juan Manuel Marquez

Bantamweight

Bud Taylor*
Panama Al Brown
Manuel Ortiz*
Fighting Harada
Carlos Zarate
Ruben Olivares
Orlando Canizales
Khaosai Galaxy

Flyweight

Jimmy Wilde
Pancho Villa*
Miguel Canto
Ricardo Lopez

Ok, well that's my best go at it. I've probably missed some people out (Terry McGovern for example I know way too little about) & there's more than a few who would get cut if I was to think about it more, while there's others I'm equally tempted to put in. Anyway fire away with the criticism

First thank you very much for the thinking and the work.

DAMN! Great work. FWIW there is good footage on Loughran, Walker, Villa, Ambers, Gans and McLarnin.

Seriously that is an amazingly excellent list (in that I agree with much of it ) A question. Were guys like Barbados Joe Walcott, Pascual Perez, Johnny Dundee, and Sam Langford oversights (understandable on a list this long) or judgements against?

Poor non-pareil Jack Demspey, reduced to "the other one."

I'm not sold on Orlando Canizales or Shane or Azumah (that hurts) or Oscar or Carpentier or Bud Taylor or Tony Zale being quite good enough, but it is certainly debatable.

The WWII middles are just a tough bunch to figure. None of Zale or Cerdan or Graziano or LaMotta ever faced Holman Williams or Archie Moore or Ezzard or Burley. Just an era that never clarified and so I look at those guys a little skeptically. Largely WWII's fault, but the guys just never did what I want to see fighters do.

[JazMerkin]

First thank you very much for the thinking and the work.

DAMN! Great work. FWIW there is good footage on Loughran, Walker, Villa, Ambers, Gans and McLarnin.

Seriously that is an amazingly excellent list (in that I agree with much of it ) A question. Were guys like Barbados Joe Walcott, Pascual Perez, Johnny Dundee, and Sam Langford oversights (understandable on a list this long) or judgements against?

Poor non-pareil Jack Demspey, reduced to "the other one."

I'm not sold on Orlando Canizales or Shane or Azumah (that hurts) or Oscar or Carpentier or Bud Taylor or Tony Zale being quite good enough, but it is certainly debatable.

The WWII middles are just a tough bunch to figure. None of Zale or Cerdan or Graziano or LaMotta ever faced Holman Williams or Archie Moore or Ezzard or Burley. Just an era that never clarified and so I look at those guys a little skeptically. Largely WWII's fault, but the guys just never did what I want to see fighters do.

Langford was definitely an oversight, as were Ezzard Charles & Charley Burley, but the others I knew far too little about to justify putting them in. I didn't feel I could include Johnny Dundee off having read his wikipedia page about 2 days ago

A lot of the ones you're not sold on are ones I was unsure of. Carpentier had a real influence on boxing & Taylor was largely off the basis of beating both Canzoneri & Villa. I know what you mean about the MWs of the 40s/50s. I think it was a great era & one of the oldies fights I love to watch, but I felt that the era deserved something more than SRR in there. I feel LaMotta deserves to be there more than LaMotta, but I also excluded Barrera & Morales for a similar reason so I could've been harsher there.

I feel looking at the list that I was far more stringent with the HWs & LHWs than at the lower end. On my criteria for the HWs, Canizales & perhaps Galaxy would've got dropped.

Azumah is for me the 3rd best 130lber there's been & I want him to be included, but again that might be my heart ruling my head. Oscar & Shane weren't easy choices, but their accomplishments are what swayed me, but I can't say I was that comfortable with either. In all honesty, the only active fighters I'm confident in calling ATGs are Hopkins, Mayweather & Pacquiao & that's because they've accomplished things that very few in boxing history have as you showed in your putting B-Hop in perspective thread

[marbleheadmaui]

First thank you very much for the thinking and the work.

DAMN! Great work. FWIW there is good footage on Loughran, Walker, Villa, Ambers, Gans and McLarnin.

Seriously that is an amazingly excellent list (in that I agree with much of it ) A question. Were guys like Barbados Joe Walcott, Pascual Perez, Johnny Dundee, and Sam Langford oversights (understandable on a list this long) or judgements against?

Poor non-pareil Jack Demspey, reduced to "the other one."

I'm not sold on Orlando Canizales or Shane or Azumah (that hurts) or Oscar or Carpentier or Bud Taylor or Tony Zale being quite good enough, but it is certainly debatable.

The WWII middles are just a tough bunch to figure. None of Zale or Cerdan or Graziano or LaMotta ever faced Holman Williams or Archie Moore or Ezzard or Burley. Just an era that never clarified and so I look at those guys a little skeptically. Largely WWII's fault, but the guys just never did what I want to see fighters do.

Langford was definitely an oversight, as were Ezzard Charles & Charley Burley, but the others I knew far too little about to justify putting them in. I didn't feel I could include Johnny Dundee off having read his wikipedia page about 2 days ago

A lot of the ones you're not sold on are ones I was unsure of. Carpentier had a real influence on boxing & Taylor was largely off the basis of beating both Canzoneri & Villa. I know what you mean about the MWs of the 40s/50s. I think it was a great era & one of the oldies fights I love to watch, but I felt that the era deserved something more than SRR in there. I feel LaMotta deserves to be there more than LaMotta, but I also excluded Barrera & Morales for a similar reason so I could've been harsher there.

I feel looking at the list that I was far more stringent with the HWs & LHWs than at the lower end. On my criteria for the HWs, Canizales & perhaps Galaxy would've got dropped.

Azumah is for me the 3rd best 130lber there's been & I want him to be included, but again that might be my heart ruling my head. Oscar & Shane weren't easy choices, but their accomplishments are what swayed me, but I can't say I was that comfortable with either. In all honesty, the only active fighters I'm confident in calling ATGs are Hopkins, Mayweather & Pacquiao & that's because they've accomplished things that very few in boxing history have as you showed in your putting B-Hop in perspective thread

getting this kind of stuff settled is impossible of course, just fun to kick around. I could make a case, a good case, for every fighter you named being included. I just think I can make a slightly (slight-leee) better case to exclude a handful.

On Azumah, who I just loved and admired and held up as what a fighter oughtta be and if asked nicely I might have bore a child by him, if you include him, doesn't Flash Elorde have to come along? That's the real issue. I'm not sure you can really rank fighters other than in some sort of ragged, loosey-goosey groups. If I'm right about that (and I could be full of it) that means one guy in or out often drags 5-6 more with him.

But again, I think your initial list is one of the better ones I've encountered. Thanks again.

[Mr140]

Well marble as i said before being heavyweight champ and being a top ten heavy of all time is big thing. I kinda don't give much credit to many weights after 126 i think pools are not enough alot of part timers.

[marbleheadmaui]

Well marble as i said before being heavyweight champ and being a top ten heavy of all time is big thing. I kinda don't give much credit to many weights after 126 i think pools are not enough alot of part timers.

I could certainly see the logic in saying heavies and flyweights deserve less credit becasue there are fewer people that size in the human distribution etc. But featherweights and bantams? Arguably each is richer in history than light heavy.

[CutMeMick]

I don't consider Charley Burley an ATG.

[marbleheadmaui]

I don't consider Charley Burley an ATG.

May I humbly ask why not?

83 wins. Six wins over HOFers (though a losing record overall) and 20 wins from 147-175 over ranked guys (when the sport had only 88 ranked guys).

[JazMerkin]

First thank you very much for the thinking and the work.

DAMN! Great work. FWIW there is good footage on Loughran, Walker, Villa, Ambers, Gans and McLarnin.

Seriously that is an amazingly excellent list (in that I agree with much of it ) A question. Were guys like Barbados Joe Walcott, Pascual Perez, Johnny Dundee, and Sam Langford oversights (understandable on a list this long) or judgements against?

Poor non-pareil Jack Demspey, reduced to "the other one."

I'm not sold on Orlando Canizales or Shane or Azumah (that hurts) or Oscar or Carpentier or Bud Taylor or Tony Zale being quite good enough, but it is certainly debatable.

The WWII middles are just a tough bunch to figure. None of Zale or Cerdan or Graziano or LaMotta ever faced Holman Williams or Archie Moore or Ezzard or Burley. Just an era that never clarified and so I look at those guys a little skeptically. Largely WWII's fault, but the guys just never did what I want to see fighters do.

Langford was definitely an oversight, as were Ezzard Charles & Charley Burley, but the others I knew far too little about to justify putting them in. I didn't feel I could include Johnny Dundee off having read his wikipedia page about 2 days ago

A lot of the ones you're not sold on are ones I was unsure of. Carpentier had a real influence on boxing & Taylor was largely off the basis of beating both Canzoneri & Villa. I know what you mean about the MWs of the 40s/50s. I think it was a great era & one of the oldies fights I love to watch, but I felt that the era deserved something more than SRR in there. I feel LaMotta deserves to be there more than LaMotta, but I also excluded Barrera & Morales for a similar reason so I could've been harsher there.

I feel looking at the list that I was far more stringent with the HWs & LHWs than at the lower end. On my criteria for the HWs, Canizales & perhaps Galaxy would've got dropped.

Azumah is for me the 3rd best 130lber there's been & I want him to be included, but again that might be my heart ruling my head. Oscar & Shane weren't easy choices, but their accomplishments are what swayed me, but I can't say I was that comfortable with either. In all honesty, the only active fighters I'm confident in calling ATGs are Hopkins, Mayweather & Pacquiao & that's because they've accomplished things that very few in boxing history have as you showed in your putting B-Hop in perspective thread

getting this kind of stuff settled is impossible of course, just fun to kick around. I could make a case, a good case, for every fighter you named being included. I just think I can make a slightly (slight-leee) better case to exclude a handful.

On Azumah, who I just loved and admired and held up as what a fighter oughtta be and if asked nicely I might have bore a child by him, if you include him, doesn't Flash Elorde have to come along? That's the real issue. I'm not sure you can really rank fighters other than in some sort of ragged, loosey-goosey groups. If I'm right about that (and I could be full of it) that means one guy in or out often drags 5-6 more with him.

But again, I think your initial list is one of the better ones I've encountered. Thanks again.

I was thinking about this earlier. I included Oscar & Shane, but thinking about it does that mean I should include Tito also? I mean I don't believe he is, but including them there's surely an argument he is in also.

I was also thinking about my inclusion of exciting fighters like Zale or guys who were great in a division like Azumah. Surely I should then consider Morales or Barrera. Here's the funny thing, I've always been more of a Barrera fan & never had much time for Morales, yet if I had to pick one as an ATG it would be Morales, yet I'm not sure he's achieved that much more. Also including them, how could I then not consider a guy like Baby Arizmendi.

Then I've included a guy like Zale, but does he really deserve to be there more than Tyson & Holyfield? I think I could have a decade & I'd always be chopping & changing.