How good was Floyd?

[TitoFan]

Duran lost 16 times in his career, does that count against him as an ATG?
IMO- Absolutely not.
There needs to be a bit of consistency with lists like this, and the only way you can be consistent is by rating each individual on the best part of their career.
Otherwise you will always find a way to downgrade people you don’t like.
Duran lost a few , but he had 2 ATG Careers !one as a LW and one as one of the 4 kings. (Or whatever you want to call them)

Agree 100%.

Of course the bulk of the 16 losses came when Duran was way too old and way over his glory days in the lightweight division.

He hung on way too long... fought as heavy as 176, ffs... and as a result tarnished his record a bit.

But as you said... he had an ATG career as a lightweight alone. He's considered as one of the Four Kings, although I'll always contend that Benitez is being slighted on that one.

He beat a prime SRL in arguably the fight of the century (behind maybe Ali-Frazier I).

He beat his share of future HOFers along the way... putting fear into the lightweight division.

You said so yourself... "the only way you can be consistent is by rating each individual on the best part of their career"

Which is precisely what I've done in ranking the ones I rated above Floyd in my own list.

You make some very fair points and by and large I agree. There are a couple perhaps on your list I would put Floyd above , but there’s not a lot in it and it’s extremely debatable.
The thing that makes it difficult is because Floyd was never beat, never looked like getting beat. Does he get extra kudos for that or do we say the standard was lower? So we don’t really know how much more Floyd had.

Man... I did a cursory look on the Internet of different sites ranking the all-time best boxers in history... and it's all over the place.

In four different sites, Floyd was listed as: #1, #6, #17, and #29.

I didn't realize just how all over the place the rankings would be.

Obviously, 29 is downright ridiculous. But there again... I would still have him just outside my Top Ten.

Yes, Floyd never got beat. And it can't be said he didn't face some elite level, dangerous opposition.

But again, you gotta rate each individual on the best part of their career. Floyd got out before he went downhill and got beat by some Joe Blow. Others on the list didn't get out in time.