Two lists. One in order of greatness and the other in a who beats who. (something like a round robin and rank them by who has the best to worst record head to head)
Probably loads and loads of black and white fighters I don't know enough about to rank (including Tunney, who I have seen snatches of footage of but is by consensus an ATG), so if I miss any, that's why: 1. Charles 2. Moore 3. Foster 4. Spinks 5. RJJ 6. Conn 7. Saad 8. Maxim 9. Qawi 10. Not sure. I'll be British and say Conteh. Charles beats all. RJJ beats all bar Charles. Foster beats all bar Charles and RJJ. Rest in order MTF :dunno:
I haven't seen much of him but Harold Johnson beat both Ezzard and Moore. I'd have to think he'd be on a lot of people's lists.
I watch a lot of boxing now and try to watch as much footage as I can of those where footage exists, but an expert in historical fighters I am not. Didn't Johnson beat old verions of both? I could be wrong? MTF :dunno:
1. Ezzard "never won a LHW title" Charles 2. Archie "I lost to Ezzard Charles 3x but at least I won the LHW title" Moore 3. Michael "only chance of winning is via stink" Spinks 4. Bob "The cop" Foster 5. Gene "I also never won the LHW title" Tunney 6. Harold "NBA champion" Johnson 7. Billy "I should have beaten Joe Louis weighing in at under the LHW limit" Conn 8. Matthew Saad "I have an MMA fight" Muhammad 9. Roy "I'm still fighting" Jones Jr. 10. Bernard Hopkins I'm joking, I'd put another Muhammad in here, Qawi or the trainer Eddie Mustafa Assuming everyone was in their prime and weighed in UNDER the LHW limit, I would pick Ezzard over everybody else in a Stinger 15 ROUND FIGHT. So yeah, Roy and Hopkins get KO'd in the 13th round against Ezzard
Using the "boxing league" method... (each guy has 9 fights against each guy, for example) 1. Ezzard Charles 2. Bob Foster 3. Archie Moore 4. Mike Spinks 5. Roy Jones 6. Harold Johnson 7. Jimmy Bivins 8. Matthew Franklin/Saad Muhammad 9. Billy Conn 10. Victor Galindez Lloyd Marshall deserves mention, for the record, but I feel he was too inconsistent a performer I think those are the guys with the ten best records at the end of the "season" in a fantasy league involving the best 100 light heavyweights ever Basically ignoring who-beats-who and going by quality of comp, accomplishments at the weight, etc.... A more traditional ranking style 1) Charles 2) Moore 3) Spinks 4) Tommy Loughran 5) Foster 6) Maxie Rosenbloom 7) Jimmy Bivins 8) Harold Johnson 9) Jones 10) Conn Jones gets hurt in this not even so much by his comp (Foster's was mediocre generally, too) but by not eliminating DM... He takes that fight and wins it, he jumps up a few spots for sure... But he still had the (at the time) big 3 belts and he was pretty much as dominant as Foster was... The key difference is Foster wouldn't stand for Vicente Rondon being called "champ" so he went after him and destroyed him, that's a big part of why I rated him several spots higher on this second list
For the record, I much prefer my first list and it is closer to how I personally evaluate the fighters all-time ... No disrespect to guys like Loughran, for example, who were brilliant for their time but I still think their time was largely a period of massive transition ... I note the placement of Tunney on some lists but I was tentative for several reasons... 1) He fought a great deal of his 60 odd fights at middleweight and 2) He steadfastly drew the color line
When I'm less pissed I'll do my list but for the record I think Charles, Foster and Spinks are the only light heavyweights capable of beating a prime RJJ. To be honest with you I think Roy beats the absolute piss out of Moore.
Seriously, Moore was a great fighter, a fantastic fighter...but Roy beats seven shades of shit out of him.
It's hard to say because guys like Tunney went rounds with, and beat, much harder punchers than any 175lbr but never held the 175lb title or whatever. 175lbs has had some ATG fighters but is a shallow division and almost redundant at times especially in this era, where moving up to seriously challenge for THE HW title is not an option. Sure, Roy did it in 2003 but against a former Cruiser for just a part of the title. That's 13 years ago now. Adamek tried it. Failed badly. I would say Charles, Conn, Foster, Spinks, Tunney and Roy should be on any list.