The Ring: Best Of All Time A TO Z

http://www.ringtv.com/

Anyone following the articles....? Do we all agree in the first four picks...A to D....? NO???

 

to me, "A", "C" and "D" are indisputably correct

as for "B", who's a better one than Charley Burley? any thoughts?

 

The "C" group should have included Cervantes, IMO.

I have no quarrel with his pick of the Cobra at #1, but I'd rate Pambele over the great Canzoneri.

Karl

 

A fun, but impossible, subject. You'd be missing names left & right.

 

really?

Canzoneri's competetition is far superior, he was a champ in three different weights... Cervantes lost to the three best 140 pounders he faced (Benitez, Locche, Pryor) and only was able to beat one of them (Locche) when the latter was badly faded

Canzoneri wasnt vexed by the great fighters he fought... he posted wins over all of them (Ross, McLarnin, Ambers, etc.)

Im a Cervantes fan, but to me there is nothing that supports him being of higher historical ranking than Canzoneri

 

Ali at A for me.

 

It'll be interesting to see the pick for L. Probably Langford, but there's Louis and the two Leonards there too.

 

He has some rather stiff competition.

Armstrong is my pick.

 

I love Louis, & the Leonards had similarly astonishing careers, but I cannot overlook Langford's super-human resume. He gets the nod here.

 

Its such a hard pick... I mean, Ali is clearly special, his resume is the greatest of all heavyweights... and some of his acheivments border on the miraculous... but with a gun to my head, I'd have to give it to Armstrong... holding the TRUE, UNDISPUTED Feather.Light/Welter belts all at once is just mind-numbing... whats even crazier is that it should have also been the MIDDLEWEIGHT championship, but he was jobbed against champion Ceferino Garcia (a GOOD fighter) and had to settle for a bogus draw

 

In-Ring of Accomplishments: Armstrong- Three time title holder at once, over 400 wins, barring unbeatens, possibly one of the greatest win-loss ratios ever.

Ali- Heavyweight champion of the golden age of the most important weight class in the sport, first three time lineal champion, a feat he accomplished largley when he was past his prime. Large amount of wins considering his class, HWs don't usually get up to that many because HWs hit too hard and cause too much wear and tear.

Strength of opposition- Armstrong- Fought everyone there was to fight at the lighter weights of his time.

Ali- Fought and reigned over the best assortment of HWs ever in many people's view. Fought legends of the weight, all in their prime, some while he was not.

Impact on the sport- Armstrong - .....probably a pretty big star in his day. I'm not 80 years old though so I wouldn't know.

Ali- The most famous boxer of all time. One of the most famous people period. There's not a region on earth where you could go and people wouldn't know who Ali is. Strictly boxing, he transcended the sport as it wentinto the colour era. Historic world reknowned fights between legends like Foreman and Frazier, rangin from the African jungle to the islands from the Pacific. Boxing was probably at it's highest point during this era of the great HWs, the division everyone cares about.

Ali wins the last two categories and the last in particular by a wide margin. It'd be like comparing George Washington to Franklin Pierce.

 

Fame isn't really a fair criteria, though, when one man fought in the 30's, & another in the 60's & 70's.

Besides, it's really incidental to who achieved more, & who the greater fighter was.

 

exactly... fame should have NOTHING to do with it

Arturo Gatti > Eder Jofre, Antonio Cervantes, and about a 100 other guys if that's the case

hell, you don;t even need a fighter as "great" as Gatti... Marvis Frazier is more well known to the average guy on the street than Eder Jofre

 

Impact on the sport is listed on their criteria. I didn't make the rules, I'm just going by them.

And Joe Louis is around that same era and he's well known, as is Dempsey.

 

they chose Armstrong over Ali, so that kind of steps on your own argument of "well, they are considering impact on the sport, so I'm going to as well"

frankly, I dont see how anyone can think that a fighter being famous to the average person has squat to do with greatness as a fighter

 

I agree with you in that obviously such considerations don't count when you are considering limited but hugely popular figres like Gatti. But Ali was famous because of his greatness as a fighter, which is why in his case IMHO it can be considered. Besides, Ali isn't just 'famous' or 'popular'. In the eyes of almost every person on the planet, he IS boxing.

MTF

 

No surprises though that everyone agrees 100% with the choices, afterall Bert Sugar is involved...

 

Ali was every bit as famous because of his personality as his greatness as a fighter... the mainstream masses dont know the difference

If Ali was EXACTLY the same fighter but had Ken Norton's personality, he wouldn't have been anywhere near as well known... Ali's colorful, often humorous braggadocio, his good looks and his political stances have every bit as much to do wiht his fame as anything he did in the ring, possibly moreso

 

I agree, Ali's persona was at least as important as his fighting gifts in establishing himself in the sporting conscience.

 

Well, there are plenty of in ring accomplishments that support that, IMO.

No way could I see Canzoneri beating the likes of Duran and DeJesus, it simply would not have happened.

Tony, and many of the fighters back then, didn't really know what they were doing yet as the art had not quite evolved by then.

I loved Canzoneri, and have seen every bit of footage available on him, and he was a true forerunner of the modern style, but he would have been simply out-manned by a bigger, stronger, and more highly skilled Cervantes in a clash of Hall of Famers.

Karl

 

That is complete nonsense.

 

Maybe I think what you type is nonsense as well.

Little bitty "Canzi" going to whip the most powerful and destructive Junior Welterweight of all time?

Surely you jest.

Karl

 

"Tony, & many of the fighters back then, didn't really know what they were doing yet..."

If only you'd been around to tell them.

 

I sure as heck could have done a better job than you.

 

I'm sure you believe that, since you know better than the likes of Tony Canzoneri, his contemporaries, & their trainers.

 

Well, the principles you named are all dead.

I will say this though, I know more than you do.

Karl

 

Admittedly, I've never shown the foresight to see Aaron Pryor walk through Lou Ambers in six or seven rounds, or seen Tony Canzoneri for the amateur who didn't know what he was doing, as you have.

Imagine what Henry Armstrong could have achieved, had he been born in the modern age, no? Just so much to Boxing he didn't have a clue about...

 

Ali's fame was only made possible because he was the HW champion at a time where that made you THE boxer on the planet. His political stances on Vietnam, for example, wouldn't have mattered a three-penny bit if he bee some contender fighting at some midget weight. Telling the wolrd that he was the greatest didn't mean shit until he beat Liston first time aroud. Only then did people actually start to take him seriously.

Being as good as he was in the ring allowed him to use his looks and his personality for his own means out of the ring IMHO.

MTF

 

but he was already famous for his mouth before he fought Liston, before he'd accomplished anything as a pro... and the fact that just being the HW champ at that time was good enough to make you famous only further SUPPORTS my argument that fame should have nothing to do with rating how good a fighter is/was

 

Admittedly, I've never understood why that's such a popular thing with people when asked who was a great fighter & why. "Well, you have to factor in thier excitement & fame..."

That is, truthfully, an irrelevant aside to the question.