Outside of the heavyweights, what fighter has the best resume at a single weight?

Guys who have stayed the longest in one division without moving up/down probably have an advantaged based upon pure numbers. Likewise "old timers" as there weren't any mid-divisions to fight at.

Strictly speaking resumes, at any one division (again other than HWY) who has the best resume of all time.

No need to list only one fighter even a list ...

 

artie:

 

Hopkins, Monzon and Hagler at Middleweight I guess....

 

duran
pep
holyfield
calzaghe
armstrong
hopkins
hagler
monzon
robinson
m spinks
b foster

 

Great one.

 

Yeah Spinks at Lt. Heavyweight.

Chavez at 130 maybe

Leonard at WW

Calzaghe at 168

 

I think Ezzard Charles at LHW should be mentioned. Some of his fights though against some top fighters were a little over middleweight but well below 175...not sure if you'd still consider it a MW fight or a LHW fight.

Or when he was a LHW facing a HW like Violent Ray.

 

While it's not littered with elite names, i think Kostya Tszyu's resume at 140 is very respectable.

 

Ricardo "Finito" Lopez dominated his division with a record of championship fights of 25-0-1 (19 KOs) and retired undefeated with a record of 50-0-1 (37 KOs). No one comes close to that.

 

Off the top of your head, how many of those opponents can you name (other than perhaps Rosendo Alvarez)?

 

Alex Sanchez, WBO undefeated champ, KOd by Lopez in 5 rounds in a unification bout. Ratanapol Vorapin was the IBF champ, defended his title 20 times. Finito KOd him in 3.

 

Emile Griffith @ 147
Ezzard Charles @ 175
Willie Pep @ 126
Alexis Arguello @ 130
Salvador Sanchez @ 126
Jose Napoles @ 147
Michael Spinks @ 175
Ike Williams @ 135
Miguel Canto @ 112
Robertu Duran @ 135

 

Nene Sanchez was fucking rubbish. ABsolutely nothing worthwhile about that win.

VOrapin was a decent, protected champion, who was shot when Lppez beat his ass.

 

... at 108, after Vorapin had already been knocked out and further embarrassed by Will Grigsby (who Lopez beat with relative ease as well, at 108).

 

The different fonts doesn't blow your copy and paste job at all.

 

I don't. I cannot even think why he'd be brought up. I alwas liked ZU but one thing that can be said is he never made an real big fights until late in his career.

 

::

 

Good choices. I was going to post some of them but you've already done it.

 

Terry Norris at junior middleweight

 

Roy Jones Jr at 175.

 

I'll offer up Mike McCallum at 154:

32-0 with 29 KO's
10-0 while Champion with 9 KO's

Notable wins:

Kalule
Mannion
Minchillo
Jackson
McCrory
Curry

 

Damn, i never even thought about that. Good one Jake! :bears::bears::bears::bears::bears:

 

First of all, I KNEW you were gonna bring up McCallum.::

Second of all, while I think McCallum is a great fighter, I don't necessarily think he really belongs here. His resume is good, but falls short of being mentioned among the best.

And no offense, but I have to :::::: at Mannion being referred to as a notable win. I know the McCallum-Mannion fight was for a vacant alphabet title, but Mannion was a club fighter with an undeserved ranking. That fight was considered a joke when it actually happened.

Curry & McCrory were former champs who moved up from Welter after suffering one-sided stoppage losses and never looked as good at 154 as they did at 147.

Kalule was a good fighter, and beating him was a pretty good win even though Kalule had already been exposed as something less than a top fighter. There was no shame in losing to Ray Leonard, but getting stopped by Davey Moore showed that Kalule wasn't quite as good as folks thought he might be.

Minchillo, while better than Mannion, was still a limited fighter who mostly got by on toughness. Prior to fighting McCallum, he was best known for going the distance with Duran and Hearns, but he didn't come close to winning either fight.

Jackson, while a dangerous puncher, had no experience at the world class level when facing McCallum. But Jackson did come back from the loss to McCallum and prove himself at 154 & 160 so he is probably McCallum's biggest win.

Like you said, McCallum was 10-0 as champion at 154 and, to his credit, he did win his fights with room to spare, but I don't know if I would consider his resume @ 154 one of the best ever in any division. When I look at the names you mentioned, I don't see one HOF fighter (although a case could be made for Curry, but that even that would be due to his time at 147 not 154)

And none of this is a knock on McCallum, who did fight whoever was available to fight.

 

It is very easy to break down a fighters resume and diminish wins because fighter A lost to fighter B who also lost to fighter C.

However, the one thing you can't change is the fact the McCallum was rarely, if ever, seriously challenged in a fight at 154 pounds.

But seriously, 3 years, 10 fights, 9 KO's and blatantly avoided by those guys you'd qualify as Hall of Famers???? Please..

And I love how people try to diminish the Jackson win because Julian was so young and inexperienced. When they fought, Jackson had more pro experience in terms of number of fights and they had both been pro for almost an identical amount of time. Hilarious.

As I said, it's easy to spin how much merit each win really has, but you can't spin the fact that he never lost a fight at 154 pounds and knocked out all but 3 opponents at that weight.

Can you pick another 154 pounder that can boast the same? Norris, Jackson??? Each were brutally stopped at 154. Not McCallum.

 

That's all very nice and I know you're a big McCallum fan, but none of what you said does anything to prove your point that you think McCallum has a resume at 154 that is among the best ever at any weight. You're focusing on McCallum the fighter, who was indeed outstanding. His competition at 154, however, was good rather than outstanding.

Because you like McCallum, you are trying to make his resume seem outstanding by the use of numbers without actually looking at the fighters involved. You are not discussing the merits of the fighters on his 154 lb resume, you are listing names off of BoxRec and supplying stats, that is all. Again...none of this demonstrates the actual quality of his opposition.

I mean, really....Sean Mannion as a notable win??? To me, just having to mention Mannion demonstrates that McCallum's resume needed some padding just be considered.

If you're gonna dispute what I said, how about addressing what I actually had to say instead of falling back on generalisms? For example....there was nothing incorrect about what I said about Jackson. He WAS untested at the world class level when he fought McCallum.

So tell me...who did Jackson fight prior to McCallum? What was Jackson's best win prior to fighting McCallum? Were you a fan of boxing at that time? Did you know that Jackson wasn't especially highly regarded at that time because he HADN'T fought anyone? The reality is that Jackson earned his respect by achieving success after the McCallum fight.

And just because they started their careers around the same time and had around the same number of fights when they met DOESN'T mean they were equally experienced. C'mon...you should know better than that.

Going into their fight, Jackson had fought no one of note with the possible exception of Curtis Ramsey, who was nothing more than a decent journeyman. McCallum on the other hand had fought top 10 contenders like Kalule, Minchillo & David Braxton...not exactly a murderer's row...but miles ahead of Jackson's opposition. And McCallum won each fight convincingly. There is no way an objective viewer could believe anything other than McCallum being significantly more experienced than Jackson due to the quality of opposition each fighter faced. Jackson was babied and spoon-fed easy opposition until facing McCallum. Which resulted Jackson running up an impressive won-loss record and KO percentage (for those who are impressed by strictly those things), but left him ill-equipped to face an opponent as good as McCallum.

To his credit, Jackson recovered from the loss to McCallum and went on to have a very good career. And because of that, folks sometimes use hindsight go rewrite the past and try to make it seem like Jackson was a big win for McCallum at the time the fight took place.

The topic here is not "Was McCallum a great fighter?" or "Was McCallum better than Terry Norris or Julian Jackson?" The topic is "what fighter has the best resume at a single weight?". And you've done nothing to prove your case based on the actual topic.

 

Actually I've done exactly that. I've put McCallum's resume at 154 pounds against anyone else that's held a title in that class.

All you've done is try to nitpick and diminish his opposition. And as I said, you can pick apart anyone's resume by using your rationale.

Quit simply, unless you can show me a better resume based on performance at 154 pounds, McCallum is the man at that weight.

You can waste your time arguing semantics all day long, but it won't change the fact that McCallum was undefeated in over 30 fights, reigned for 3 years and was basically never threatened.

I've been a boxing fan since 1970 and followed McCallum's career very closely. The Mannion win is far more notable than you give it credit. Sure Mannion was never going to be more than a journeyman, but he EARNED the #2 spot in the WBA rankings with impressive wins including handing In-Chul Baek his first loss.

But with Mannion the importance goes far beyond his value as a fighter. The Mannion-McCallum fight only happened because Duran was stripped of the WBA title for NOT facing McCallum who was his mandatory. In fact, McCallum left Kronk and Emmanuel Steward because Hearns got the Duran fight instead of McCallum.

At the time, and of course it loses significance in retrospect, the split with Steward made McCallum's destructions of David Braxton and Milton McCrory huge. McCallum literally wanted to beat anyone and everyone associated with Kronk and Manny. Of course Manny knew better than to give him Hearns.

As I said, none of this bolsters Mannion as a resume value, but if you understand the actual history and not just a Box Rec search, the importance might grow a bit.

 

McCallum was a great fighter and one of the best 154 pounders ever...but the strength of his resume came from his longevity and work outside of 154. His Jr Middleweight run is the reason he was so "avoided" for so long. Nobody was pushing for a big fight for him because he wasn't beating quality fighters fight in, fight out.

 

Please. Don't even try the BoxRec crap on me. I'm not the one tossing stats around as if they were the be all - end all. The bottom line was that Mannion WAS a clubfighter and he was in no way, shape or form deserving of his high ranking. And mentioning him as a notable win is entirely self-serving of you, regardless of who got stripped to create the vacant title. Mannion was a mediocre fighter at best and a win over him is nothing special or notable. You're normally a pretty knowledgeable poster so I am surprised to see you trying to pull the wool over the forum's eyes here.

And you still haven't proven your case that McCallum's good but not great resume 154 lb ranks among the best ever and you haven't disproven anything I have said.

And you can keep focusing on McCallum instead of his opposition, which is what actually makes up the resume...but all that does is show the lack of confidence you actually have in his resume. I am discussing the fighter that make up his resume, you'd rather just list the names and tell me how great McCallum was. Sure...McCallum won his fights handily, but that's at least partly because his opposition was nothing special.

You can attempt to talk down to me all you like, but the bottom line is that you presented a list, it was challenged and then you did nothing to prove the fighters on the list make up a great resume. There was no one special on that list at 154 lbs, no matter how hard you try to make them appear so.

The bottom line is that McCallum was a great fighter who fought good to mediocre opposition during his time at 154. He may have the best resume at 154, but that still doesn't make it the best ever in any division. And if you weren't blinded by being a McCallum fan you would see that.

This is pretty much all I have to say here. I've proven my point and you've done little to prove yours as far as the actual topic goes. Now I know you will need to get the last word here, so have at it.

 

EXACTLY. It's nice to see someone who knows the reality of McCallum's career instead of the myth that has evolved about him being an 80's version of Charley Burley.

 

What is this, your 4th or 5th response and you've yet to offer a resume at 154 pounds that best that of McCallum.

It was a simple task. Name another 154 pounder that was undefeated in over 30 fights; reigned untouched for 3 years; and racked up a 9-0 record with 9 KO's as Champion.

Think about that.. 3 years and 9 fights as Champion and No One managed to go the distance with him.

Like I said, this is a simple debate for you to win. Just show me the better resume at 154 pounds.

I have no disagreement with saying there are better All-Time resumes and even better resumes in other weight division. But unless you can find a better one, McCallum's at 154 is second to none.

Any moron a search engine can pick apart a fighter's resume. Why don't you try to go a step beyond that and tell me who you think had a more sterling campaign at 154 pounds. Come on, surely you wouldn't simply criticize McCallum without having another guy in mind. Right?