I hate this question, it's normally just so hard to answer with certainty. Especially at featherweight, where you've basically got eight guys who could all be in the top five. For me, my list would be: #05. Willie Pep #04. Salvador Sanchez #03. Sandy Saddler #02. Ernesto Marcel #01. Henry Armstrong HMs: Vicente Saldivar, Alexis Arguello, Eusebio Pedroza I'll probably look for some of the old "The Threads" I never posted on ESB on my hardrive in a bit. I know I did definitely them on Sanchez, Armstrong and Saddler.
Yeah, those would be the 8 notable names. The order can be debated, but I agree with the 8 listed. It'd be highly interesting to see any matchup between the 3 HMs. I'd pick Saldivar to beat Pedroza, but I think Arguello would ultimately stop Saldivar.
I found the Armstrong TT, but it's nowhere near as finished as I thought it was. I thought it was still pretty cool to read where my head was at in mid 2021. What makes Armstrong so damn dangerous was his ability to work seemingly independent of his opponent. He just didn't seem to acknowledge the opponent's power, strength, speed or skill. It took a lot for that to work, and it wasn't pretty. He didn't use proper form, he didn't keep his feet under him, he didn't maintain a decent punching range, but it didn't matter. He still went step for step with grandmaster boxers and still had no difficulty landing on them. He just weaved relentlessly on the way in, and leaped in wildly with this horrible hooks which seemed to always land. Aside from being undeterrable, one of the cornerstones of what Armstrong did was his head control, but he didn't do it with conventional means. He didn't use feints and a jab, with the occasional stiff arm to control the head. No, Armstrong used his own head and his shoulders to control yours, and he did it with brute force and good timing. He used his head and shoulders to push people around, turn them, off-set their balance and break their posture. The biggest benefit of using his head and shoulders to do this, barring leaving both of his hands free to punch, was that he could blend his weaving into these techniques, by literally crashing into his opponent at full pace. He even opened people up with these crazy tricks, just by tucking his own head whetre the opponent kept their chin tucked, which resulted in a higher centre of gravity, and a more open midsection. If he was miraculously in with someone shorter than himself, he'd allow them take the lower position then he'd lean on them, exploiting those now open kidneys and floating ribs. There was no way of clinching against him conventionally, unless you planned on doing nothing but double underhooks all night long, but even that'd likely result in a headbutt. He wasn't particularly fast, balanced, athletic or even accurate, but he was incredibly talented. He had that Moon/Marciano sense of what to hit and when to throw it, and he was the best I've ever seen at it. There's an instance in the Ross fight where he sailed off balance, out of position, with no vision of Ross, and yet from that awful vantage, landed a double right hook. He was also a pretty massive puncher at 126. He was the only man to KO Sarron, who had 150 fights. One of only two men to KO Benny Bass, who fought nearly everyone in his era, and had 250 fights. He KOed tough Tony Chavez twice. He also KOed granite chinned Chalky Wright.He was made of iron, too. On the footage we have of him, I don't think there's a single instance of him being dissuaded by punches. Combined with his low center of gravity, and his ridiculous physical strength, you just weren't pushing him back. The long and short of it, was that he got on top of you, started landing, and there was literally nothing you could do to stop him. Not over the long run. The only option was to out fight him, which was more or less undoable. If you stood your ground with Armstrong, you'd wind up having to out-brawl an unbrawable monster who was far more schooled than almost anyone in that wheelhouse.
Armstrong did have real KO power at feather. More than just being a heavy-handed cumulative puncher. Not quite on the level of Lopez or Arguello for one shot power but a bit harder than the likes of Saldivar and close to the likes of Saddler and Hamed imo.
I'd have said Armstrong hit about as hard as Saddler at 126 - although I think Sandy's rep as a one punch guy is pretty undeserving. Of those I'd say it goes #01. Lopez #02. Arguello #03. Hamed #04. Armstrong #05. Saddler #06. Saldivar
H2H: Henry Armstrong Sandy Saddler Willie Pep Salvador Sanchez Ernesto Marcel Eusebio Pedroza Alexis Arguello Vicente Saldivar
