Good Great Greatest
If you were given a name of 10 boxers from different eras that never fought neither each other nor the same opponents, and was asked to rate them in order from 10 to 1 with 1 being the best, how would you do it? What would you take into consideration while configuring this list? A list of this magnitude would need more than a spotlight on mere attributes and/or a win/loss record. So what would push a fighter like Larry Holmes over a Wladimir Klitschko or an Oscar De La Hoya over a Sugar Ray Leonard on a best of all time list?
Lists of all-time greats will always be grounds for debate because there is no real way to actually measure a fighter on a scale that makes them better than another. A good way to get a list like this started is to look at a boxers career as a whole instead of individual fights. The only problem is when you have two fighters that fought each other and the one that lost has had a better career than the winner. It feels funny seeing the loser ahead on the list especially if they were demolished. This happens because sometimes great fighters run into a skill set that they simply cannot handle, but that is another story.
We have sat back and came up with a 3 level measuring tool to rank boxers from the middle to the top of the pack. I wanted to create this to put more emphases on a person’s overall view instead of a one or two dimensional one, because to be a great boxer takes more than just skills. I can, and you probably can too, name some fighters that has mediocre skills but have a heart the size of Texas that has pushed them to heights that their skills would have never taken them to.
Does the fighter get knocked down from a crushing blow and get up? During a brutal fight does the fighter continue to demand a win? When the fight has gone different than planned……Does the fighter adjust? These are some of the questions I ask myself when I look at a boxer and decide how good or great they are.
The 3 levels we will use to rank these fighters are:
[toggle title=”
Good
“]This is for the boxers that are good enough to be competitive but never really amounts to anything. They might get a title shot in the beginning, but after that they serve more as a gatekeeper that fights up and coming fighters to test their skills[/toggle]
[toggle title=”
Great
“]Boxers in this category are very competitive and often hold a belt. They are always near the top of the P4P list and carry a nice fan base. They do not lose too many fights at this level unless they fight past their prime[/toggle]
[toggle title=”
Greatest
“]This level speaks for itself. To get in this category a boxer must defeat all odds, make a strong statement in the boxing world and is looked at as more than just a fighter. Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson both shook up the world during their careers, which is why they are both in this category[/toggle]
When it’s all said and done, there is no clear way to rank fighters, which is why most lists are different with just a few names people agree on. Even the so called greats like Muhammad Ali can be argued over as far as his career level: Some will put him as number 1, but you will turn around and he could be behind Ray Robinson and more.
We will officially start this campaign with the first fighter being Saul Canelo Alvarez. We hope you enjoy “Good Great Greatest” and continue to follow, thanks.
Glove2Face
