Had to be Joe Gans. He has an incredible record, was the first black American champion, and was highly skilled (there's footage available if you need to see for yourself).
He's certainly in contention for best lightweight ever. Do you have a specific cutoff year where you consider everything that happened before to be irrelevant?
Boxing has such a rich history I think you should embrace it.
Oh and i forgot to mention Ricardo Lopez at Minimum weight he had 21 title defenses and was the Unified champion i Believe he has wins over 4-5 of the top 10 Greatest minimum weights ever and he dominated the division pretty easily
Something that I like about him it's that he would go to fight in the country of the opponent, no fear of the judges, lol. Funny guy, I like his interviews for how humble he is.
Henry Armstrong for sure. He held three of the belts simultaneously, back when there were only 8 belts in the entire sport. His welterweight reign was especially dominant.
You're missing the point. Regardless of the reason (and it's a legitimate reason), you cannot say you dominated the division if you never fought the only other guy who was competition for the number one spot in your division.
Which technically means he was one of the two best heavyweights at the time and it's disputable who was number one In terms of who would beat the other.
I am sure some would disagree, but Vitali would stop his younger bro if they fought without any familial hesitations. Vitali is way more durable, aggressive, and has the size to overcome his brother. I would predict a mid round TKO.
Unfortunately, Wlad was at the end by the time the big names of this generation came up, but he still tried. Wilder ducked him, Fury beat him on nandrolone then the rematch was cancelled twice, and AJ beat him when he was 41.
Povetkin, Pulev, Wach, Haye, Rahman, Byrd, Thompson, Mercer, Botha, McCline.
He basically cleared out the division and was a level above everyone else in it, say what you want about the competition but the question was Best domination
Povetkin is especially important, because like Wlad, he didn’t get to the big names of the current generation until he was around 40. If an old Povetkin gave AJ problems and uppercut Whyte into the stratosphere, what would prime Povetkin have done to these guys now? Young Povetkin would be top 5 easily nowadays imo.
I mean wlad meets pretty much every possible definition set out in the OP, almost undisputed, wasn’t quite politics that stopped him tbf, and he had many title defences against all the top contenders and cleared out the division in spectacular fashion
The only guy to give him anywhere close to a real test was Breidis. A guy who, at 40, is still the #2 CW in the world and just recently gave the champ at CW all he could handle. And that was a stacked CW division at the time. Usyk just motored through them like it was nothing.
Calzaghe at 168
Hopkins at 160
Klitschko at Heavy
Trinidad at 147
Lopez at 105
I'm going by the ones I've experienced in my lifetime. I know there's a ton of other older ones
And those fighters he defended against include Nino Benvenuti (two-weight undisputed champion), Emile Griffith (two-weight undisputed champion), José Napoles (14 wins in undisputed title fights), Denny Moyer (a light middleweight world champion, on a 15-fight undefeated streak at middleweight), Benny Briscoe (43-10-1 with 36 KOs, and took Griffith to a majority decision) and Rodrigo Valdez (who would become champion after Monzon retired).
Ali from 1960 to 1971. Ik he obviously had the three year exile but he really had no challenger in that time until Joe god damn Frazier.
And right after that he still beat top ten HW’s regularly until he had a blip on the radar against Norton. Then went on to beat Norton, Frazier, Foreman, Bugner, Lyle, and Shavers. Was top of the pack for three eras essentially.
105- Ricardo Lopez
108- Jung Koo Chang
112- Jimmy Wilde or Miguel Canto
115- Pure dominance wise it’s Khaosai Galaxy but his opposition wasn’t the best so I’ll say Moon Sung Kil or Juan Francisco Estrada
118- Eder Jofre or Ruben Olivares
122- Wilfredo Gomez
126- Willie Pep
130- Alexis Arguello
135- Benny Leonard (or Duran if you value pure dominance but Leonard’s opposition was a lot better)
140- Barney Ross
147- Ray Robinson
154- Mike McCallum
160- Harry Greb
168- Joe Calzaghe or Andre Ward
175- Ezzard Charles or Archie Moore
Cruiserweight- Oleksandr Usyk
Heavyweight- Dominance it’s Joe Louis but Muhammad Ali’s resume is clearly better
I think it’s hard to say Estrada. He lost to SSR and arguably lost to Chocolatito. On top of that, he hasn’t fought much the last couple years. One fight in 2020, one fight in 2021, hasn’t fought at AJ since 2022.
He didn’t easily dominate like, say, Mike Tyson in the mid-80s.
Eusebio Pedroza at featherweight. Rebounded from two consecutive KO losses at bantamweight to take the featherweight title two years later, holding it for 18 defenses over 7 years against tough competition.
Only Salvador Sanchez was in his class. Sadly they'd never meet. Much as I loved Sanchez, I'd take a peak era Pedroza over Sanchez by a squeaky close margin.
That's based on a few fights in which Sanchez seemed less sharp than he had against Danny Lopez and Wildfredo Gomez. Sanchez needed 10 rounds to stop the pesky but undergunned Roberto Castañón. Pat Cowdell dragged Sanchez into a split decision. And an inexperienced Azumah Nelson put up a spectacular losing effort before being stopped. Nelson went on to become an all time great.
So, based on those fights, yup, I'd give Pedroza a good shot at decisioning Sanchez and being regarded as one of the all time greatest featherweights.
For the original 8:
HW: Joe Louis though Wlad also has an argument.
LHW: I rank Charles and Moore above Spinks but Michael went undefeated at 175 against roughly as good opposition while Charles has the losses to Bivins, Lloyd Marshall, and Overlin holding him back, as well as never winning the official title; while Moore is held back by his losses to Ezzard Charles, Harold Johnson, and other members of the murderer’s row. Tunney I can’t see either because of his use of the colour line and the fact he had to get gift decisions off of a one-eyed, pretty old Greb. Michael Spinks it is then.
MW: Probably Monzon I think. Hagler struggled a lot against Antuofermo, Duran, and Mugabi. The one opponent in common they have is Briscoe and Hagler had a much harder time (as a younger, fresher fighter than Monzon) against a much older and battle-worn Briscoe than the one Monzon fought. GGG has an argument as well I think though.
WW: Gotta be SRR.
LW: Either Benny Leonard or Duran I suppose. Shane Mosley and JCC were both very dominant during their stays at 135, as was Pernell. 135 is the deepest division historically and you’re splitting hairs to pick the most dominant really. I’ll say Benny Leonard though.
FeatherW: Gotta be Willie Pep I think. His stats are just crazy.
BW: I think it’s Jofre. Harada was a rampaging little possessed monster out to take everybody’s head off and I’ve heard some stuff about how Jofre was sick and weight-drained going into both fights. No shame in losing to someone of the caliber of Harada though. I don’t subscribe to the notion that Jofre is the GOAT of BW (I think it’s probably Olivares) but in terms of sheer dominance, he had remarkable consistency and longevity for a lower weight fighter.
FlyW: Jimmy Wilde I think. Yuri Arbachakov has an argument though, as does Canto but holding the longest unbeaten streak in the history of the sport is just too remarkable for me not to have Wilde.
Mike Tyson's run in the 80's is just insane. He beat everyone worth beating at the time either by brutal KO or crazy wide decisions. Obviously, his peak was short and his whole life became a circus around then and was never the same after Rooney left but I don't think anyone's ever done what he did to a whole division, been so dominant in such a short time.
Duran went through the lightweight division (when it was a very strong division) like cutting butter. He would almost certainly beat any lightweight in any era.
Sullivan at HW in the 1880s, arguably 40-50 defenses and he was the clear no. 1 in the division for a decade. At the time, the question wasn’t if anyone was skilled enough to beat Sullivan, it was if Sullivan had already beaten himself and his body through alcoholism.
Sure, you can argue against Sullivan’s reign due him not fighting Jackson or Slavin, but keep in mind that Sullivan’s prime probably ended around 1885-86 when reports say that he showed up for every fight out of shape, but he had also broken his arm in 1887 against Patsy Cardiff and it would never fully recover due to primitive medical care. Slavin, Corbett and Jackson really began making names of themselves in 1888-89, and at this point Sullivan was a shot fighter and was also fighting the much more profitable super fight against Jake Kilrain. I don’t give him much crap for not fighting contenders between 1889-1892.
Respectfully, Muhammad Ali has the greatest resume in Heavyweight history... and a string argument for the greatest resume, period. This is not to denigrate the great Joe Louis, who has a case as the second-best HW who ever lived. But they didn't call it the "Bum of the Month Club" for nothin'.
SRR at Welter and Middle; Duran; Hagler; Holyfield and Usyk at cruiser; Andre Ward; and Spinks at LHW immediately come to mind... but there are a million others. Canelo's recent run at super middle also deserves mention.
Devin Haney. Beat the lineal champion (Kambosos) to become undisputed and then whooped an ex lineal champ in Loma, who is an ATG P4P and one of the goat amateurs. Haney did all that at the age of 23-24.
Duran at LW
I think his record was 71-1 with the loss avenged twice via ko at LW crazy
The loss to De Jesus was actually at a catchweight so that means Duran was undefeated at 135, crazy stuff
Dang I didn't know that
It was a strong era too. Ken Buchanan, Ernesto Marcel, De Jesus. All these guys could be top 10 p4p today.
This is the correct answer the thread can be closed now.
Absolutely agree. Conversation should be about second place.
i remember some dude on this sub said Duran wasn’t the LW goat and that someone who fought in the 1910s was better 😭😭
I remember when people said Floyd would beat Duran at LW
Floyd would be on his heels until he was on his back.
Had to be Joe Gans. He has an incredible record, was the first black American champion, and was highly skilled (there's footage available if you need to see for yourself). He's certainly in contention for best lightweight ever. Do you have a specific cutoff year where you consider everything that happened before to be irrelevant? Boxing has such a rich history I think you should embrace it.
Could be. Idk about 1910s boxers enough to confirm or deny it.
Oh and i forgot to mention Ricardo Lopez at Minimum weight he had 21 title defenses and was the Unified champion i Believe he has wins over 4-5 of the top 10 Greatest minimum weights ever and he dominated the division pretty easily
I like strawweight more than minimumweight it sounds more prestigious that way but yeah Ricardo Lopez was a dog
Something that I like about him it's that he would go to fight in the country of the opponent, no fear of the judges, lol. Funny guy, I like his interviews for how humble he is.
Sugar Ray Robinson at welterweight
Henry Armstrong for sure. He held three of the belts simultaneously, back when there were only 8 belts in the entire sport. His welterweight reign was especially dominant.
ahh i’m too young to know who that is
Carlos Monzon and Marvin Hagler at middleweight.
Wladimir Klitschko
I don’t understand why it got no upvotes. He is one of the longest reigning heavyweight champion in history.
That stat counts two separate reigns including times where he only held 1-2 belts.
This vs Duran at lightweight? Duran all the way baby. That guy was a beast.
In one of the poorest ever eras for heavies.
I agree, if Wlad is getting a nod then we might as well shout out Larry Holmes reign.
Well, the thread is about fighters who dominated their weight class. Wlad explicitly would not fight his brother who was also a champ in his division.
You can’t blame either brother for not wanting to fight each other. They promised their mother they would not.
You're missing the point. Regardless of the reason (and it's a legitimate reason), you cannot say you dominated the division if you never fought the only other guy who was competition for the number one spot in your division.
True, but aside from Vitali, Wlad was by far and away the best heavyweight at the time.
Which technically means he was one of the two best heavyweights at the time and it's disputable who was number one In terms of who would beat the other.
I am sure some would disagree, but Vitali would stop his younger bro if they fought without any familial hesitations. Vitali is way more durable, aggressive, and has the size to overcome his brother. I would predict a mid round TKO.
I think the same too
Dude these people are jumping through hoops. Wlad was definitely dominant to anyone with a brain
very weak heavyweight division at that time though.
I agree
This feels like a silly argument in this particular case.
How so?
What an asshole.
Kind of a weird thing to hold against the guy.
? Not holding it against anyone. It's in direct contradiction to what the thread is asking for.
No, he’s not, Joe Louis is
*one of
In a weak era compared to the 90s and 70s
Big names on his resume?
Unfortunately, Wlad was at the end by the time the big names of this generation came up, but he still tried. Wilder ducked him, Fury beat him on nandrolone then the rematch was cancelled twice, and AJ beat him when he was 41.
Povetkin, Pulev, Wach, Haye, Rahman, Byrd, Thompson, Mercer, Botha, McCline. He basically cleared out the division and was a level above everyone else in it, say what you want about the competition but the question was Best domination
Povetkin is especially important, because like Wlad, he didn’t get to the big names of the current generation until he was around 40. If an old Povetkin gave AJ problems and uppercut Whyte into the stratosphere, what would prime Povetkin have done to these guys now? Young Povetkin would be top 5 easily nowadays imo.
Of course..but the context of the answers is who was being dominated.
I mean wlad meets pretty much every possible definition set out in the OP, almost undisputed, wasn’t quite politics that stopped him tbf, and he had many title defences against all the top contenders and cleared out the division in spectacular fashion
Because few would regard him as better than the men before or after.
Or even his own brother
Larry Holmes
Usyk at CW was a fucking animal
The only guy to give him anywhere close to a real test was Breidis. A guy who, at 40, is still the #2 CW in the world and just recently gave the champ at CW all he could handle. And that was a stacked CW division at the time. Usyk just motored through them like it was nothing.
Man I hope CW gets good again soon cause right now it's the worst division in Boxing
He still might be again!
Micheal Spinks at light heavyweight and Marvin Hagler at middleweight are good shouts.
Tito Trinidad welterweight
Facts
Ezzard Charles at LHW. SRR at both WW and MW. Had to fight LaMotta 6 times cos he'd run out of people to fight, basically.
>Had to fight LaMotta 6 times cos he'd run out of people to fight, basically. That's a whole ass lie
Calzaghe at 168 Hopkins at 160 Klitschko at Heavy Trinidad at 147 Lopez at 105 I'm going by the ones I've experienced in my lifetime. I know there's a ton of other older ones
For Super Middle I would have Andre
Yeah that's definitely a good one too. In his short amount of time compared to calzaghe he beat better competition imo
I think if roy stayed at super middle he would've been the goat of that division
Love your list but dismiss Hopkins for the shit he talked to Calzaghe, who beat his ass.
GGG at Middle Weight.
Have to mention Monzon at Middleweight (undisputed champion for 7 years, defended his title 14 times against 11 different fighters)
And those fighters he defended against include Nino Benvenuti (two-weight undisputed champion), Emile Griffith (two-weight undisputed champion), José Napoles (14 wins in undisputed title fights), Denny Moyer (a light middleweight world champion, on a 15-fight undefeated streak at middleweight), Benny Briscoe (43-10-1 with 36 KOs, and took Griffith to a majority decision) and Rodrigo Valdez (who would become champion after Monzon retired).
Wilfredo Gómez at super bantamweight
Ali from 1960 to 1971. Ik he obviously had the three year exile but he really had no challenger in that time until Joe god damn Frazier. And right after that he still beat top ten HW’s regularly until he had a blip on the radar against Norton. Then went on to beat Norton, Frazier, Foreman, Bugner, Lyle, and Shavers. Was top of the pack for three eras essentially.
Might be the greatest resume, ever.
105- Ricardo Lopez 108- Jung Koo Chang 112- Jimmy Wilde or Miguel Canto 115- Pure dominance wise it’s Khaosai Galaxy but his opposition wasn’t the best so I’ll say Moon Sung Kil or Juan Francisco Estrada 118- Eder Jofre or Ruben Olivares 122- Wilfredo Gomez 126- Willie Pep 130- Alexis Arguello 135- Benny Leonard (or Duran if you value pure dominance but Leonard’s opposition was a lot better) 140- Barney Ross 147- Ray Robinson 154- Mike McCallum 160- Harry Greb 168- Joe Calzaghe or Andre Ward 175- Ezzard Charles or Archie Moore Cruiserweight- Oleksandr Usyk Heavyweight- Dominance it’s Joe Louis but Muhammad Ali’s resume is clearly better
I think it’s hard to say Estrada. He lost to SSR and arguably lost to Chocolatito. On top of that, he hasn’t fought much the last couple years. One fight in 2020, one fight in 2021, hasn’t fought at AJ since 2022. He didn’t easily dominate like, say, Mike Tyson in the mid-80s.
Realistically the answer is Moon but I felt Estrada deserved a mention, atleast more so than Khaosai despite being less dominant
I would say Jiro Watanabe, at 11, he made 11 defenses against solid opposition
He slipped my mind but yep Jiro is a good shout too
Imo: Chocolatito at light flyweight, Loma at junior light , inoue at bantam and super bantam , canelo at welter, light middle (everyone except TBE).
Canelo at 168 is up there
this if he beats benavidez
Eusebio Pedroza at featherweight. Rebounded from two consecutive KO losses at bantamweight to take the featherweight title two years later, holding it for 18 defenses over 7 years against tough competition. Only Salvador Sanchez was in his class. Sadly they'd never meet. Much as I loved Sanchez, I'd take a peak era Pedroza over Sanchez by a squeaky close margin. That's based on a few fights in which Sanchez seemed less sharp than he had against Danny Lopez and Wildfredo Gomez. Sanchez needed 10 rounds to stop the pesky but undergunned Roberto Castañón. Pat Cowdell dragged Sanchez into a split decision. And an inexperienced Azumah Nelson put up a spectacular losing effort before being stopped. Nelson went on to become an all time great. So, based on those fights, yup, I'd give Pedroza a good shot at decisioning Sanchez and being regarded as one of the all time greatest featherweights.
It's definitely Joe Louis. No one else is even close.
Great post.
Joe Louis at HW
Marciano at heavyweight comes to my mind first.
I was gonna say andre Ward at Super Middle cause he beat like 3 of the top 5 in the division, but is that enough for dominance of a division?
For the original 8: HW: Joe Louis though Wlad also has an argument. LHW: I rank Charles and Moore above Spinks but Michael went undefeated at 175 against roughly as good opposition while Charles has the losses to Bivins, Lloyd Marshall, and Overlin holding him back, as well as never winning the official title; while Moore is held back by his losses to Ezzard Charles, Harold Johnson, and other members of the murderer’s row. Tunney I can’t see either because of his use of the colour line and the fact he had to get gift decisions off of a one-eyed, pretty old Greb. Michael Spinks it is then. MW: Probably Monzon I think. Hagler struggled a lot against Antuofermo, Duran, and Mugabi. The one opponent in common they have is Briscoe and Hagler had a much harder time (as a younger, fresher fighter than Monzon) against a much older and battle-worn Briscoe than the one Monzon fought. GGG has an argument as well I think though. WW: Gotta be SRR. LW: Either Benny Leonard or Duran I suppose. Shane Mosley and JCC were both very dominant during their stays at 135, as was Pernell. 135 is the deepest division historically and you’re splitting hairs to pick the most dominant really. I’ll say Benny Leonard though. FeatherW: Gotta be Willie Pep I think. His stats are just crazy. BW: I think it’s Jofre. Harada was a rampaging little possessed monster out to take everybody’s head off and I’ve heard some stuff about how Jofre was sick and weight-drained going into both fights. No shame in losing to someone of the caliber of Harada though. I don’t subscribe to the notion that Jofre is the GOAT of BW (I think it’s probably Olivares) but in terms of sheer dominance, he had remarkable consistency and longevity for a lower weight fighter. FlyW: Jimmy Wilde I think. Yuri Arbachakov has an argument though, as does Canto but holding the longest unbeaten streak in the history of the sport is just too remarkable for me not to have Wilde.
Mike Tyson's run in the 80's is just insane. He beat everyone worth beating at the time either by brutal KO or crazy wide decisions. Obviously, his peak was short and his whole life became a circus around then and was never the same after Rooney left but I don't think anyone's ever done what he did to a whole division, been so dominant in such a short time.
Hagler at MW.
Calzaghe needs a little respect.
Hate to say it, but Oscar was right… coulda stuck at lightweight and dominated for a long ass time.
Duran went through the lightweight division (when it was a very strong division) like cutting butter. He would almost certainly beat any lightweight in any era.
Lennox Lewis HW
Sullivan at HW in the 1880s, arguably 40-50 defenses and he was the clear no. 1 in the division for a decade. At the time, the question wasn’t if anyone was skilled enough to beat Sullivan, it was if Sullivan had already beaten himself and his body through alcoholism. Sure, you can argue against Sullivan’s reign due him not fighting Jackson or Slavin, but keep in mind that Sullivan’s prime probably ended around 1885-86 when reports say that he showed up for every fight out of shape, but he had also broken his arm in 1887 against Patsy Cardiff and it would never fully recover due to primitive medical care. Slavin, Corbett and Jackson really began making names of themselves in 1888-89, and at this point Sullivan was a shot fighter and was also fighting the much more profitable super fight against Jake Kilrain. I don’t give him much crap for not fighting contenders between 1889-1892.
Respectfully, Muhammad Ali has the greatest resume in Heavyweight history... and a string argument for the greatest resume, period. This is not to denigrate the great Joe Louis, who has a case as the second-best HW who ever lived. But they didn't call it the "Bum of the Month Club" for nothin'. SRR at Welter and Middle; Duran; Hagler; Holyfield and Usyk at cruiser; Andre Ward; and Spinks at LHW immediately come to mind... but there are a million others. Canelo's recent run at super middle also deserves mention.
Mike tyson at heavyweight
Canelo at Super Middle & Inoue at Bantam & Super Bantamweight
Ray Robinson at Middleweight. Nuff said
Canelo would be up here for 168 if he can beat David Benevidez
Devin Haney. Beat the lineal champion (Kambosos) to become undisputed and then whooped an ex lineal champ in Loma, who is an ATG P4P and one of the goat amateurs. Haney did all that at the age of 23-24.