Name the weight class that have most all-time greats

[elmersalsa]

Which weight class in your view, has the most ATGs?

[Grimm]

Welter I believe is a distant first.

[BoxBuzz]

Welter for me as well. I think I have opined in the past that this seems to be the weight that the human body operates at pound for pound peak efficiency. Smaller we lose relational power, bigger we lose relational dexterity. IMHO.

[dempseyfire]

I'll say middle, but you had lots of cross-class jumping from welter to middle all the way up to 175 in the old days.

[Goodnight, Irene]

What about the Lightweights?

[jimglen]

my initial thought was lightweight, but then I went immediately to Welter, a lot of LWs went onto Welter...

this is also true of welter to middleweight and ofcourse middleweight to L-HW... so without knowing or checking I'm going to stick with LW alot of greats from the 20s & 30s, leading up to later times too.

but the absolute best fighters are historically the MWs and for the very reason mentioned earlier for welters, but it's MW, big enough to also compete at L-HW and beat even the big boys at HW!

[jaclem2]

..welters are a good choice because they so often fought good lightweights and good middleweights.

i kind of lean to the light heavies, though, for the same reasoning. they were challenged by strong middleweights who had speed and made most of their money fighting heavyweights, and giving away all that poundage. they had to be good boxers with some power to fight in that division. plus they had plenty of tough competition in their own 175 pound class.

[Goodnight, Irene]

..welters are a good choice because they so often fought good lightweights and good middleweights.

i kind of lean to the light heavies, though, for the same reasoning. they were challenged by strong middleweights who had speed and made most of their money fighting heavyweights, and giving away all that poundage. they had to be good boxers with some power to fight in that division. plus they had plenty of tough competition in their own 175 pound class.

How many moved on from the title, though, to take the Heavy crown? Granted, they were giving away more in size (not just weight) than those in lower classes moving up, but one in all of history is a pretty slim number, compared with all the greats in lower classes who moved up & took the belt.

[gambler49]

Welter: TL MW BR HA JD SRR CB KG EG SRL TH RD FT FLM MP and many other greats.

The reason is that 147lbs is about the average weight for a man in his 20s who is lean and in fighting shape. Of course many of them went up to middle and behond.

[The Great John L]

I think I'd go with welter as well, although you can make a strong case for a number of other divisions as well, including MW and LW.

[SaadOffTheDeck]

Very hard to say without a pad and paper. A big question would be if you're able to include guys in every weight class they competed in or if it's just their primary division. Was Emile Griffith or Thomas Hearns really an ATG at Middleweight?

Have to give a shout to featherweight and I'm surprised it hasn't been mentioned. 126 can hold it's on with any division, in particularly if guys like Arguello, Hank, Jofre & Canzoneri are included there.

[The Great John L]

Very hard to say without a pad and paper. A big question would be if you're able to include guys in every weight class they competed in or if it's just their primary division. Was Emile Griffith or Thomas Hearns really an ATG at Middleweight?

Have to give a shout to featherweight and I'm surprised it hasn't been mentioned. 126 can hold it's on with any division, in particularly if guys like Arguello, Hank, Jofre & Canzoneri are included there.

Excellent point. FW certainly has as deep a history as any other division, and I can think of several times in my life when it was the most talent laden division.

[Ambling Alp]

As for Saads question about Griffith and Hearns being All-Time Greats at middleweight-I would say yes to Griffith and no to Hearns. Hearns didn't spend a whole lot of time at this weight class and really never had a huge win there.

However, I would count Griffith when counting ATG middleweights. Griffith beat Tiger twice and Benvenuti and lost a close decision to Monzon at middleweight.

[elmersalsa]

As for Saads question about Griffith and Hearns being All-Time Greats at middleweight-I would say yes to Griffith and no to Hearns. Hearns didn't spend a whole lot of time at this weight class and really never had a huge win there.

However, I would count Griffith when counting ATG middleweights. Griffith beat Tiger twice and Benvenuti and lost a close decision to Monzon at middleweight.

Griffith also had lots of fights at middleweight. He is one of the very few TRUE greats that have fought in 2 different weight classes and became great.

[jaclem2]

...of course, the only true way to answer this question would be to go through every division and count up the all-time greats - and even then it would be subjective.

griffith was a great fighter.....although i don't see why so much emphasis is placed upon someone (not referring specifically griffth here) going up to the next division. as often as not it's because he can no longer make the weight in the lower one.

willie pep..certainly one of the greatest boxers of all time...made his reputation at feather weight, and that was it.

same thing true for jimmy wilde and many others.

[jimglen]

I think all fighters should only be rated in one division anyway,

whatever their true most competed at division happens to be, anything above that division only adds to their rating and placement and equally leaves spaces for other deserving greats.

[SaadOffTheDeck]

It's hard to hold someone like Sam langford or Hank Armstrong to one division. I was thinking about Featherweight for a minute.

Pep, Armstrong, Saddler, Canzoneri, Jofre, Arguello, Olivares, Attell, Griffo, Driscoll, Sanchez, Nelson, Pacquaio, Pedroza, Marquez, MAB, Morales, Kilbane, Chocolate, Bass, Miller, Arizmendi, Dixson & Battalino.

I'm sure there are more, but that is quite a list to start with.

[Ambling Alp]

I think all fighters should only be rated in one division anyway,

whatever their true most competed at division happens to be, anything above that division only adds to their rating and placement and equally leaves spaces for other deserving greats.

I don't think that that a fighter should automatically only be rated at one weight division. If he spent significant time in more than one weight class, and proved that he was great at more than one, then he should be rated at more than one.

I do agree that a lot of guys spent a lot of their time at one weight class and may have won a title at another weight class but really didn't do enough to be considered a great at the 2nd (or thrid) weight class.

[Seamus]

Might have to go with LHW.

[IRLangmaid25]

Might have to go with LHW.

Good call with
Roy Jones Jnr
Bob Foster
Joey Maxim
Georges Carpentier
Archie Moore
Ezzard Charles