The Ring Magazine's Top Ten

[Cap]

Here's a question from a fellow historian to any member of the venerable IBRO.

I was looking through the Ring Magazine's top ten rankings from the early 1950s and started wondering how, in the age before the wonders of the internet, with their limited information network and living under the shadow of Jim Norris' IBC, did the handful of New York writers staffing The Ring ever come up with their rankings every year, never mind every month?

Was there a smug New York bias towards or against certain boxers or their managers? Why did some guys never seem to get past a particular rung?

Cap

[JDC]

Great question. I'd like to add, if I may, when did the editors/contributors start becoming more diverse?

(branching out from New York, to the USA, to the World etc)

- Also, would these New Yorkers be the same writers who proclaimed Mickey Walker as the New York Times Champion?

[Cap]

- Also, would these New Yorkers be the same writers who proclaimed Mickey Walker as the New York Times Champion?

You would tend to think so...

Cap

[klompton]

By the 1940s the and 50s Fleischer had taken a fairly savvy approach of making sure to include foreign fighters in articles and rankings in order to generate wider sales outside of the country. It brought some deserving and some undeserving fighters into the rankings but it was a good policy in my opinion as it fostered diversity in the sport and brought greater publicity to some otherwise internationally unknown greats while encouraging competition across borders.

[jimglen]

they enlisted overseas correspondents, who were a part of those countries own boxing people or writers and scribes. I agree with Klompton in that some were ranked that didnt always merit the placement, but likewise others did, and some others yet never found their way in either.

the other side of it too, was that most of the Top 10 were held by Americans, and while this was generally acceptable it too wasn't always merited. I remeber reading a 1939 Boxing News story stating that though these rankings were a good measure they were at times laughable.

I agree that some other Top fighters outside the U.S were equally quallified.

Hard old game narrowing the World down to 10 best, not possible really!