Most prestigious division outside Heavyweight

[generic screen name]

Welterweight:Napoles, Leonard, Hearns, Basilio, Armstrong, Walcott, Robinson
Middlweight:Robinson, Hagler, Monzon, Tiger, Ketchel, Hopkins, Griffith
Light Heavyweight:Moore, Maxim, Conn, Charles, Spinks, Qawi, Jones

Any other arguements?

I personally had always a liking for the middleweight division.

[generic screen name]

kinda like how people view cruiserweights now, ironic

[jimglen]

Middleweight - p4p the greatest fighters of All-Time...

Big & strong enough to fight and beat HWs, as they used to be 'allowed' to do in the past!

Lean & fast like smaller men, first class boxers and knock out punchers... I beleive this division has been written about in this manner more than any other division and has among its members more all-time greats than most the others!

"Little - Bigmen" as I like to refer to them, Boxing's Best!

[The Great John L]

I think historically, the MW division was considered the second most glamorous division.

[pound per pound]

I beleive the middle weight division is the second most important division in boxing.

[dr_devious]

Light heavyweight is obviously the deepest division, but people, for so many decades, saw light heavyweights as failed heavyweights.

Why is the light heavy division deeper than the middleweight division?

[barry]

Aside from the heavyweights, the middleweight division have garnered the most interest. The it would probably be a toss-up between welter, light and feather.

[pundit]

1) Heavy 2) Middle 3) Light-Heavy

[Ambling Alp]

For whatever reason, historically the middleweight division has gotten the 2nd most attention. The lightheavyweights have traditionally been overlooked.

[EriqS]

I'd have to say that, over the years, the Middleweight Division has been the most notable, marquis division after Heavyweight. The division is full of legends, many of whom have had movies made about their lives (Jake LaMotta, Rocky Graziano). It's also the division of Sugar Ray Robinson, Monzon, Hagler, and so many others.

[Tantum]

Flyweight

[Axe]

Historically both Light Heavyweight and Middleweight were at the top, just under Heavyweight.

[Expug]

Ask yourself which division you would like to be a champion in after heavyweight, and theres your answer.

[elmersalsa]

I think that the LHW division is DEEPER THAN the MW division, but somehow the MW got more attention.

LHW got Ezzard Charles, Archie Moore, Michael Spinks, Maxie Rosenbloom, Roy Jones Jr, Virgil Hill, Joey Maxim, Bob Foster, Matthew Saad Muhammad, Billy Conn, Gene Tunney, Jose Torres, John Conteh, Harold Johnson, Tommy Loughran, Victor Galindez, Marvin Johnson, Jimmy Bivins, Philadelphia Jack O'Brien, LLoyd Marshall, John Henry Lewis, Dwight Braxton and Marvin Johnson....Ufff That's a lot of fighters that are definately HOFs.

Now let's see the MWs: Carlos Monzon, Sugar Ray Robinson, Marvin Hagler, Rocky Graziano, Tony Zale, Jake LaMotta, Dick Tiger, Gene Fullmer, Harry Greb, Stanley Ketchel, Billy Papke, Bobo Olson, Marcel Cerdan, Mickey Walker, Tiger Flowers, James Toney, Roy Jones Jr, Michael Nunn, Randy Turpin and I do not see no more great ones...LHW wins!!!

[DoubleM]

The lightweight division is the deepest.

Roberto Duran
Henry Armstrong
Joe Gans
Benny Leonard
Pernell Whitaker
Julio Cesar Chavez
Ike Williams
Sammy Angott
Beau Jack
Lou Ambers
Bob Montgomery
Barney Ross
Alexis Arguello
Ken Buchanan
Ismael Laguna
Esteban De Jesus
Edwin Rosario
Dave Holly
Jack Blackburn
Tony Canzoneri
Shane Mosley
Floyd Mayweather
Jose Napoles
Aaron Pryor
Freddie Welsh
Lew Tendler
Carlos Ortiz
Joe Brown

And there's a few more I've probably missed out. I hope some of you guys appreciate the names on this list!

The light heavyweight division is second, in my opinion.

[kick asner]

Their were a few time periods where you could make a decent argument for welterweight but a lot of top welterweights would bump up to middleweight while still in their prime. Usually a welterweight could make the transition without much problem and fight effectivly as a middleweight. So the middleweight division would ciphon off a lot of talent from the welterweights but you did not see as many as many middleweights jump up to light heavy and be as effective. So it is logical to say the middleweight division is the second most prestigous class given the fact that is where a lot of top fighters settled in at.

To be fair to the light heavyweight division, a lot of their top talent moved up to heavyweight and a lot of people forgot or never knew that they were a lightheavyweight.

Also the question was what was the most prestigous division which I assume would mean what division created the most intrest and not nessesarily who was the deepest talent wise. For instance you could have one great rivilry between two great fighters and totally elevate the division based on that even if the rest of the division was lacking.

[dnahar32]

After the heavyweights, I would go with the middleweights and then the lightweights. However, I would argue that the lightweights commanded much more attention than any division sans heavy until about the late 1940s.

Fighters like Joe Gans, Battling Nelson, Kid Lavigne, etc commanded huge gates during their time and the lightweight battles got lots of fan and media interest. Plus, with fighters like Freddie Welsh coming into the picture, there was more interest around the world in this division. The middleweight division was without any unified champion for practically the whole decade from 1910-1920 and the ten year period between 1897-1906. There were splintered champs throughout the 1930s at middleweight that couldn't match the fan interest of an Ambers, Canzoneri, Armstrong, Ross run at lightweight. The interest in the middleweight division was always there, but it's curious that they couldn't come up with real champions for such long time periods.

The light heavyweight division was a relative afterthought in the early years. There was really no interest in the light heavyweight division between Fitzsimmons and Levinsky, a span of almost 15 years. Even Fitzsimmons's LH title fight was really a HW eliminator. If you look at the history of the division, title fights were spaced out much further and the public didn't galvanize to fighters like Archie Moore until later in their careers. Who knows much about Jimmy Slattery, Lou Scozza, Paul Berlenbach and others? Those aren't boxing's household names. Billy Conn is much more famous for losing at HW than anything he ever did at LH. John Henry Lewis, Bob Olin, Melio Bettina are forgotten names to boxing fans who even are in tune to the history of the sport. The interest in the division has picked up, but it hasn't been consistently as fan-appreciated as the middleweight or lightweight divisions IMO.

And the middleweight division, despite the gaps in champions and split titles, had about as consistent a run of great fighters as any division from the late 1940s through Hagler. It's basically a who's who of boxing with few exceptions.

So I would go 1) heavy 2)middle 3) light

[DoubleM]

The lightweight division is the deepest.

Roberto Duran
Henry Armstrong
Joe Gans
Benny Leonard
Pernell Whitaker
Julio Cesar Chavez
Ike Williams
Sammy Angott
Beau Jack
Lou Ambers
Bob Montgomery
Barney Ross
Alexis Arguello
Ken Buchanan
Ismael Laguna
Esteban De Jesus
Edwin Rosario
Dave Holly
Jack Blackburn
Tony Canzoneri
Shane Mosley
Floyd Mayweather
Jose Napoles
Aaron Pryor
Freddie Welsh
Lew Tendler
Carlos Ortiz
Joe Brown

And there's a few more I've probably missed out. I hope some of you guys appreciate the names on this list!

The light heavyweight division is second, in my opinion.

With the welterweights coming in at a very close third, I must add. Infact you could switch light heavyweight and welterweight any which way. But I think the lightweights were the richest.

I'm just talking about the quality of fighters, mind. The heavyweight division has been the most glamourous, followed by the middleweights.