BoxRec

Jaclem inspired this idea earlier. The 1981 edition of The Ring Record Book contains their annual ratings from 1924-1980. As a service to our readers, anyone who would like to see the ratings of a certain weight division for a certain year, just ask and I will post it here.

One of the deepest divisions I have seen is the 1952 welterweights.

World Champion
Kid Gavilan
1. Johnny Bratton
2. Bobby Dykes
3. Joe Miceli
4. Gil Turner
5. Chuck Davey
6. Billy Graham
7. Johnny Saxton
8. Cliff Curvis
9. Art Aragon
10 Danny Womber

PS - Unlike flex I will not imply that they come from superior memory or that I am somehow doing a great service here.

Bantam, Feather and Lightweights for 1929 would be much appreciated.

Cheers.

*Alex* wrote:Bantam, Feather and Lightweights for 1929 would be much appreciated.

Cheers.

1929 Bantamweights
World Champion
Vacant
1. Bushy Graham
2. Panama Al Brown
3. Kid Francis
4. Tommy Paul
5. Teddy Baldock
6. Pete Sanstrol
7. Vidal Gregario
8. Archie Bell
9. Emile (Spider) Pladner
10 Joe Scalfaro

1929 Featherweights
World Champion
Battling Battalino
1. Kid Chocolate
2. Earl Mastro
3. Freddie Miller
4. Lew Massey
5. Bud Taylor
6. Johnny Datto
7. Eddie Shea
8. Fidel La Barba
9. Nel Tarleton
10 Andy Martin

1929 Lightweights
World Champion
Sammy Mandell
1. Tony Canzoneri
2. Jack (Kid) Berg
3. Louis (Kid) Kaplan
4. Billy Wallace
5. Johnny Jadick
6. King Tut
7. Al Singer
8. Bruce Flowers
9. Andy Callahan
10 Tommy Grogan

As a bonus, I can offer you the '81 and '82 ratings as well

wouter wrote:As a bonus, I can offer you the '81 and '82 ratings as well

Wouter, could you please post the '81 and '82 Flyweights? Thanks!

Here we go:

'81

Champion: Antonio Avelar
1. Hilario Zapata
2. Juan Herrera
3. Katsuo Tokashiki
4. Hwan-Jin Kim
5. Rafael Pedroza
6. Gustavo Ballas
7. Candido Telles
8. Betulio Gonzalez
9. Luis Ibarra
10. German Torres

'82:

Champion: Eloncio Mercedes
1. Santos Laciar
2. Freddie Castillo
3. Prudencio Cardona
4. Hilario Zapata
5. Katsuo Tokashiki
6. Jim (Golden Boy) Anawak
7. Antonio Avelar
8. Tadashi Tomori
9. Hwan-Jin Kim
10. Jung-Koo Chang

Thanks Tomato-Can.

one of the most interesting things about those 1942 welterweights is that so many of them fought each other...sometimes more than once. Once a fighter got into the top ten he had to fight the others in that ranking to stay there. No split titles....one champion and some worthwhile contenders fighting their way to the top. I recognize every name there,and boxing fans of that time did too. When they fought each other we had a good idea of what the fight would be like, if not perfect at picking the winner, because we knew their styles , strengths and weaknesses because they fought top fighters and fought them often....and we had a lot of fights on which to make our judgements.....didn't have to guess how which undefeated wonder at 15-0 would do against the three time champion at 23-0 with 21 kayos.

The same maybe true for the other weights shown here....I'm jut not as familar with them to say.

Jaclem, here is another one of the deepest divisions ever IMO.

1942 Middleweights
World Champon
Tony Zale
1. Archie Moore
2. Charley Burley
3. Holman Williams
4. Kid Tunero
5. Jose Basora
6. Jake LaMotta
7. Jack Chase
8. Eddie Booker
9. Harry (Kid) Matthews
10 Antonio Fernandez

How about posting the 122-126 rankings from 1979-1982?

Thank you.

wouter wrote:Here we go:

'81

Champion: Antonio Avelar
1. Hilario Zapata
2. Juan Herrera
3. Katsuo Tokashiki
4. Hwan-Jin Kim
5. Rafael Pedroza
6. Gustavo Ballas
7. Candido Telles
8. Betulio Gonzalez
9. Luis Ibarra
10. German Torres

'82:

Champion: Eloncio Mercedes
1. Santos Laciar
2. Freddie Castillo
3. Prudencio Cardona
4. Hilario Zapata
5. Katsuo Tokashiki
6. Jim (Golden Boy) Anawak
7. Antonio Avelar
8. Tadashi Tomori
9. Hwan-Jin Kim
10. Jung-Koo Chang

Did Ring not rate the 108 lb division separately back then?

I'm intrested in hearing everyone's opinion on what year(s) the deepest heavyweight division was(were).

bfanalyst wrote:How about posting the 122-126 rankings from 1979-1982?

Thank you.

1979 Featherweights
World Champion
Danny (Little Red) Lopez
1. Eusebio Pedroza
2. Ruben Castillo
3. Roberto Castanon
4. Mike Ayala
5. Eddie Ndukwu
6. Juan Malvarez
7. Hector Carrasquilla
8. Salvador Sanchez
9. Nene Jun
10 Cecilio Lastra

1980 Featherweights
World Champion
Salvador Sanchez
1. Wilfredo Gomez
2. Eusebio Pedroza
3. Ruben Castillo
4. Rocky Lockridge
5. Patrick Ford
6. Roberto Castanon
7. Noel Arriesgado
8. Juan LaPorte
9. Francisco Manzo
10 Paul Ferreri

Maybe Wouter can provide 1981 & 1982

Dave1armedTua wrote:I'm intrested in hearing everyone's opinion on what year(s) the deepest heavyweight division was(were).

IMO, the heavyweight division was at it's deepest in the early 1970s. Particularly this year:

1973 Heavyweights
World Champion
George Foreman
1. Muhammad Ali
2. Joe Frazier
3. Ken Norton
4. Jerry Quarry
5. Ron Lyle
6. Earnie Shavers
7. Oscar Bonavena
8. Joe Bugner
9. Jimmy Ellis
10 Chuck Wepner

Featherweight 81:

C: Salvador Sanchez
1. Eusebio Pedroza
2. Wilfredo Gomez
3. Juan LaPorte
4. Rocky Laporte(!) probably meant Rocky Lockridge
5. Ruben Castillo
6. Patrick Ford
7. Mario Miranda
8. Pat Cowdell
9. Roberto Rubaldino
10. Paul Ferrari

Jr. Featherweight '81

C. Wilfredo Gomez
1. Sergio Palma
2. Mike Ayala
3. Leo Cruz
4. Ruben Cardona
5. Jaime Garza
6. Juan Meza
7. Lupe Pintor
8. Nicky Perez
9. Soon-Hyun Chung
10. Roberto Rubaldino

Featherweight '82

c. Eusebio pedroza
1. Juan Laporte
2. Wilfredo Gomez
3. Rocky Lockridge
4. Ruben Castillo
5. Jose Caba
6. Azumah Nelson
7. Mario Miranda
8. Marcos Villasana
9. Jackie Beard
10. Bernard Taylor

Jr. Featherweight '82

C. Wilfredo Gomez
1. Leo Cruz
2. Jaime Garza
3. Sergio Palma
4. Mike Aya;a
5. Lupe Pintor
6. Felipe Oozco
7. Soon-Hyun Chung
8. Felix Rodriguez
9. Juan Meza
10. Roberto Rubaldino

RRB rates fighters in the folllowing divisions:
Heavyweight
Light heavyweight
Middleweight
Jr. Middleweight
Welterweight
Jr. Welterweight
Lightweight
Jr. Lightweight
Featherweights
Jr. Fatherweight
Batamweight
Flyweight

Regards,
Wouter "Kid R.S.I. " van Alst

Tomato-Can could you please post the 1930 featherweights if you have time? Thanks.

*Alex* wrote:Tomato-Can could you please post the 1930 featherweights if you have time? Thanks.

With pleasure Alex. I enjoy posting these.

World Champion
Battling Battalino
1. Earl Mastro
2. Fidel La Barba
3. Kid Francis
4. Eddie Shea
5. Tommy Paul
6. Claude Varner
7. Nel Tarleton
8. Johnny Pena
9. Frankie Wallace
10 Varias Milling (who?)

Hey Alex I like your interests. I love the Bantams/Feathers from 1927-1936. I enjoy doing reading/researching these boxers of that era.

great topic guys...one again interesting reading on the BOTP forum.

Thanks again Tomato-Can!

wsbuf wrote:Hey Alex I like your interests. I love the Bantams/Feathers from 1927-1936. I enjoy doing reading/researching these boxers of that era.

Hi wsbuf. Yeah it's a facinating era often overlooked by boxing historians. I'm mainly interested in the lighter divisions, as my Grandfather fought from Fly to lightweight around that time. Due to a lack of film footage it's hard to judge just how good they were, but newspaper reports give a fair indication there were some outstanding fighters about at this time.

Thanks for the info terap, interesting read.

Alex, did your Grandad fight anybody we would have heard of? What was his name? Location?

Terap- where can you see the footage you listed?

Terap – thanks for the film info. I’d especially like to get hold of footage of any of Jimmy Wilde’s fights.

wsbuf wrote:Alex, did your Grandad fight anybody we would have heard of? What was his name? Location?

His record’s up on boxrec: http://www.boxrec.com/boxer_display.php?boxer_id=103423

He fought Alf Kid Pattenden, Bert Kirby, Dick Corbett, Johnny Cuthbert and Seaman Tom Watson who were all British champions at one time or another. He outpointed Nicolas Petit-Biquet (who later became European Bantamweight champ). He also beat Italian champion Giovanni Sili and German champions Ludwig Minow, Karl Schultz and Willi Metzner.

He wasn’t able to fight for a British title, due to his age - he was under 18; but aged just 16 he was offered a world title fight against Battling Battalino, which under U.S. law would have been permitted to take place in a certain state over a duration of 6 rounds. His manager, whom he was under contract with refused him permission to travel to America and take the fight.

Sadly he was overworked, the frequency at which he fought took its toll and he retired from boxing before he’d reached the age of 18. So he never really reached his full potential.

That's very true terap, his manager had him fighting at every possible opportunity and was criticised by the press of the time for doing so. But before the days of the British boxing board of control, there were no measures in place in this country to prevent this kind of exploitation of young fighters. His motivation was obviously greed, but ironically had he allowed his fighter to develop at a more natural pace the long term monetry rewards would have been FAR greater.

terap wrote: "Boxing brings out the worst in people."

Holman explained that he was referring to those who cluster around and live off of boxing---and not to the fighters themselves.

That's a great quote and from someone who must have witnessed it time and again.