BoxRec

http://boxrec.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=201961 - 1988 rankings discussion from last week

http://boxrec.com/media/index.php/The_R ... ings:_1987 Ring rankings by weight class

How do you think a p4p table would have looked in 1987?

1. Sugar Ray Leonard - coming out of retirement to beat Hagler in only his second fight in 5 years. Sensational!
2. Tommy Hearns - Still a legend and since Hagler loss, won world titles at SWW, LHW and back down to MW
3. Michael Spinks - Quiet year for him, but former undisputed LHW king had recently handed Holmes his 1st and 2nd defeats.
4. Mike Tyson - Steamrollering the heavy weight class, the big discussion of the day would be between him and Spinks. Answered in 1988!
5. Mike McCallum - On a KO streak that include Julian Jackson, Milton McCrory and Donald Curry
6. Evander Holyfield - Second Qawi win would have cemented his place at the top of the cruiserweight class
7. Marvin Hagler - The narrow Leonard defeat would not have dented his position too greatly
8. Azumah Nelson - 6 title defences since beating Wilfredo Gomez
9. Julio Cesar Chaves - Beat Rosario to become 2 weight world champion.
10. Hector Camacho - Ramires, Rosario and Boza-Edwards wins


Not quite there -
Honeyghan - TD to Vaca
Rocky Lockridge - Came up short against the top names too often
Anyone below feather weight. - No-one with a strong enough CV at this point

Sorry, I meant to respond to this sooner. Interesting thread. If this was done on January 1, 1988:

1. Leonard
2. Tyson
3. Holyfield
4. Chavez
5. Hearns
6. McCallum
7. Spinks
8. Camacho
9. Nelson
10. Starling

Just missing:
Hagler
Fenech
Lockridge got screwed by the judges too often. He didn't have any major fights in 1987 anyway so he would not have made it.

The tricky part is to remember that ranking are really based on their entire career with the more recent fights meaning more.

McCallum... Nunn... Chavez... M. Spinks... Nelson... Holyfield... Tyson... Jackson... Leonard... Whitaker