BoxRec

Heavy - Lennox Lewis England
Cruiser - Johnny Nelson England
Light Heavy - Michalczewski Poland/german Conteh England
Super middle - Calzaghe/Benn England
Middle - Nino Benvenuti Italy
Light middle - Sandro Mazzinghi Italy
Welter - Lloyd Honeyghan England
Light Welter Kosta Tszyu Russia
Light weight Ken Buchanan Scotland
Super feather Cornelius Boza Edwards Uganda/England
Feather Naseem Hamed England
Super Bantam Wayne McCullough Ireland
Bantam - Johnny Bredahl Denmark
Fly - Jimmy Wilde Wales



opinions?????

Battling Nelson at lightweight (Denmark's only HOF member, also holds record for most knockdowns in a fight with 51, and for a long time had the KO record with 12 secs including 10 count).

Pete Sanstol at Bantam

Maybe Arbachakov as alternate at flyweight

Always like Mo Hope, but the Italian deserves the spot I guess.

Strange to see a local hero like Nino Benvenuti, 65 fights undefeated, had to travel to Korea to get a vacant world title shot. You'd think the italians would have made sure he got home advantage.

Featherweight is a difficult one but I would put Barry McGuigan above Naseem Hamed. Hamed never beat anyone of Eusebio Pedroza's quality. Mcguigan is a hall of famer and rightfully so.

A few other British fighters (yes I'm biased ) which should be considered are as follows:


John Conteh

Won the vacant light-heavy title and defended 3 times (wbc). He vacated the title because of a hand injury and tried 2 regain the title on 3 more occasions, unfortunately he was never the same and lost twice 2 Mattew Saad Muhammad. He was an excellent fighter.


Ricky Hatton

He has all the potential to become a future hall of famer if he beats most of his main rivals. Mayweather will be his hardest test by far. He already has a win against a future hall of famer (i.e. Tszyu).

Randy Turpin

He has a win against the widely regarded p4p best fighter of all time (i.e. Sugar Ray Robinson). Say no more.

Howard Winstone

If he didn't lose the tips of three fingers on his right hand as a youngster then he could well have become the greatest featherweight ever. Nevertheless he was a very stylish fighter even with that disability. He had three absolute epics with Mexican legend Vincente Saldivar (which Howard lost) and he eventually won the WBC title from Mitsunori Seki. I have the utmost respect for his achievements against adversity.

Freiheit wrote:Battling Nelson at lightweight (Denmark's only HOF member, also holds record for most knockdowns in a fight with 51, and for a long time had the KO record with 12 secs including 10 count).

Pete Sanstol at Bantam

Maybe Arbachakov as alternate at flyweight

good calls!!! Nelson and Sanstol i would put in!!! Arbachakov is a good 2nd placer

MightyWarrior wrote:Always like Mo Hope, but the Italian deserves the spot I guess.

Strange to see a local hero like Nino Benvenuti, 65 fights undefeated, had to travel to Korea to get a vacant world title shot. You'd think the italians would have made sure he got home advantage.

I was toying with putting Hope in their but didnt want the list to seem too British and i think the italian just shades him....

Yeha, Benvenuti was a strange one!! He had huge appeal at home after his olympic success

With all respect for Conteh, but putting him above Michalczewski at l-h is like putting Max Schmeling above Lennox Lewis at heayweight. Henry Maske has a better claim for #1 than Conteh.

P

A VERY british list.... With all respect for Conteh, but putting him above Michalczewski at l-h is like putting Max Schmeling above Lennox Lewis at heayweight. Henry Maske has a better claim for #1 than Conteh. Calzaghe doesn't belong at #1 at s-m, given the scarcity of significant fights on his behalf. Benn ok, but I'd rather put Collins there. And at cruiser Mormeck is much more significant than Johnny Nelson (also Jirov but one may now want to count Jirov as European).

And I havn't even started looking at the lower weight classes.

P

pundit wrote:A VERY british list.... With all respect for Conteh, but putting him above Michalczewski at l-h is like putting Max Schmeling above Lennox Lewis at heayweight. Henry Maske has a better claim for #1 than Conteh. Calzaghe doesn't belong at #1 at s-m, given the scarcity of significant fights on his behalf. Benn ok, but I'd rather put Collins there. And at cruiser Mormeck is much more significant than Johnny Nelson (also Jirov but one may now want to count Jirov as European).

And I havn't even started looking at the lower weight classes.

P

Collins made his rep by beating a shot to shit Benn and a version of Eubank who was scared of hurting his opponents. He was a very good fighter without a doubt, but Calzaghe has been at his peak for longer. You could make a case for Collins I guess, but I prefer Calzaghe's body of work, despite the fact that there's a lot of stiffs in there, Brewer, Mitchell, Reid, Woodhall, Sheika, Lacy is enough to elevate him above Collins in my opinion. I think the Benn that faced Collins was badly damaged goods to the extent that it would be like Calzaghe facing Jones Jr now.

pundit wrote:With all respect for Conteh, but putting him above Michalczewski at l-h is like putting Max Schmeling above Lennox Lewis at heayweight. Henry Maske has a better claim for #1 than Conteh.

P

I never said put Conteh above Michalczewski. All the guys I mentioned should merely be considered when compiling a list, they are not guys who are guaranteed a position on my list, by no means whatsoever. The only guy I mentioned who 'definitely' deserves to be on the list is Mcguigan

I just wanted to add a few unmentioned names into the mix to encourage debate. The more decent unmentioned names the better

lawllb wrote:

pundit wrote:With all respect for Conteh, but putting him above Michalczewski at l-h is like putting Max Schmeling above Lennox Lewis at heayweight. Henry Maske has a better claim for #1 than Conteh.

P

I never said put Conteh above Michalczewski. The guys I mentioned should merely be considered when compiling a list, they are not guys who are guaranteed a position on my list, by no means whatsoever. The only guy I mentioned who 'definitely' deserves to be on the list is Mcguigan

I just wanted to add a few unmentioned names into the mix to encourage debate

I actually referred to knockout's original post...
Cheers, P

Cerdan should be considered at middle, if you count him as French not Algerian.

I'm not a McGuigan fan personally. I think his achievments are overated. He may have been a massive hero in Ireland but that shouldn't be why he is judged as great which is what is usually used. I'd go with Hamed. I think Collins was good but again not a favorite of mine. I don't think he done enough to be the best at the weight. The only thing when I rate the Italian fighters is the obvious accusations of cheating but thats not to say they were not good. I don't know too much about the lower weights but I'd have:

Heavy - Lewis
Cruiser - Nelson, Mormeck, Wamba?
Light Heavy - Michalczewski, Conteh, Harvey?, Mills? McAvoy?
Super middle - Calzaghe, Benn, Eubank
Middle - Benvenuti, Kalambay
Light middle - Turpin, Mazzinghi
Welter - Honeyghan
Light Welter -Tszyu, Hatton, Arcari?
Light weight - Buchanan, Nelson
Super feather - Cornelius Boza Edwards
Feather - Hamed, Winstone
Super Bantam - McCullough
Bantam - Bredahl
Fly - Wilde

I don't want to nitpick, well, actually, it's more of a question, but I thought Russia, not the eastern bloc, was part of Asia?

Russia spreads over Europe and Asia.

Bloody Americans!

Its clases as Europe even though it's around Asian countries. Even though it spreads out quite far Russia is a European border.

lvlarc_uk wrote:Russia spreads over Europe and Asia.

Yup, whenever Russia does anything good then we say they belong to Europe and when they do anything bad then we say they belong to Asia

It's a win win situation for us

Marcel cerdan deserves a mention.

pundit wrote:A VERY british list.... With all respect for Conteh, but putting him above Michalczewski at l-h is like putting Max Schmeling above Lennox Lewis at heayweight. Henry Maske has a better claim for #1 than Conteh. Calzaghe doesn't belong at #1 at s-m, given the scarcity of significant fights on his behalf. Benn ok, but I'd rather put Collins there. And at cruiser Mormeck is much more significant than Johnny Nelson (also Jirov but one may now want to count Jirov as European).

And I havn't even started looking at the lower weight classes.

P

some good points but also some i disagree with....
I rated nelson higher because he has been at the top of the tree (or thereabouts) for about 15 years and on his best night i think he would beat JMM on his best night.

I think you are being over harsh on Conteh... but D Man was a superb fighter i agree.... would have been nice to see him fight away from home though... In a lot of his fights, his opponents, knowing the had no chance of a points victory in Germany, went all out for the knock out and then got knackered and stopped themselves... I feel if the fight was in a neutral country guys like Hall, Harmon would have had a much better shot of upsetting Darius....

Collins...... for my opinion on Collins see James Mc's comments... right time, right place.... Had he ran into Benn who beat G Man, Barkley then he would have been knocked out...

Jirov is "asian" like Maskaev as they are from Kazakhstan....
although both are probably American by now

J-C wrote:Cerdan should be considered at middle, if you count him as French not Algerian.

J wrote:Marcel cerdan deserves a mention.

He already got a mention from J-C.

By the way J are you in any way related to J-C ?

Arsenal wrote:Bloody Americans!

Its clases as Europe even though it's around Asian countries. Even though it spreads out quite far Russia is a European border.

It covers the length of Asia with about 2/3rds of it's mass. I just figured that would be enough to classify it as an Asian country, eventhough Russians mostly have more in common with Europeans than, say, the Chinese.

J wrote:Marcel cerdan deserves a mention.

yes he does, but at what weight... the guy was a menace from flyweight to heavyweight

J wrote:Marcel cerdan deserves a mention.

Havent seen a lot of him - only his fight with Lamotta but I have heard he was very special indeed.

He died prematurely in a plane crash, as I remember it?

It depends on where you go Matty. Now it has broken up some of the previuos Soviet states are Asian countries i.e. all the Stans. If you go to northern Russian they look like Mongolians, to the East and South Asian and to the West European.