BoxRec

..at a book fair a few months ago i saw a booth displaying old magazine covers....just the covers...and one was a 1938 NEWSWEEK with a picture of henry armstrong in action....with the caption..."is henry armstrong the best pound for pound fighter in the world?"

like many, i've assumed that the phrase was coined for sugar ray robinson....and he is still referred to this way..so i found this highly interesting. i wish the magazine and not just the cover had been there.

a long time back one of the posters whom i considered one of the best...forget who....viking guy maybe...who wrote that this "title" was first used about benny leonard.

(while i'm on the topic of this huge book fair i could mention i was doing some signing....and not on a boxing book...one of the other areas of my vast interests....but i'm too modest.)

I believe "Gronk" of the Neanderthals was the original pound for pound king. So that takes it back to before the turn of the 19th century.

decagon...interesting.....i've been around almost as long as weight divisions have.....but sugar ray was the first one i heard connected to this title...maybe it's because he was considered that for so long...and still is by most....it just obscured the other ones.

buzz thinks he's so damn funny..

There may have well been a fighter mentioned along side that exact phrase earlier than this, and more than likely was, but this is the earliest reference I've found regarding the term "pound for pound" in relation to a boxer;

"Fitz was far and away the best fighting man, pound for pound, the game ever produced. Pound for pound he never had his equal." - Lima Daily News, Jan 1st, 1918

In addition to Armstrong (and that's not the only time he was mentioned as such), there have been a number of different fighters who were referenced in such a matter and in that exact term before Robinson was, like Tony Canzoneri, Kid Chocolate, Barney Ross, and Jimmy McLarnin, to name a few more.

..randin...thanks!!!! very informative. it's interesting and a testament to sugar ray that he is the one now referred to by many as the greatest pfp of ALL TIME, while we don't hear that about the others. i'm not necessarily saying that this is true....just that the opinion is widely held...