Greatest French Middleweights of All Time?

[Big Bad John]

There've been a few good ones. Here's how I'd rank them off the top of my head:

1. Marcel Cerdan
2. Marcel Thil
3. Charles Humez
4. Georges Carpentier (not enough time in the division)
5. Laurent Dauthille
6. Robert Villemain
7. Chris Tiozzo
8. Laurent Boudouani
9. Pierre Langlois
10. Hacine Cherifi

Honorable Mention: Jean Claude Bouttier, Erland Betare, Morrade Hakkar

[zslayton]

Cerdan

[bennie]

I would have Tonna in there. He swallowed it against Monzon, and people remember him for that, but busted up Minter and gave Valdez hell for 11 rounds.
Tonna was an animal.

[Arbachakov]

I'd put bouttier higher as well.he was a far better fighter than the Cerifi's and Boudouani level guys.

[Big Bad John]

I would have Tonna in there. He swallowed it against Monzon, and people remember him for that, but busted up Minter and gave Valdez hell for 11 rounds.
Tonna was an animal.

I thought about Tonna. I just have a pet peeve against increasing a fighter's ranking based on fights he clearly lost.

[bennie]

I would have Tonna in there. He swallowed it against Monzon, and people remember him for that, but busted up Minter and gave Valdez hell for 11 rounds.
Tonna was an animal.

I thought about Tonna. I just have a pet peeve against increasing a fighter's ranking based on fights he clearly lost.

He didn't clearly lose to Mateo, in the biggest all-French showdown of the 1970s.
Jesus, that was Hagler-Hearns!

[My2Sense]

There've been a few good ones. Here's how I'd rank them off the top of my head:

1. Marcel Cerdan
2. Marcel Thil
3. Charles Humez
4. Georges Carpentier (not enough time in the division)
5. Laurent Dauthille
6. Robert Villemain
7. Chris Tiozzo
8. Laurent Boudouani
9. Pierre Langlois
10. Hacine Cherifi

Honorable Mention: Jean Claude Bouttier, Erland Betare, Morrade Hakkar

I think Langlois could be higher. He's the only guy I've ever seen drop Joey Giardello (en route to beating him decisively), and he was the victim of some other close, disputed decisions against top fighters on foreign soil (ie: Giardello I, Basilio I & II, Gil Turner).

In short, though, I think Cerdan and Thil are the only ones with a claim to the top spot, and there's a fair distance between those two and the rest of the pack.

[Big Bad John]

I would have Tonna in there. He swallowed it against Monzon, and people remember him for that, but busted up Minter and gave Valdez hell for 11 rounds.
Tonna was an animal.

I thought about Tonna. I just have a pet peeve against increasing a fighter's ranking based on fights he clearly lost.

He didn't clearly lose to Mateo, in the biggest all-French showdown of the 1970s.
Jesus, that was Hagler-Hearns!

He did lose to Monzon and Valdez, and Minter lost on cuts something like seven or eight times. I will admit a bias towards fighters with success on the World level, rather than on the European level. I'm tempted to defer to your greater knowledge on the subject.

I think Langlois could be higher. He's the only guy I've ever seen drop Joey Giardello (en route to beating him decisively), and he was the victim of some other close, disputed decisions against top fighters on foreign soil (ie: Giardello I, Basilio I & II, Gil Turner).

In short, though, I think Cerdan and Thil are the only ones with a claim to the top spot, and there's a fair distance between those two and the rest of the pack.

Done. He's #7. I'll freely admit that past #6, I'm out of my field.

1. Marcel Cerdan
2. Marcel Thil
3. Charles Humez
4. Georges Carpentier (not enough time in the division)
5. Laurent Dauthille
6. Robert Villemain
7. Pierre Langlois
8. Gratien Tonna
9. Jean Claude Bouttier
10. Chris Tiozzo

[Martin Sosa Cameron]

1 Cerdan
2 Thil
3 Carpentier
4 Humez
5 Bouttier

[My2Sense]

4. Georges Carpentier (not enough time in the division)

3 Carpentier

I wonder about rating Carpentier so highly as a middleweight. In his two biggest fights at the weight, vs. Papke and Klaus, he was reportedly bullied arout the ring into submission. I think most of his best (and most famous) work was done above middleweight.

[Big Bad John]

Yeah, but he was only a few pounds above the middleweight limit when he was beating light heavyweights and heavyweights. Look at Harry Greb. A lot of people rank him as the best middleweight of all time, but he was 162 to 165 for most of his best wins. When Carpentier was around 165 pounds, he twice knocked out 6'3" Bombadier Billy Wells. Then he nearly beat Joe Jeanette, and many people thought he should have won.

[My2Sense]

Yeah, but he was only a few pounds above the middleweight limit when he was beating light heavyweights and heavyweights. Look at Harry Greb. A lot of people rank him as the best middleweight of all time, but he was 162 to 165 for most of his best wins. When Carpentier was around 165 pounds, he twice knocked out 6'3" Bombadier Billy Wells. Then he nearly beat Joe Jeanette, and many people thought he should have won.

True, except Greb still won his big fights under 160 pounds, whereas Carpentier was beaten decisively in his. And the effort to make 160 pounds was reportedly a factor in those losses (or at least, was the excuse given).

[Big Bad John]

Meh.

[slakka]

Please recall Marcel Thil had a couppla wins vs Kid Tunero, a magnificent Cuban middle who Chris Dundee never stopped raving about.

[Seamus]

Marcel Thil seems to have been the beneficiary of a very dubious DQ vs Lou Brouillard. Brouillard put him down with a shot to the jaw, and Thil held his groin as if he were hit with a low blow. Brouillard was then DQ'd.

[slakka]

Most known here for the latter stuff in his career. He was gettin on in yrs by then, semi-washed up, unable to make "sixty"
Hellva fighter some years before that though.

[jimglen]

Robert Villemain is a fighter whom I call "the Proof Fighter" a clear analysis of his career shows just how good these top level fighters really were even from Britain and Europe, and especially back then...

Villemain for my money would rank behind Cerdan & Thil.

[klompton]

I think Thil should be rated above Cerdan who is overrated in my opinion. Ive seen his "dubious" dq wins and they were legit in my opinion. he was a tough, brawling fighter who, in my opinion, head to head would have made Cerdan quit.

[jimglen]

Hi Klompton, where is the film of these fights?
I have the Boxing News (and British press can be bias - more now than then however), and the Boxing News clearly states that Cerdan was ahead when dsq against Craster.

[klompton]

I was referring to Thil-Jones and Thil-Broulliard (Broulliard was awful in my opinion). The film of those fights is sitting on a shelf behind me right now. Ive got a lot of footage on Thil and he sort of reminds me of a French Klaus. Very tough and skilled, very good resume, and totally underrated today.

[My2Sense]

I think Thil should be rated above Cerdan who is overrated in my opinion. Ive seen his "dubious" dq wins and they were legit in my opinion. he was a tough, brawling fighter who, in my opinion, head to head would have made Cerdan quit.

Interesting assessment.

I don't know about Cerdan being "overrated" per say, but his actual in-the-ring achievements don't quite match up to his legacy IMO. He shows very impressive form on film IMO, but he didn't step up his competition until very late in his career, and he only had two truly big fights, with one impressive win and one decisive loss, before he died.

I agree that Thil is underrated. He fought at the top level much longer than Cerdan did, and yet was still very consistent during his peak years (the late '20s through mid '30s). In that time, he knocked out Marcel Thuru in one round and battered Gorilla Jones all over the ring before making him quit (the DQ was a result of Jones fouling out of the fight, not Thil getting a hometown "gift"). Like you said, he was a very formidable pressure fighter and infighter. By the time of his fights with Brouillard and Apostoli, much of his old fire had gone out of him, and he became more of a "tactical" fighter and a bit of a stinker. Even so, by all accounts he was boxing well against Apostoli in what turned out to be the final fight of his career, until his facial tissue betrayed him. Also has wins over Jock McAvoy, Len Harvey, and Kid Tunero, so all in all he has a pretty good resume IMO.

[klompton]

Ive got the McAvoy fight as well and he really beats the hell out of McAvoy. Not much of a contest.

[Arbachakov]

McAvoy was a hack.

one of those fighters who is sadly starting to benefit greatly from revisionist bullshit.

[jimglen]

I wonder if the great John Henry Lewis felt the same about the same Jock McAvoy who was 4" smaller and a natural MW, the same McAvoy who destoyed Kid Tunero and the feared Middle cum L-HW Al 'kid' McCoy who shortly after went onto fight Joe Louis, I wonder what Kid McCoy thought of McAvoy... the same McAvoy who couldn't get near a MW Title shot, the same McAvoy who detroyed Risko - Risko who held wins and/or went to town with Steele, Gorrilla Jones, Teddy Yarosz, Dundee, Bill Conn, Fred Apostili, Frank Battaglia, Ben Brown and other noted fighters to. I wonder what Risko and company thought of McAvoy.

I wonder what the great Jack Dempsey, who said McAvoy was the greatest thing to come from across the pond in 20 years or more, since the days of Moran, Carpentier, Wilde, Kid Lewis and the like, I wonder what Dempsey thought, the New York press, Charley Rose, Jim Jacobs and the whole buzzing boxing world then...

I wonder what they thought???

McAvoy IS among the Elites and among them too he is the bearer of that most notable crown of Most FEARED Fighters!!!


looks like in his 'own' time his contemporaries felt the same as the revisionists, silly buggers!

[klompton]

and he got dominated by Thil so Thil must have been something really special.