The Top 100 British boxers (11-20)

Here's the latest section of the countdown, so, from this, most people will be able to work out who is in the top ten. Comments and suggestions, as always, greatly received. The list will be fully updated/corrected at the end, so if you want to make a case for or against a boxer, write in.

11. John Conteh
Perhaps boxing's answer to George Best, someone who had untold talent but for whom decisions outside the ring had consequences in it. Was stripped of his WBC light-heavyweight title in 1978 and failed in three attempts to get it back, although by then the partying had blunted his talents. Still, wins over Jorge Ahumada, Yaqui Lopez, Tom Bogs and Chris Finnegan (twice) are not to be sniffed at.

12. Jack 'Kid' Berg
When great British wins are talked about, Turpin over Robinson and Honeyghan over Curry are always talked about, but what about Berg over Kid Chocolate? Berg beat the Cuban legend twice and Tony Canzoneri, although he lost a rematch, as he established himself as a top lightweight in Britain and the United States. Emerging from the Jewish community in the East End in the Twenties, Berg was a formidable fighter and was the world's top light-welterweight before the division was properly recognised. He did, though, win the NBA title, which he boxed for at the Albert Hall, Madison Square Garden and the Chicago Stadium.

13. Barry McGuigan
Many great things have happened at Loftus Road (slight partisan football bias there) and the night McGuigan beat Eusebio Pedrosa in June 1985 would certainly be high on many lists. Pedrosa was an old champion and many will feel McGuigan got him at the right time, but, prior to facing McGuigan, he had made 20 successful defences of his title - that's one short of Joe Calzaghe - at a time when there were only two world champions, had been champion for seven years and successfully defended his title in nine countries. Stanley Christodoulou, the famous South African referee who handled the bout, told me recently that that was the most incredible atmosphere he has known in more than 30 years of top class refereeing. Perhaps McGuigan's best win, some feel, was prior to becoming WBA featherweight champion when he beat Juan LaPorte on one of those famous nights at the King's Hall in Belfast. He made two successful defences before the Las Vegas heat got him against Stevie Cruz.

14. Jim Watt
If a boxer needed a role model for what can be done through perseverance, Jim Watt is it. Watt had been a pro for 11 years and lost seven times before he got his world title shot against Alfredo Pitalua in Glasgow after Roberto Duran had given up the WBC lightweight title. He made the most of the opportunity and successfully defended the title four times, including a very good win over Howard Davis Jr, although he was lucky to beat Sean O'Grady, who was cut after what seemed a blatant head butt.
What he lacked was any great knockout power, but Watt was a clever boxer and a brave fighter when need be.

15. Freddie Welsh
Like Jim Driscoll and Jimmy Wilde, Welsh occupies a place in boxing folklore but boxed at a time when the sport was not really a worldwide sport. Because of that, it is difficult to know really how good he was. That said, he managed to be a huge success on both sides of the Atlantic, having at one time been a drifter in the United States. He won the world lightweight title in 1914 in London and lost it to Benny Leonard three years later, in the last of three bouts he had with Leonard, the second of which was a draw but most felt Welsh had won. Leonard was one of the greatest boxers of all time. He also beat Jim Driscoll and Johnny Dundee. Sadly he died penniless in New York in 1927.

16. Alan Minter
Early in his career in seemed that Alan Minter would get no further than Jan Magdziarz, who beat him twice before a bizarre contest when Harry Gibbs disqualified them both for a lack of action. "I stepped forward, he stepped back, he stepped forward, I stepped back," was how he described it to me. A 1975 win over Kevin Finnegan to win the British middleweight title set things forward again and, despite terrible problems with cuts, he scored wins over Sugar Ray Seales, Tony Licata and an elderly Emile Griffith to move into world class and a tragic win over Angelo Jacopucci in Italy to win the European title (Jacopucci died after being knocked out). Minter's lasting claim to fame, though is that he is one of the few British boxers to win a world title in the United States, becoming undisputed world middleweight champion by outpointing Vito Antuofermo in Las Vegas in 1980. Marvin Hagler was much too good in his second defence, however, on an ugly night for the sport.

17. Chris Eubank
On the minus side, Chris Eubank largely gave credibility to the WBO at a time when the sport could have done without another sanctioning body - the WBO sanctioned his rematch with Michael Watson for the super-middleweight title despite neither having boxed at the weight. But he was a two-weight world champion who created a lot of crossover interest in the sport and also beat Nigel Benn, Watson (twice), Henry Wharton, Graciano Rocchigiani (in Germany) and Lindell Holmes. On the other side, he faced a lot of average opponents and got some lucky decisions from the judges.

18. Terry Downes
Britain's oldest living world champion, crashing, dashing Terry Downes was as honest a fighter as there ever was. He briefly held the world middleweight title, winning it and losing it to Paul Pender and also challenged Willie Pastrano for the light-heavyweight title. He holds a win over Sugar Ray Robinson, when Robinson was getting old, and also beat Joey Giardello. He also served in the US Marines, until it was discovered he was not an American.

19. Freddie Mills
Fearless Freddie dominated the post-war years in British boxing. He had every reason to be regarded as a really great light-heavyweight and beat a good champion in Gus Lesnevich to take the title in 1948. However, he paid for deciding to take several matches against heavyweights. The 14-round beating he took from Bruce Woodcock trying to take the British, Commonwealth and European heavyweight titles, effectively finished his career the year before Joey Maxim took his world title. Unfortunately, his suicide, 15 years after he lost to Maxim, and the wild theories that surrounded it and still persist to this day, have rather damaged his legacy.

20. Henry Cooper
If Cooper hadn't cut, or if he had been able to box at his true weight (which would now have been cruiserweight) what a fighter he could have been. Cooper won three Lonsdale Belts, two Sports Personality of the Year Awards and, of course, dropped Cassius Clay at Wembley Stadium before being stopped on cuts. Muhammad Ali, as he was by then called, cut him up in the rematch for the heavyweight title and Cooper was denied the chance to box Jimmy Ellis for the WBA title.

Comments

[Ron Lewis]

Horrible beating was probably wrong phrase, as it was not meant to signify that it was one-sided, more that he had to go through the pain barrier. I remember being told a story by a journalist who went to see him the next morning at the hotel - Watt, he told me, had spent the entire night in the bath and was still bleeding.

[James Fairweather]

Watt lost to Arguello, as he was entitled to, but "no resistance" and "a horrible beating" are well wide of the mark as assessments of his performance. Having been floored early, the Scot fought back with great determination to drop a unanimous decision. All three judges scored the contest 147-143, which is to say seven rounds to three with five even (if you ignore a possible two-point round). A clear win, yes. "A horrible beating", never.

[Ron Lewis]

Firstly, Eubank beat Watson twice, not Benn, which is what it says.
I agree Cooper is too high, Mills might be a bit high, while Downes is rated the lowest of our world middleweight champions.
The list has been changing as it has gone along, but, just as a couple were put in initially too low, Cooper and Mills were put in a bit high.
Watt took a horrible beating from Arguello, who, if he was British, would figure in the top 5.

[Chromite Jenkins]

WOW!!!! I also clearly went into the fight rooting for Hatton, as was most of my party. As soon as the booing started, that was it. The worst part is no one disrespected the brit's anthem, and it was first! Low class in my opinion. Karma is a son of a gun. It's looking like ALOT of americans were supporting Hatton until that happened. He had a golden ticket in America, ripped up and thrown in the trash can thanks to those fans. He'll never go into another mega fight in America as the favorite of the people ever again. That's a shame.

In the end, they look not like fans but a costly choir. 50MM down the drain in american advertisements and purse's I bet over the rest of Hattons career. I sincerelly ask you, if you took part in booing at this event to never come back to America again. Please? This is our house, not your playground. Respect it, or stay the hell out. It's very simple.

[FN]

I thought the second Eubank/Benn fight was a draw. If so then Eubank did not beat Benn twice

[Jonathan da Silva]

Ron Lewis that is the best put down of small minded victim mentality people I have seen in a long time.

[Ron Lewis]

Barry McGuigan held a British passport, he boxed for Northern Ireland in the 1978 Commonwealth Games, was licenced by the British Boxing Board of Control, he was British featherweight champion, was the UK Sports Personality of the Year and was even appointed an MBE - something he couldn't if he wasn't British. British arrogance? How British do you want him to be?
Not all boxers on this list were born in the UK - Cornelius Boza-Edwards, Joe Bugner and Maurice Hope to name three off the top of my head, McGuigan has more claim to be British than them. Steve Collins is not in the list, because he was Irish.

[KidChocolate]

Typical British arrogance regarding Barry McGuigan. Thought this was quiet funny:
Here’s a hot UL that’s floating around the irish web right now —

In a British program about Samuel L Jackson and Colin Farrell’s lastest movie SWAT presented by British presenter, Kate Thornton, the following exchange occured:

Thornton: What was it like working with Colin (Farrell), cos he is just so hot in the U.K. right now?

Jackson: He’s pretty hot in the U.S. too.

Thornton: Yeah, but he is one of our own.

Jackson: Isn’t he from Ireland?

Thornton: Yeah, but we can claim him cos Ireland is beside us.

Jackson: You see that’s your problem right there. You British keep claiming people that don’t belong to you. We had that problem here in America too, it was called slavery.

[David Kelleher]

The top 100 "British" boxers eh? So Barry McGuigan from Clones, Co.Monaghan in the Republic of Ireland is British. Can you please justify his inclusion? Typical British arrogance claiming a sports star from a foreign country!

[James Fairweather]

Well hurrah for being a good old character and doing the proper British thing of usually losing on the big stage! Britain has a proud fistic tradition and if I really thought that Cooper, Downes and Mills were three of the best twenty that these islands had ever sent out, I would be one depressed fan.

Fortunately, I don't. Mills, let's not forget had already been spanked by a rather more prime Lesnevich before finally winning his strap. Limited and game he was; better than Andries, McEvoy or Clinton Woods, to name just the light-heavyweights is stretching credulity. Downes? Correctly picked as the weakest middleweight champion of all time in a boxing poll of the late 80s, he offered tissue thin skin, equally flimsy punch power and an inexhaustible fund of cheeky chappie Cockney witticisms. A shrewd odds man and, like John Betjeman, a teddy bear to the nation...

...Although nothing like as much as our Enery. Jim Wickes, his canny manager, wouldn't let him anywhere near the likes of Joe Frazier or Sonny Liston, and I do think that a top 20 fighter from these shores should have been at least willing to get in the ring with all-comers. Losing 14 out of 60 or thereabouts is not a good enough resume for our Number 20. I'm sure he's made a considerable living from that knockdown and the subsequent split glove that seems to get longer by the year, but Henry bears eloquent testimony to the incurable British love of the gallant loser.

[Terry Nicholas]

Watch Jim Watt in his final title defence when he decided, before the fight, not to offer any resistance. Top 20 only if you forget that night.