Top 50 middleweights ever (21-30)

A brief break from the full-throttle schedule of top-class boxing we have entered and a lack of racing from Cheltenham gives me the chance to get back to our list of top 50 middleweights, where decisions are starting to get tougher as the bigger names appear.

And, blimey, this bit of the list was tough. A combination of a few names I was surprised to see still there and others whom I was expecting to make the top 20. There are three names here whose greatest achievements were in other divisions, but overall I'm glad that there is a nice spread of different eras. As always, comments are very welcome.

21. Nino Benvenuti
Benvenuti was champion at light-middleweight before going on to take the middleweight title twice, winning two of three with Emile Griffith. It took a very good champion in Carlos Monzon to take the title off him.

22. Laszlo Papp
Must be the highest placed non-world champion on this list, but that was surely only politics that denied him that honour. Won three Olympic titles and the Communist Hungarian government originally allowed him to turn professional in 1957 at the age of 31. They revoked the decision when he had built up an unbeaten record of 29, having won the European title and defended it successfully six times.

23. Joey Giardello
Beat an ageing Sugar Ray Robinson, won and lost to Dick Tiger, drew with Gene Fulmer, lost to Terry Downes, beat Rubin Carter. You could spent years puzzling over Giardello's position, I put him at No 23.

24. Dick Tiger
Goes behind Giardello as he lost 2 of 3 to him, but wins over Gene Fulmer, Benvenuti and the way he beat Terry Downes could make a great case for finishing much higher. At least he will feature high on the light-heavyweight list.

25. Carmen Basilio
One of the greatest welterweights of all time, his place in this list is all down to his 1957 win over Sugar Ray Robinson at Yankee Stadium. He lost the return a year later.

26. Bob Fitzsimmons
Best known for his win over James J Corbett for the heavyweight title, but his first step to being the first three-weight world champion was to beat the original Jack Dempsey for the middleweight title in 1891.

27. Michael Nunn
Whatever happened to Michael Nunn? Well, he's currently serving 24 years in prison for distributing cocaine after being caught by an FBI sting operation in 2002. It was drugs that led to the downfall of a potentially brilliant career. Announced his arrival with a one-punch knockout of Sumbu Kalambay, beat smaller guys in Don Curry and Marlon Starling, plus Iran Barkley, before he was beaten by James Toney.

28. Rocky Graziano
Involved in some legendary scraps in the late Forties, but Graziano's legend is bigger than his in-ring achievements. Briefly took the title from Tony Zale but was below top class.

29. Sumbu Kalambay
African boxer who found success in Italy in the Eighties. Record was up and down, but earned his place for a spell in 1987-1988 when he beat Herol Graham, Iran Barkley, Mike McCallum, Robbie Sims and Doug DeWitt in successive bouts.

30. Marcel Thil
Anyone who thinks split world titles is a new thing should look again. Thil ruled Europe in the Thirties with wins over the likes of Gorilla Jones, Len Harvey, Ignacio Ara, when he was IBU champion. Got unlucky on his big break in the US when losing to Fred Apostoli on cuts when he was leading on the scorecards.

\ Nos 31-40 />Nos 41-50

Comments

[James Fairweather]

I have to say, I'm perplexed. A boxer has two fights in his entire career at a weight. In the first, he beats a fading all-time great narrowly and controversially, having waited until that champion was manifestly in decline, and then refuses to grant him a re-match. In the second, himself in terminal decline, he is annihilated by a pumped-up lightweight.

As a result he is an all-time top 20 fighter at the weight? Sorry, not in my book. Ray Leonard is an all-time great welter. Classing him as a middleweight is not doing him any great service.

[Ron Lewis]

I guess we are going to be disagreeing on that, then. In my view, you have to go back to comparing the eras. Fitzsimmons may not have had any challenges left at middleweight, but how many good middleweights were around? He beat Dempsey, who didn't even made the top 50, but didn't stick around at the weight to face Ryan or McCoy. Leonard, of course, beat Hagler, a decision I think was fair.

[James Fairweather]

Fair enough Ron, you make a decent point about Fitzsimmons' comparison with Mayweather. I would hope that judging purely on middleweight records will also be strictly followed when it comes to someone like Ray Leonard, who hasn't appeared yet in your rankings and who, I have a nasty feeling, is going to.

To place Leonard above Fitzsimmons as a middleweight on the basis of one highly contentious decision over Marvin Hagler would be absurd. By his own admission, Leonard took Hagler on only when he could see signs of decline following Hagler's win over Mugabi, and the win over Hagler is Leonard's only accomplishment at the weight. By contrast, Fitz had to give up his title because there were no challenges left at 160. I can accept that Fitz could be outside the top 10 (although I still reckon 24 is rather low), but never in a million years was Leonard a greater middleweight.

[Ron Lewis]

I think Papp goes a bit beyond potential. After all, he thumped Jose Torres on the way to one of his Olympic titles. Amateur achievements are no necessarily omitted from achievements and it's nice to pick someone like that and wonder where they would feature against a lot of these big-name guys who would have been his contemporaries which, as he turned pro, is allowed, whereas an Ali-Stevenson comparison wouldn't.
I think you have to look at Fitzsimmons's middleweight achievement on their own. But he will be among a group of boxers whose achievements across a number of divisions rates higher than in any one. Take Floyd Mayweather, for instance, he could hardly rate very highly as a light-welterweight, welterweight or light-middleweight and even at lightweight he would probably struggle to make the top 5.

[jim henderson]

unless you're grading on potential, laszlo papp shouldn't sniff the top 50. he beat the best of europe, but no strong americans, and no top brits. amateur pedigree aside, papp was a quality could've been.
i agree fully with graziano (if anything, he's still too high), and like your placement of kalambay. (eubank, too, as number 40 seemed right).
nice work.

[James Fairweather]

These look very good indeed. The one query must be the surprisingly low ranking of Fitzsimmons. He can't rank too high as a heavyweight, despite the immensity of his achievement in winning the title against a much bigger opponent; he can't be rated in the top dozen in the talent-laden light-heavyweight division, either - his reign came when Ruby Robert was past his absolute best and didn't last that long in any case.

This leaves us with middleweight. I would argue that he was at his absolute best at this weight, usually weighing around 160 when demolishing much bigger men. He was as near invincible as makes no difference at championship middleweight level and abdicated his crown in pursuit of fresh challenges and greater fame and money.

Most of the great judges have Fitzsimmons in an all-time pound for pound top 10, which seems about right. With that in mind, we really need him to feature in the top ten of at least one of his prime weight divisions. The obvious candidate for this is middleweight - I'd suggest that Fitzsimmons' record at the weight entitles him to that kind of recognition.