Top 50 middleweights ever (6-7)

We are inching towards the top spot and it's getting tougher to decide between the remaining champions. The next two is a real stretch across the years, featuring one boxer who died 98 years ago and one that is still active.

6. Stanley Ketchel
I'm pretty surprised that Ketchel did not make the top five. Still, you can only push the cards around the table for so long before making a pick and Ketchel was the one to drop out. A lot of Ketchel's legacy comes down to how good he could have been, had he not been murdered at the age of 24, shot dead in 1910 by a ranch hand, who he had told off for beating a horse.
In his short life he compiled a record of 52 wins and four losses.  He won the middleweight title beating Mike "Twin" Sullivan, then beat Sullivan's brother, Jack "Twin" Sullivan. He won three of four against future champion Billy Papke and even "Philadelphia" Jack O'Brien, the hall of fame light-heavyweight.
He will be best remembered, though, for facing Jack Johnson in a David v Goliath heavyweight challenge in 1909. In the twelfth round, Ketchel had Johnson on the floor, but the champion got up and almost instantly flattened Ketchel with a punch so hard, several of Ketchel's teeth became embedded in Johnson's glove.

7. Roy Jones Jr (pictured)
A lot would say, what's he doing up here. But Jones was perfect during his short stay as a middleweight, the most notable victory of which was a points win over Bernard Hopkins. If he had come from an era where the option to go up to super-middleweight, where he easily dispatched James Toney, had not been there, I have no doubt he would have continued to make the weight and ruled at middleweight for some years. However, that privilege was left to Hopkins.

Comments

[Ron Lewis]

The story I was always told was that the guy who shot him was on the run from the Navy, living under a false identity, and had hooked up with a cook at the ranch where Ketchel was staying. Ketchel told him off when he was him beating a horse, and the man returned and shot him, then trying to cover it up as a robbery, before going on the run.

[errol]

We knew Ketchel would be up there - and deservedly so. However, given Ron's bald explanation of why he was shot, I'm disappointed that the famous story about Stanley Ketchel being shot by the common-law husband of the woman cooking him breakfast may not be true after all!

[James Fairweather]

Rather like Leonard, Jones seems to get reflected recognition at 160 lbs here for his brilliance at other weights. It's really not much of an argument to guess (and that's what it is) that if there hadn't been a super-middleweight division, Jones would have stuck to destroying all opposition at 160. How do you know that he wouldn't have jumped straight to light-heavy, his most dominant weight class? How can you say that a weight-drained Jones might not have been thumped at the lower weight if he had stayed, a la Don Curry? Too much speculation here to be awarding a fighter a top 10 slot.

Must agree with the Kid about Greb at 1. I want Monzon next, though, then Robinson, then Hagler. Not sure that Ketchel should rank behind Hopkins, either, but can't quite summon the statistical force to argue the toss.

[Gavrilo Prinzip]

Sorry Kid, I'm not sure about Hagler at no.3 please explain why

[Ron Lewis]

The plan is to do the top five one a day next week. Sorry for the hold-up. There have been some issues with getting pictures as well as being away a bit much.

[James Griffiths]

Roy Jones?

7th?

Sorry, but winning a vacant title against a green Hopkins and one solitary defence against Thomas Tate does not entitle him to much all time credibility.

Never defeating a reigning 160 lb champion and only one fight against a top ten regarded fighter (The Ring rated Hopkins 9th at the time if I recall correctly) will always put Jones in the category of might have been.

[Crashing Dashing Kid]

Hurry up Ron...everyone knows Harry Greb beats them all.... between 1916-1923 he went 178 fights without losing once and his opponents always had tthe advantage because Greb was blind in one eye!
His resume is probably the greatest of all time... O'Dowd, Gibbons (Mike & Tom), Walker, Tunney ...Greb even sparred Dempsey and regularly roughed up the fabled heavy champ.
Ray Robinson comes second. Then Monzon and then Hagler.