Top 50 featherweights ever (31-40)

Dennie Mancini, the late, great trainer, runs to congratulate Johnny Famechon, as his hand is raised by George Smith, the referee, at the Albert Hall in 1969. Famechon had just beaten Jose Legra to become the WBC featherweight champion and the Australian makes out list of great nine-stone boxers in the latest section.
Comments and strong opinions are always welcomed.

31. Eder Jofre
Probably the best Brazilian boxer of all time and a great puncher, Jofre was better known as a bantamweight where his reign as champion last five years. His featherweight career started after three years in retirement and he was unbeaten. While most of the bouts were low key, and all were in Brazil, he did win the WBC title from Jose Legra and retained it in a super-fight, knocking out Vicente Saldivar to end the great Mexican's career.

32. Petey Sarron
Sarron was one of the shortest reigning champions to make this list, but he gets his place because he beat one of the best, Freddie Miller. He boxed Miller six times, winning two and losing four - all went the distance. Sarron, from Birmingham, Alabama, won the NBA title from Miller in 1936 and retained it against him the year after in Johannesburg. Back in New York, he fought a unification against Henry Armstrong and was knocked out in six rounds.

33. Young Griffo
First spotted scrapping near at the docks in Sydney, Griffo went on to be recognised as the greatest defensive boxers of his age. The age was the 1890s, when gloves were a new idea. He started his fighting career under London Prize Ring Rules, but it was more legitimate when he beat Torpedo Billy Murphy in 1890 to be claimed as world featherweight champion. He defended the title just once before travelling to the United States where he dazzled fans with his technique. He boasted he could stand on a handkerchief and dodge punches without stepping off it. In retirement, he became a hard drinker, who was reduced to begging in Times Square. Tex Rickard, the promoter, is said to have paid for his funeral in 1927. In 1991, he was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.

34. Jorge Paez
A former circus performer, El Maromero was hugely popular and while he was not the best all-round boxer, he did hold the IBF and WBO titles. He won the IBF title from Calvin Grove in 1988, in a bout that turned out to be the last 15-round world title fight, and beat Louie Espinoza for the WBO title in 1990. He vacated soon after to move up in weight, but failed in three attempts to become a double world champion. He had a brief later spell in the world of wrestling and his son is a rising light-welterweight, but there are regular rumours that he is planning another comeback.

35. Kuniaki Shibata
Shibata went on to have an even better career as a super-featherweight, but the best win of his career came at 9st in 1970 when he proved the great Vicente Saldivar was beatable, forcing him to quit in 12 rounds in Mexico for the WBC title. He scraped through two defences before losing to a less great Mexican in Clemente Sanchez, but went on to win WBA and WBC titles at super-featherweight.

36. Wilfredo Vazquez
A three-weight world champion, Vasquez, from Puerto Rico, probably had his best days as a super-bantamweight, holding the WBA title from 1992-1995, after stopping Raul Perez in Mexico.He then became a bit of a world traveller, defending in Italy, Japan, France and the United States before losing it in his first world title bout in Puerto Rico, to Antonio Cermeno. He went on to win the WBA featherweight title, but was 37 and past his best when he was knocked out by Naseem Hamed.

37. Johnny Famechon
In the 1960s, Australia was something of a backwater regarding world boxing. Had he come from somewhere else, Johnny Famechon would probably have got his shot at the top earlier. As it was, this tough guy from Melbourne (who was actually born in France) had to come to London for his shot, where he outpointed Jose Legra for the WBC title. He went on to beat Fighting Harada, the former bantamweight champion, twice, including knocking him out on away turf in Japan, before losing the title to a come-backing Vicente Saldivar. In 1991, he suffered terrible brain injuries after being hit by a car while out running. He won his toughest battle, though, and walked his fiancee, Glenys, down the aisle in 1997.

38. Tom Johnson
Best remember in Britain for losing to Naseem Hamed, "Boom Boom" Johnson held the IBF title through the mid-Nineties, making 11 defences. He had had a long career before getting his shot against Manuel Medina, whom he beat at the second defence, and looked long in the tooth when he faced Hamed, who stopped him in eight. He returned to London to lose to an upcoming Scott Harrison and was also beaten later in his career by world champions Jorge Paez, Junior Jones and Jesus Chavez.

39. Antonio Esparragoza
A huge puncher, Esparragoza, from Venezuela, held the WBA title from 1987-1991, although his record lacks any great names. He won the title by stopping Steve Cruz, the man who outlasted Barry McGuigan in the Las Vegas heat, and lost it to an equally anonymous Korean, Yong-Kyun Park.

40. Joey Archibald
Something of a forgotten name from a golden age in the late Thirties. He twice held the New York version of the world title, beating Mike Belloise in 1938, losing to and beating Harry Jeffra, before being knocked out by Chalky Wright.

Comments

[Crashing Dashing Kid]

Young Griffo deserves special mention as a fighter with the kind of special talent for boxing that only comes along once or twice in each generation. Griffo was a defensive master who lost only 8 of 232 fights, even when fighting lightweights of the calibre of Joe Gans. In those days only a KO would cause an exchange of the title and Griffo punched with fists of feathers, otherwise his extraordinary reflexes and gameness would have been rewarded by a long reign as champ. Griffo probably never had a fight when he was totally sober either - hence the number of shgort bouts he fought. He was, however, capable of fighting over the loinger distance as his record shows, where he routinely embarassed the very best in the world. The stories of Griffo's exploits read like a film script - they invariably take place inside a bar and involve Griffo outwitting anyone from town bully to heavyweight champion of the world. It was nearly impossible for a foreign fighter to win a title in the US at the turn of the previous century but Griffo ranks right up there with Willie Pep, Pernell Whittaker and Jack Johnson for defensive skill and with Popeye and WC Fields for his exploits outside the ring.

[James Fairweather]

A really excellent selection, Ron. Just one gripe (of course!), Jofre isn't "probably" anything. He is by miles the best Brazilian boxer of all time and so much more than just a great puncher. An excellent boxer with a chin of iron, uncanny ring smarts and a fierce will to win, Jofre is, I believe, the finest Latin American fighter ever and a live candidate for pound-for-pound top 5 status. His unbeaten comeback to win the featherweight title at the prehistoric age of 37 also eclipses George Foreman's as boxing's greatest, in my view.

All that said, you've picked around the right spot for him as a nine stone fighter, bearing in mind the fact that he only had twenty-odd bouts at the weight.