Most books that rank boxers will feature Sugar Ray Robinson, Muhammad Ali, Joe Louis and Henry Armstrong at the top. All are solid, logical choices because they all have long and impressive records and there are plenty of facts available that will support a writer's contention. If the number one choice is Robinson, the author will support his choice by citing Robinson's massive body of work: His welterweight title, five middleweight titles, one hundred nine career knockouts, one hundred seventy five career victories; a twenty five year career and Robinson's long undefeated streak. Joe Louis' highlights are twenty five title defenses and over eleven years as heavyweight champion. For Ali, it's three heavyweight titles and a sixteen year span of championship activity. Armstrong's simultaneous ownership of three world titles, one hundred fifty one career wins and one hundred and one career knockouts are his headlines. A writer ranking Rocky Marciano near the top will attempt to substantiate Marciano's ranking by citing his forty three knockouts in forty nine bouts and Marciano's unique position as the only undefeated heavyweight champion in history.

 

Judging by the fighters that are almost always at the top of ranking lists, we all see the beauty of statistical evidence as a foundation for rankings. Facts are explicit. Facts are compelling and facts tend to end arguments. However, while it's relatively simple to rank champions with towering achievements, how do we accurately rank the rest of the champions; the ones that fall below the level of the greats? Is it even possible to rank any champion by using the same objective manner in which we rank the great ones such as Robinson, Armstrong, Louis or Ali?  Certainly. Every champion's career record is a summation of his body of work and a career record is quantifiable proof of a fighter's success and ability. What I've attempted to do here is to objectively compare the records of seven hundred (700) boxing champions dating from the 1880s to 2000.

 

Few take issue with Ray Robinson being the greatest fighter ever. His statistics jump off the page: Career fights, victories, knockouts, six world titles, longevity, etc. Robinson's basic stats are vivid and separate him from the pack. A true student of boxing could read: "202 fights, 175 wins 109 KOs and  6 world titles" and know that it's Robinson without seeing his name. Why not measure every champion by using the same objective criteria?  I'm sure all authors review a boxer’s basic record of wins, losses, draws, knockouts and title bouts to organize their list, but they will quickly run into trouble because, unlike the greats such as Robinson, there's just not much that jumps off the page when studying the basic record of "average" champions. When an analyst doesn't have enough factual evidence to organize a list of 100 fighters, the only thing left to do is to offer personal opinions about the fighters. So, what can be done to differentiate the greats from the near greats and the average from the marginal champions when there's not enough basic information to separate them? The best way is to look for more information by looking beyond a fighters basic record.  Instead of making up my own list, I decided to go all the way back to the days of John L Sullivan and his contemporaries and analyze every boxer who won a title from 1880 to 2000. The list of champions grew to 700. I found 115 champions that had at least 100 career bouts, 120 champions that had between 70 to 99 career fights, 217 champions that fought 50 to 69 career fights, and 248 champions that fought less than 50 times. The number of fights in a career can be used to organize all champions but using just that one category is, of course, insufficient to define career performance. Activity is an important and measurable component to consider but again, it's just one category. The champion with the greatest number of fights to a decision is Maxie Rosenbloom, with 274, and the champion with the least number of career bouts is a bantamweight champion named Byun Jung-Il, who boxed only 12 times. While Rosenbloom had the greatest number of fights, he is not the highest ranking champion and Byun is not the lowest ranking champion. To best determine their real positions many career aspects should be taken into account. Instead of reviewing a basic career win-lose-draw-knockouts record, I developed a total of twenty nine categories of career performance to compare one champion with every other champion. That process produced an orderly list of the champions - from best to worst - over the past 120 years and enabled me to to move beyond the age old use of opinion-based rankings that, year after year, protect the legacy of legends by virtually deifying them and exempting them from further scrutiny. As a result the positions of old time fighters often remain fixed at a high level that may have been established perhaps a century ago. There appears to be an unwritten rule among boxing historians that forbids any re-evaluation of legendary fighters. Obviously, I disagree and that is precisely why I developed a model based on twenty nine categories of career performance. This model yielded information that has never been available before. You may not agree with my findings and if not, I'd appreciate it if you'd drop me a note and tell me why you disagree and what you propose to improve what I hope will be an ongoing project. Boxing author and columnist Thomas Hauser, reviewed my book shortly after it was released. Given the turn around time beginning with his request for a review copy and when his review was published, I doubt that he had the time to read all of it. It appeared that he looked it over to see where the famous names were and if something didn't fit his views, he was ready to rip. He said that he didn't agree with me beyond my first few picks. In fact, he picked at some rankings and summed it up by calling my ranking system "idiocy."  Now, I don't mind criticism but I'm disappointed that he felt so strongly that I was wrong but never offered his own method for determining greatness nor did he attempt to prove why I was wrong. Sadly (and typically), Hauser just offered his opinion that my work is idiotic and he suggested that ranking fighters is an art, rather than a science.

I disagree. Writing about great fighters is an art if it's done well, but subjectively ranking fighters is essentially nothing more than a personal appreciation.

To Hauser and other devotees of the subjective method of ranking boxers, objectivity is the enemy. For the record, Mr. Hauser used the word 'idiocy' in his column but he later apologized to me for his "intemperate" remark by private email, which I appreciated. Still, Hauser made no attempt to support his contention with facts and that is the inherent flaw of any practitioner of subjective rankings. He concluded with: "Give me good old subjective analysis." Well, there's plenty of it out there. The practice of good old subjective analysis of boxers is certainly old, rarely good and much the same from book to book. If subjectivity is what he really wants, he's welcome to it. If one wishes to be entertained rather than informed, many boxing books are fine reads, but how much more Homeric musing about Jim Jeffries, Jack Johnson, Benny Leonard and Joe Louis can we endure? Haven't the bones of these great fighters been picked clean by now? Mr. Hauser may be leery of sailing off the edge of the earth in search of new knowledge so he remains in safe, familiar waters and blissfully moves about in a narrow area; a comfort zone. Touting the need for more good old subjective analysis in ranking boxers adds nothing to our knowledge. If he thinks I'm wrong, I challenge him to make his case. The case I make in Boxing's Top 100 differs from any 'greatest fighters" book you've seen before. You will learn new things about well known champions and find some champions that may be unfamiliar to you. I'd like to think that a student of boxing such as Thomas Hauser would be open to learning as much about boxing history as he can. But what can be learned by maintaining the status quo and by defending untested positions that were first voiced decades ago? Mr.Hauser, don't just say I'm wrong about Benny Leonard and others. Prove it. Dig in and do some real work. Test your opinions. Challenge my system with good, old facts to prove your point.   

 

My proof was developed over a ten year period.  I compiled the records of seven hundred champions and analyzed their performance in 29 categories. I discovered the "average" boxing champion's career record is 57 bouts, 44 wins, 26 knockouts and about 3 years of activity in championship bouts. 57, 44, 26 and 3 is roughly 25 percent of Sugar Ray Robinson's career total of 202 bouts, 175 wins, 109 knockouts and nearly 15 years of championship activity. Obviously, an average champion in a field of 700 is far from Ray Robinson's level of performance, but with my system it is possible to differentiate the jumble of tightly-packed mid-level champions by digging for more information that will bring order and break any logjam. By discovering just one subtle difference, a champion with exactly 57 bouts, 44 wins, 26 knockouts, but one additional year of championship activity - even if it's just one title bout - should and will rank slightly higher than another champion with a similar record. When all 29 categories are added to the mix, I am able to further refine results and quantify career performance. While the basic W-L-D-KO  analysis provides a thumbnail sketch of a boxer's career; going deeper than that basic analysis pinpoints similarities and differences in every champion, and we can see how, where and why one champion outranks another.    

 

Another key here is that because the book is about ranking champions, I excluded boxers that never won a title. That may disappoint fans of the so-called uncrowned champions; the undeniably fine boxers best represented by men such as Peter Jackson, Harry Wills, Sam Langford and Charley Burley. These men were superb boxers and they deserved a title shot, but they never got one. For whatever reason, be it the color line; having superior ability or being hampered by inept or corrupt management, these and many other excellent fighters never received a title shot. While that's unfortunate, only title holders made the cut for this book because winning a title is the primary goal of every committed professional boxer. Those that become champions are boxing's elite.

 

Like any avid boxing fan, I have my personal favorites, but I had to avoid hand-picking a small number of popular champions to  arrange into my personal top to bottom list. The only way to avoid interjecting myself in the ranking debate was to keep my opinions in check. To do that, I went back to the beginning of boxing's modern era when John L. Sullivan stated his preference to fight with padded gloves and box three minute rounds. Moving forward decade by decade, I built a database of every champion in every weight division from the 1880s through 2000. Sugar Ray Robinson emerged as the number one ranked champion. On the bottom at number 700 is Jorge Vaca. In the middle at number 350 is nineteenth century welterweight champion, Matty Matthews, who ranks just below 1920s champion Pete Latzo, and just above 1980s champion Robin Reid. Matthews, Vaca Latzo and Reid are just four of the  700 champions my model ranked on a 100-point scale. Robinson's score is 97.89 and Vaca's score is 34.76. Matty Matthews, the man in the middle, scored 54.03. Only five of the 700 champions scored 90 points or more and incidentally, Muhammad Ali is not one of them although he came very close at 89.43. While Ali fell short of making the all time top five list, he does grade out as the number one heavyweight champion of all time. It's also worth noting that while still an active boxer, Ali said that he believed that Ray Robinson was the greatest overall fighter ever but he stated that he felt that he was the greatest heavyweight of all time. My ranking system agrees with Ali's observations about Robinson -- and of himself. 

My rankings are entirely based on career results and ranking positions are separated by as little as one one-hundredth (.001) of a point. Generally, going down the list you won't find more than two points separating any five fighters.  

 

Boxing historians that subjectively rank and write about fighters often emphasize intangibles such as power and toughness to justify a fighter's ranking. Those that appreciate scientific boxing skill, quickness and guile may elevate master boxers over brawlers and sluggers. Still, regardless of style --  power puncher or slick boxer -- the objective for any fighter is to win fights. How they won is far less important than how much and how frequently they won. In Ray Robinson, we had a man who is acknowledged as the finest example of a fighter with every asset -- power, speed, grace, determination, intelligence and toughness. If we had never seen Robinson in action, what could we tell about him if we simply reviewed his record? He must have been tough because he failed to go the distance only once in a 25 year, 202 fight career. He certainly had power because he knocked out 109 opponents, which is the second highest number of knockouts among all title holders. Can a knockout artist also have superior boxing skills? Eighty-four of Robinson's fights went the distance and he was awarded the decision sixty-six times. He lost only two fights by decision (to Jake La Motta in 1943 and and to Randy Turpin in 1951) in his first eleven years in the ring. How about guile and determination? Robinson lasted for twenty five years and is one of only twenty champions who at fought as long. Ray Robinson had all the tools but what made Robinson the greatest fighter was that he combined tremendous ability with personal pride, physical toughness and an unsurpassed desire to win. Tools, pride, will and desire enabled Robinson to be more productive over a longer span of time than any champion in history. This is not an opinion, it is a fact. An oft-reported assessment of Robinson is that he could knock out sluggers and out-box boxers. One look at Robinson's record tells us exactly that. Still, having great tools does not necessarily mean a fighter will become an all time great champion; only that has the capacity and the potential to be great. Robinson proved his greatness by winning many fights and by dominating for many years.

 

While Robinson won and endured, there are many toolsy, highly-skilled fighters that impress us but then unexpectedly flame out and fade away. Their tools are real but their commitment, desire and dedication drop off and they fade. All that remains is to  analyze a fraction of their career when they were the most productive. Here we get into the murky area of ranking by peak value instead of by career value. When writers consider fighters whose records do not quite jump off the page, they may have no recourse but to offer their opinion based on a specific period of time when they believed a given fighter was at his best. This approach tends to keep famous old time fighters such as Benny Leonard forever fixed in boxing's upper echelon. Subjective analysis offers the famous a lifetime pass into future top 100 rankings because a writer that attempted to subjectively rank boxers would have to be an idiot to not place Benny Leonard high on his list simply because just about every expert in the twentieth century said that Benny Leonard belonged at or near the top. Well, Benny Leonard is not in my top ten and I will show you why in my case study (below) called "Taking a longer, harder look at Benny Leonard, Harry Greb and 'legendary champions.' 

 

Throughout my review of the 700 champions, I noticed some unappreciated champions that stood shoulder to shoulder with more famous fighters that appear in other top 100 lists. Now, is it really so important to know that Mario D'Agata, Rudolfo Gonzalez and Soo Hwan Hong rank within .06 points of each other?  Probably not. They are nowhere close to being top 100 champions yet I was surprised when I found that the scores of D'Agata, Gonzalez and Hong were within a half a point of Rocky Graziano, who was included in Bert Sugar's 2006 top 100 list. Graziano's record grades out as below average, so putting him in a top 100 list suggests that Mr. Sugar lacks a good way to value a boxer's a career. Maybe he sampled too few fighters to begin with. If he set out to create a list of 100 by starting with 150 or 200 fighters he would exclude at least 500 of the champions that I used in my study. Graziano was a well-known fighter and a character in and out of the ring. The late Paul Newman starred in 'Somebody Up There Likes Me;' the story of Graziano's life. Only a handful of boxers have had movies made of their life but movie fame has no bearing on how Graziano performed in the ring. After his career was over Graziano had some success as a TV personality and he remained in the public eye for almost 40 years. His peak years as a boxer and his post boxing celebrity made Graziano more than the sum of his parts. Fight films and still photographs of Graziano's second fight with Tony Zale vividly portray a snarling, bleeding and battered Graziano lashing out with his right hand,and smashing Zale into submission and draped over the middle rope. In the face of this graphic imagery what is lost in the mix is the most important fact about Graziano, which is simply that his second fight with Zale was Graziano's one big career moment; his only championship victory. Graziano was unsuccessful in his attempt to defend his title in a rematch with Zale and in three of his four title fights Graziano was quickly kayoed every time; twice by Zale and once by Sugar Ray Robinson. Graziano was certainly an exciting fighter to watch but he had a very brief peak: One championship win against three defeats. Graziano's championship peak lasted literally one fight and his championship record of 1-3 is certainly not the stuff of legends or deserving of a top 100 ranking. In terms of peak value, Graziano was unable to defend his title and his reign is measured in months rather than years. He peaked and fell in less than one year and when he is objectively evaluated against every champion since 1882, Graziano's record is barely good enough to make it into my top 400 champions. In terms of peak value, Graziano does not show particularly well either. He was 43-6-5 when he got his first title shot against Zale in 1947 and Zale handed him his seventh loss and his first defeat by knockout, plus he had a relatively short career that ended at age 30. In all, Graziano answered the bell 83 times and he was 67-10-6 with 52 knockouts. When Graziano fought competent fighters, he usually lost. I believe that the only reason why Bert Sugar and others might give Graziano a nod as one of boxing's greatest 100 fighters is that his post career celebrity status bucked up a below average career. Graziano is an example of overrating the fireworks display fighters; the big punching 'kill-or-be-killed' street brawlers who excitingly pound their way to a title. If we remove the impact of Graziano's style and post career celebrity, among the 700 champions I reviewed, my system ranks Graziano at #386 all time and number 39 of  59 middleweight champions. Rocky Graziano ranked number 99 in Bert Sugar's most recent (2006) top 100 list which I feel is unsupportable and a glaring example of the subjective ranking method going off the tracks. Graziano was a one-trick pony who was one of the ring's true characters and his persona enhanced our perception of his ability and career. His position in Sugar's book is due to the exclusion of 287 other champions that had better careers.Graziano is an example of why it's vital to rank boxers only on their complete record rather than a hand picked portion of it, Nothing more is needed. Life stories are important to know and add color and context but life stories have no bearing on the fighter's ranking.    

 

It is useful to compare career patterns such as the age of champions when they turned pro, had their first title bout, won their first and last title bout, fought their last title bout and their age upon retiring. In studying these factors, subtle information  emerges and forms what I call Career Quality (CQ) for all champions. Breaking down the careers of 700 champions into 29 components brought out similarities and differences that led me to discover where every champion belongs in an historical ranking. I am not concerned with how a fighter won or how he looked in the ring. I don't care if he had a 'granite chin,' a 'telephone pole' of a left jab  'lightning fast' hands or 'inexhaustible' stamina. Hyperbolic descriptions of physical attributes helps to create a persona but it doesn't guarantee success. Floyd Patterson was praised for his 'lightning' fast hands and combination punching but he is also known -- and often ridiculed -- for having glass rather than granite in his chin as he was knocked down more than any heavyweight champion in history. Sonny Liston, who twice humiliated Patterson in less than one round, was often praised for having a great chin and terrific power. Despite the obvious physical advantage and the head to head dominance Liston held over Patterson, what did each man accomplish over the course of his career? The imposing Liston may have had a great chin and terrific power but those assets helped him win only two of four title fights. The smaller seemingly fragile Patterson won eight title fights, lost five and was the first man in history to regain the heavyweight championship. Who had the better career?  Patterson -- by a wide margin. Like Rocky Graziano, Sonny Liston made an enduring impression on those who saw and covered him but his championship career was a blip. While the smallish Patterson was floored many times, he almost always got up. In contrast, Liston was rarely knocked down but when he went down he stayed down.
 

My ranking system is based entirely on career results and the result I sought was to find out how well and for how long did each champion perform compared to his peers. While I advocate an objective, unbiased ranking system, I know that there can be drawbacks to objective ranking if too few statistics are used. In a narrowly focused ranking there may be a tendency to focus on and debate the importance of each ranking category, rather than to focus on the overall results of the fighter. For instance, by winning world titles six times, Ray Robinson deserves to be ranked above Henry Armstrong, who held three titles. However, in Armstrong's favor we know that he fought more title bouts and he won more title bouts than Robinson did, so Armstrong has an advantage there. Should we give more weight to titles held, or title fights won? I don't believe that any category should be weighted and I didn't do that. Individual performance against the average performance of 700 champions within each of the 29 categories is the key. Robinson didn't come out first in every category, but he finished at or near the top enough times to come out on top of the pack. Armstrong had a better ratio of wins by knockout for his career than Robinson, but Robinson won more fights and his championship career was much longer, spanning from 1946 to 1961, while Armstrong's lasted from 1937 to 1941. What it boils down to is that over 29 categories, Robinson outperformed Armstrong in more areas.If we  avoid quantifying the importance of one category over another, we can properly focus on the fighters results and that evidence will show exactly where champions rank in every category; be it titles held, titles won, career knockouts, length of career, and twenty five more. To accomplish this, the task is to generate meaningful points of comparison that enable us to comtrast and rank fighters based on a wide array of statistics, rather than a few. By developing twenty nine ways to measure champions and by using 700 champions rather than a hand picked list of 150 or 200, I feel that I have hit my target.

 

I use 29 categories to rank fighters because anybody can offer an opinion and back it with a few selected facts. If somebody believes that Ray Leonard was a better fighter than Sugar Ray Robinson, and if their assessment is backed with selected statistics where Leonard has an advantage over Robinson, then the argument for Leonard is defensible. However, if we analyze each fighter in 29 categories Robinson's superiority across the entire range is clear and a fine champion such as Leonard will fall in well below Robinson. Many of the categories that I use rarely (if ever) have been taken into account when analyzing and ranking boxers. If we examine career longevity and activity, we'll see that Sugar Ray Robinson had 202 bouts in his career while Ray Leonard had 40 professional fights. Comparing them side by side in that single category gives Robinson a significant edge but as compelling as their head to head comparison may be, I can also detect where Robinson and Leonard rank against the entire pool of 700 champions. The key factor here is that by using a base of 700 champions I can tell you that 533 champions had more fights in their career than Ray Leonard had, but only 6 champions had more career fights than Ray Robinson. What that tells us is that Robinson not only took on far more risk than Leonard did, he accepted more risk than almost every champion in history -- and he produced. Robinson deserves credit for that and my system ensures that he (and every other champion) receives credit for what they produced. When all 29 factors are considered, Robinson's superiority over Leonard -- and every fighter – is quantifiable and compelling.