By Keith Lambert
Last weekend, I had the chance to ask British Boxings Chris Eubank Sr & Chris Eubank Jr, respectively, for their opinion on the top-10 pound-for-pound greatest fighters of all-time.
“Pound-for-pound” rankings were developed by boxing writers during the era of Sugar Ray Robinson to rank the world’s greatest fighters irrespective of their weight division.
The nature of these rankings is subjective and raises an interesting question: How do you compensate for differences in size, power and historical time periods when evaluating boxers?
Eubank Sr thinks he has the answer: “One must adjust for the natural variants that come with larger body size – it’s impossible to assume a 5’5″ boxer would be physically identical if he were, for instance, a foot taller. So the criteria is, or should be – ‘how good is a particular fighter in his particular weight division and can he compete above..?’, while greatness is something measured at the end of a career on how much adversity has been overcome throughout and ‘has he taken his beatings?’.”
Big Chris’s choices were as follows:
#1 Muhammad Ali
#2 Sugar Ray Robinson
#3 Jake LaMotta
#4 Mike McCallum
#5 Iran Barkley
#6 Marvin Hagler
#7 Roberto Duran
#8 Pernell Whitaker
#9 Thomas Hearns
#10 Joe Louis
Sr also pointed out, “I don’t know my boxing history all that well.”
Rising star Eubank Jr opted for a list of;
#1 Roy Jones Jr
#2 Floyd Mayweather Jr
#3 Sugar Ray Leonard
#4 Chris Eubank Sr
#5 Mike Tyson
#6 Sugar Ray Robinson
#7 Muhammad Ali
#8 Mike McCallum
#9 Manny Pacquaio
#10 Marco Antonio Barrera
Fascinating and more boxing stars’ lists to come in the near future, so watch out!
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