Trying to rank boxers across different eras is a difficult task, but it can also be a lot of fun, and hopefully that has been the case, and will continue to be the case, with these ongoing rankings experiments where we attempt to rank the best boxers from each weight class across different decades.
In Part 1 of the new “Top 10 by Decade” series, we began by exploring the heavyweight division with a formula designed to try and objectively identify the Top 10 heavyweights from each decade. Then we we worked our way south through the different weight classes, and today in Part 13, our attention is turned to the bantamweight division.
For the bantamweight division, Ring Magazine began doing divisional rankings way back in 1924. So for our purposes here, we will begin our analysis with the first full decade containing a complete data set of rankings, which in this case is the 1930s.
The bantamweight division is rich with history and tradition, and many immensely talented pugilists have competed as bantamweights over the years, including Eder Jofre, Manuel Ortiz, Carlos Zarate, Panama Al Brown, Lou Salica, Alphonse Halimi, Anselmo Moreno, Rafael Marquez, Tim Austin, and Orlando Canizales just to name a few.
The main idea here with these ranking experiments is to try and eliminate personal bias and individual preferences, while also excluding all head-to-head considerations, both real and hypothetical. It is more a measurement of tracking the boxers who were perceived as having the most prolonged success in a given weight class over the timeframe of a specific decade. This edition of Rummy’s Corner is the thirteenth episode in a series of “Top 10 by Decade” videos that will continue to be released over the course of the coming weeks. Please watch and enjoy this newest installment in this new series of videos – the bantamweight division!