I don’t know about you, but I find a “Top 10, 20, 30, 40 or 50 Greatest…” anything just about impossible to avoid taking a look at when such a list is boxing related. Whether it’s a list of the greatest fights, the greatest fighters, the greatest KO’s, or the greatest rounds, such a list HAS to be checked out. Of course, no such list can possibly please everyone, in fact far from it – lists of this kind always inspire strong, sometimes nasty debate. And in the sport of boxing we’ve seen many of these lists over the years – either in print or online.
So here’s a list, bravely put forth by the folks at Give Me Sport, that ranks The 50 Greatest Fighters Of The 21st Century. You know you want to take a look!
Here it is (with GMS using the website Ranker in assistance in compiling their list)
In reverse order:
50 David Lemieux
49 Arthur Abraham
48 Brian Viloria
47 Kubrat Pulev
46 Naseem Hamed
45 Denis Lebedev
44 Jermain Taylor
43 Tomasz Adamek
42 Marcos Maidana
41 Billy Joe Saunders
40 Kelly Pavlik
39 Guillermo Rigondeaux
38 Mikkel Kessler
37 Alexander Povetkin
36 Oleksandr Usyk
35 Danny Garcia
34 Sergio Martinez
33 Tim Bradley
32 Julio Cesar Chavez Jr
31 Ricky Hatton
30 Carl Froch
29 Nonito Donaire
28 Amir Khan
27 Roman Gonzalez
26 Deontay Wilder
25 Terence Crawford
24 Felix Trinidad
23 Shane Mosley
22 Julio Cesar Chavez
21 Anthony Joshua
20 Erik Morales
19 Marco Antonio Barrera
18 Vitali Klitschko
17 Juan Manuel Marquez
16 Sergey Kovalev
15 Andre Ward
14 Tyson Fury
13 Vasyl Lomachenko
12 Mike Tyson
11 Miguel Cotto
10 Joe Calzaghe
9 Bernard Hopkins
8 Oscar De La Hoya
7 Lennox Lewis
6 Canelo Alvarez
5 Wladimir Klitschko
4 Roy Jones Jr
3 Gennady Golovkin
2 Floyd Mayweather
1 Manny Pacquiao
So, quite a list! The first thing fans are likely to point out (and argue and scream about) is Manny Pacquiao’s placing at the very top, above Floyd Mayweather. Still, despite the fact that Mayweather beat Pacquiao in their one and only meeting, plenty of experts choose to rank Pac Man above “Money,” – Max Kellerman for one.
In terms of the Top 50 as a whole, there are some fighters who are not ranked, and fans may well find this annoying (Where is James Toney? Where is Evander Holyfield? Where is Naoya Inoue? Where is Kosei Tanaka? Where is Teofimo Lopez? No Hasim Rahman? No David Tua? Are there any other names that are absent and should not be?)
Again, it’s a tough job compiling a list like this one, a very tough, often unrewarding job. So what do you guys think of this one? The Top 10 is pretty solid, don’t ya think?