Henry Armstrong number 1 p4p all time?

Question

Most people claim Ray Robinson is. What do you think?

Answer 1

Most boxing authorities like Bert Sugar and others rate Robinson number one. Most people on Yahoo Boxing will rate him number one also. Ali patterned his style after Robinson and could move like him even though he was bigger. Ali is my pound for pound number one boxer Robinson is second. Armstrong is in the top five.

Answer 2

Ben ~
In my opinion, I'm right there with Metabolicx 7. Armstrong's feat of holding three different titles in three different weight classes at the SAME time is unheard of and it is something that will never happen again, due to the fact that there are so many organizations now that don't or won't rank fighters properly Champions recognized in one organization aren't even considered in others.

Ray Robinson was truly poetry in motion. Decades after he fought fighters still want to compare themselves to the Great Sugar Ray. You can put four of today's Champions records together and Ray would still have them beat by 20 or 30 fights. He always conducted himself in a professional manner inside of the ring.

Henry Armstrong isn't that far behind Ray though, he personified class inside and outside of the ring he and Ray both fought in a time when African American fighters really had a lot of things going against them but both prevailed because of their skills.

If there were two spots available for number one fighter of all time both Ray and Henry would be there, but as voted by the AP ( American Press) Burt Sugar Author and Boxing Historian, Ring Magazine, KO Magazine, Boxing Writers of American and Sports Illustrated Ray is pound for pound king of all time.

Thanks for the question Ben.

Answer 3

i think robinson is the #1 P4P but that henry armstrong is very close second. he should definitely be in everybody's top 3 P4P lists.

Answer 4

1) Ray Robinson
2) Henry Armstrong
3) Muhammad Ali
4) Roberto Duran
5) Joe Louis

Answer 5

that is tough question. henry armstrong was a great fighter, but most think suger ray robinson was best pound for pound fighter ever! how do we really know that? there are many great lightweights, and other weight classes that produce great fighters! how about suger ray leonard? huh?

Answer 6

Would have to go with Robinson P4P.

Answer 7

Brent F: Ali and Louis in the P4P all time list?

Anyway, here are my top 5, with a little info on each...

1. Sugar Ray Robinson - There is no rational argument for anyone else, even really in a pound-for-pound sense, let alone at welter. A prime Kid Gavilan, himself an all-time 147-pounder, was beaten twice. Only a prime Jake LaMotta, who lost five out of six to Robinson, was able to beat the welterweight Sugar Ray even once. LaMotta outweighed Ray by about 15 pounds. Beat 10 hall of famers throughout his professional career, and beat Willie Pep in an amateur bout.

2. Henry Armstrong - Between October 1937 and August 1938 there was no one better in the featherweight, welterweight, and lightweight divisions than Henry Armstrong. For one year, no man who weighed between 122 and 142 pounds could beat him. On October 29, 1937, Armstrong knocked out Petey Sarron in the sixth round of their New York fight to win the featherweight title. Ross, the most recent three-time champion of the day, lost his welterweight championship to Armstrong on May 31, 1938 in a fifteen-round decision at New York's Madison Square Bowl. On August 7, 1938, Armstrong took the lightweight title from Lou Ambers in a terrific bout that ended with a fifteen-round split decision to become the only only man to hold (and ever hold) World titles at three different weights.

3. Harry Greb - This guy has one of the most impressive records in the history of boxing. Greb fared better against Jack Dempsey's opponents than Dempsey himself did. Greb in fact called out Dempsey throughout his career, but the fight never happened. Between 1917 and 1926, Greb fought and beat almost every good, near great, great, and all-time great between welterweight and heavyweight. He fought all of the black fighters who everyone else avoided at the time. He beat Gene Tunney, Mickey Walker, Tommy and Mike Gibbons and Jack Dillon and Tommy Loughran, Maxie Rosenbloom, a fat heavyweight who called Willie Meehan, who had a winning record against a young Dempsey, and Johnny Wilson...the list goes on and on. At his best he almost never lost and he fought the best practically every other week. Imagine if there was a fighter around today who fought Oscar De la Hoya in early-January, and by the end of March had also taken on Felix Trinidad, Shane Mosley, Bernard Hopkins and Winky Wright. And beat them all. Harry Greb would have been that guy. One of the best records we are ever likely to see.

4. Willie Pep - Watching tape of this guy is like watching Magic Johnson's no-look pass, or Ozzie Smith's acrobatic glove work. Pep's sophisticated skill was heightened to the point where the subtle became the spectacular. He was simply impossible to hit, despite always seeming to be in punching range. Pep ties with Pernell Whitaker for greatest defensive boxer among the upper-echelon all-time greats. Willie almost never lost in his prime, despite consistently fighting the best featherweights of his era. His losses to Sandy Saddler came after a plane crash that didn't end Pep's career, but left him not quite at the same level he had attained before the crash. Still, no longer at his best, he managed to beat Saddler one out of four.

5. Pernell Whittaker - For the most part of his career, was barely touched, let alone tested. At 135 Azumah Nelson, Freddie Pendelton and even Roger Mayweather (who ran into a pre-prime Whitaker) couldn't touch Pernell. Whitaker's whipping of Julio Cesar Chavez took place at welter, but only because after Pernell shut out Jose Luis Ramirez and Greg Haugen and unified the lightweight titles, Chavez' people avoided him. Whitaker had to jump up to welter and take the linear claim and WBC belt from Buddy McGirt to force Chavez' hand. As an old man he outboxed a prime Oscar De La Hoya, but lost a disputed decision. Then came the fight against a prime Felix Trinidad. Whitaker fought the last six rounds with a fractured jaw. Still, he went the distance and gave Trinidad the toughest fight of his career up until that point. If a prime, powerpunching welterweight Tito couldn't knockout an over-the-hill, drug abusing, blown-up-lightweight-fighting-at-welterweight, slow, 35-year-old Whitaker, then one thing seems a good bet: no one was going to knock Pernell Whitaker out. Hard to imagine anyone outboxing him either, isn't it?