The middleweights have traditionally been regarded as one of the sport’s true “glamour” divisions, boasting some of the best talent to ever lace ’em up and some of the fight game’s biggest draws. Our ranking here of the very best is restricted to those who fought at or near 160 pounds during most of their prime, thus allowing us to compose the list without worrying about where to fit in greats Ezzard Charles, Sam Langford, Mickey Walker, Billy Conn, and of course the great Sugar Ray Robinson. (Charles, Langford and Conn figure prominently on our list of all-time great light heavyweights, while Robinson and Walker are ranked at welterweight.)

Ranking the Best Fighters of All-Time in Every Boxing Weight Division Have you ever wondered what the all-time top 10 rankings of each weight division in boxing would look like? Debating the historical greats is half the fun of being a boxing fan. Right here, you’ll find a comprehensive division by division breakdown of the. Legendary boxer Rocky Marciano is amongst the hardest punchers of all time. He had a boxing era from 1948 to 1955 and he has a claim to fame for being the heavyweight champion who is undefeated. Rocky has a record of 49 wins out of which 43 were knock-out wins and zero losses. He had been a great boxer without any doubt in his time.

• Joe Louis: Deadly power, astonishing timing and accuracy, and an amazing 25 defenses of the heavyweight crown make “The Brown Bomber” one of the greatest boxers, of any weight, who ever lived.
• A genuinely legendary boxer, Archie Moore, who was nicknamed The Old Mongoose in the latter days of his career, had one of the longest careers in boxing. For 28 years, he ruled the boxing scene. He also is famous for being the most extended holder of the World Light Heavyweight Champion title, which he held for ten years.

12. Tony Zale: Wins over Al Hostak, Georgie Abrams, Rocky Graziano and Fred Apostoli set “The Man of Steel” apart. One of the best body punchers in boxing history.

11. Bernard Hopkins: While he presided over perhaps the weakest middleweight division in history, no one can dispute the skill and longevity of “The Executioner.”

10. Jake LaMotta: “The Bronx Bull” beat a long list of terrific fighters, including one of the greatest of all middleweights, Ray Robinson. Fritzie Zivic, Tommy Bell, Holman Williams, Marcel Cerdan, George Costner and Tony Janiro are among those LaMotta bested.

LaMotta (right) battles Robinson.

9. Mike Gibbons: He never won the world title, but Gibbons was widely regarded as one of the very best at 160, not to mention one of the sharpest and cleverest boxers around, regardless of weight. His record shows wins over a long list of elite talent including Mike O’Dowd, Ted “Kid” Lewis, Al McCoy, Jeff Smith and Harry Greb.

Mike Gibbons (right) putting on an exhibition with brother Tommy.

8. Tiger Flowers: Competing with Mickey Walker and Harry Greb automatically sets Flowers apart. He gave Greb two tough battles and his loss to Walker was widely viewed as a robbery. Racked up an incredible 118 wins in less than a decade.

7. Freddie Steele: Solid wins over Fred Apostoli, Ceferino Garcia, Gus Lesnevich, Vince Dundee and Babe Risko. Record of 124-6-8. ‘Nuff said.

Freddie Steele

6. Carlos Monzon: The Argentine’s long reign and 14 straight title defenses mark him as one of the very best.

5. Stanley Ketchel: “The Michigan Assassin,” known for his astonishing power and general viciousness, had his career tragically cut short, but not before establishing himself as the terror of the middleweights with wins over Billy Papke, Joe Thomas and Philadelphia Jack O’Brien.

4. Charley Burley: One of the greatest to never win a title, Burley was avoided by many of the top boxers of his time, yet he still scored big wins over Holman Williams, Fritzie Zivic, Archie Moore, Billy Soose and Georgie Abrams.

The great Charley Burley. Drawing by Damien Burton.

3. Marvelous Marvin Hagler: Hagler was the best middleweight in the world for over a full decade, during which he lost only one fight.

2. Bob Fitzsimmons: The great “Speckled Bob” is famous for his exploits at heavier weights and for being boxing’s first triple crown champ. But his amazing punching power, huge win over Jack “The Nonpareil” Dempsey, and the fact Fitz remained near 160 lb for most of his career, guarantee him high standing on this list.

Bob Fitzsimmons. Ink drawing by Damien Burton.

1. Harry Greb: “The Smoke City Wildcat” is forever the greatest of them all at 160 as he rarely weighed more and was clearly the best in the division for years before he finally won the title in 1923. Greb went on to score legendary wins over Mickey Walker and Gene Tunney, losing only eight times in over 300 bouts.

The legendary Harry Greb. Painting by Damien Burton.

Honorable Mentions: Jeff Smith, Dick Tiger, Marcel Cerdan, Mike McCallum, Billy Papke, Gene Fullmer, Tommy Ryan, Kid McCoy, Jack “The Nonpareil” Dempsey, Holman Williams, Mike O’Dowd, Rodrigo Valdez, Joey Giardello, Teddy Yarosz, Marcel Thil, Les Darcy, Emile Griffith, Frank Klaus, Benny Briscoe.

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Top 10 Best Boxers of All Time: Boxing is a hand to hand fight and also the oldest one as a sport to all men and women. Greece is known as the origin country for boxing where Greeks first announced this game. Today, boxing is loved by billions of people worldwide, and many of them are just crazy about this combat game.

So I am here with these top boxers of all time so you can get to know more about your favorite combatants. These fighters made the history using their unique tactics and by defeating their strong enemies. These all have established their names as top 10 boxers of all time and their names will be for eternity.

Boxing is full of an amazing history, and as a result, it had gained fans worldwide. These names that I am going to in introduce here are the blessings that boxing gives to this world in the form of greatest boxers.

Best Boxers of All Time

So let’s know more about these legends and how they created their history.

1). Henry Armstrong

Henry comes among the greatest boxers of all time; he was born on December 12, 1912, and died on October 24, 1988. He was a professional boxer of America and won the title of world boxing.

Armstrong is recognized among these top 10 boxers for his winning in weight divisions like a featherweight, lightweight, and welterweight. He won the welterweight title approx. 19 times by defending his opponents falling under the welterweight category.

By winning all these three titles at once, he was announced as the first boxer who has ever done it. Armstrong won the featherweight title in the year 1937, the next title welterweight in 1938 and lightweight in 1938 as well.

He established a great record by defeating 15 world champions from 17 of them; so he deserves to be one of the best boxers of all time. Armstrong joined the boxing interest when his family moved to St. Louis, Missouri from his birthplace Columbus, Mississippi.

2). Joe Louis

Joe Louis is known as the greatest one in the boxing world who played this sport and created history. He is the American hero of boxing world who was from the African-American community, and his hard work took him from a low-income family with eight kids to an international superstar in this sport.

Who Is The Greatest Heavyweight Boxer Of All Time

Her breakthrough was introduced when he came to fight against Max Baer, who was well-known for one killing during his fight in the ring. Louis fought Max Baer applying all his tactics and got the victory in four rounds.

Louis was first defeated by the German boxer Max Schmeling who was well known for having the heavyweight championship. Two years later, the fight again happened, and this time, Louis stayed strong and Schmeling faced loss by losing the second match.

So, this way Louis held the title of world heavyweight champion till the time he got retired from boxing. The title was his own for over 11 years where he saved his title for 25 times and made the greatest record.

He was surely one of the best boxers of all time, you can watch his matches and see how well he knocked all his opponents out with perfection.

3). Sugar Ray Robinson

This man has precisely fought all his combats in that ring and proved his power of Sugar Ray Robinson. He has won the title of the middleweight division, and he was widely recognized as one of the greatest pound-for-pound boxers.

Before making history by winning the middleweight champion title, he was a champion in the welterweight division which he won in 1946 and held it for five years.

Sugar Ray also attempted to fight for the Heavyweight division, but it was not possible to him at that time. So his fight to achieve all these titles makes him a complete legend in the world of boxing and the best boxer of all time.

He created history by losing only one match from 123 fights and that one was against Jake LaMotta, but he wisely got it back by defeating him a total of five times.

Robinson was the greatest boxer that time while holding the “pound for pound” term. This man always showed that knockout power which made any opponent meet the defeat. He was also very fast and filled up with his unique boxing styles, these all abilities make him one of the best boxers of all time.

4). Muhammad Ali

Ali was the top best boxer in his days and he created several records that made his history in boxing world. While being in the ring, he used to fight like a legend every time that easily diminished the confidence of his opponents.

Ali deserves to be in this list of best boxers of all time as he fought against all the odds and became the top spot in boxing that no one can ever forget. He was the greatest boxer in the heavyweight division and no one has ever owned this title like Ali who was also known as ‘Cassius Clay.’

He was also very humorous in that ring when he danced around his opponent that you can see in a match that was against Cleveland Williams in 1966. So this was the humorous stage of his life where he irritated many of his opponents by beating them hard and then dancing around.

Ali lost his fight against Joe Frazier as his first defeat, but in two rematches, he recovered it. Ken Norton only was able to beat Ali when he was pursuing the last stage of his career as taking only the name of himself and not those fighting ways of the real Ali.

5). Jack Johnson

Who Is The Greatest Boxer Of All Time In The World

Jack Johnson was well-known for holding the heavyweight champion title before any other boxer like Roy Jones and Mohammad Ali. Jack stayed in the boxing ring from 1897 to 1945 and there he established several records that were hard to break.

He was unbeatable for any boxer for almost 10 years and in his matches, you can easily see how he used to humiliate the opponents by using his defensive techniques and not let them knocking him out.

Due to his humiliation for his opponents, he was always in the news by famous presses, but he still survived. People hated him for his aggressive behavior and there were always negative rumors about this African American boxer, but he passed them all and pursued his boxing career.

Johnson got famous because of his defense mechanism that no one could ever understand, so this defensive art saved him every time and frustrated his every single opponent.

Records also say that he was very able to finish the fight in the first round, but due to his financial benefits, he carried out those fights to gain some good footage, so there is nothing that can stop him from being among these best boxers of all time.

6). Jack Dempsey

William Harrison was born on June 24, 1895 and he died on May 31, 1983. In his childhood, this legendary boxer was also known by nickname ‘”Kid Blackie’ who later formed himself into an American professional boxer.

He fought in several battles from 1914 to 1927; he also held the heavyweight champion title from 1919 to 1926. Dempsey got famous in that ring for applying aggressive styles that are just

Exceptional and his punching power always stayed strong that helped his creating his history.

His fights were also famous for huge financial gains as in his first fight that was against Georges Carpentier in which the revenue got to one million dollars in total. The Ring magazine put Dempsey in the tenth place in the list of heavyweight title holders.

In the same way, he got the seventh rank among the 100 greatest punchers, so in all these years, he was the greatest fighter and one of the best boxers of all time. Jack always earned high revenues due to his fights having best footages ever; his every fight was brutal and entertaining worldwide.

7). Mike Tyson

Mike comes as being one of the best boxers of all time just like all these mentioned here. Just like Muhammad Ali, Mike Tyson also got some serious popularity on boxing world by performing outstanding being in that ring.

He was in the boxing field from 1985 to 2005 that is still very fit and aged 51 years. When you talk about how should be a legendary boxer, then Mike is the greatest example and in the 90s, there was no one like Tyson, so he was supreme he easily knocked out all his opponents.

Who Is The Greatest Boxer Of All Time

In his entire boxing records, he only lost 6 matches and it made him a celebrity at that time. Tyson won almost every fight using his power and speed which were both wonderful to knock his bad-wishers on the ground.

Records say that Tyson was close to winning that heavyweight division, but he was then knocked by the heavy boxer Buster Douglas.

8). Floyd Mayweather Jr.

This boxer Floyd got some serious name and fame in that ring for punching out every opponent and creating some great footage.

He is the best boxer who known how to defend him in tough situations, so he never faced any knockdown and this way he is recognized as the best defensive fighters.

He fought against several legends like some of them were champions or former champions, but he stayed hard in all of these matches and he is just incredible in unloading punches.

He has performed best in several weight classes and his career, he has defeated ‘De La Hoya.’ so he always fought against world champions and this thing makes him being with these best boxers of all time. Even after standing against these champions, he remained undefeated, so he is not less than any amateur for his winnings and best defensive techniques.

Floyd was born on February 24, 1977, he is now an American professional boxing promoter, so he used to fight earlier and now he serves as a former professional boxer.

9). George Foreman

He is the ninth number in this list, but still among the best boxers of all time. George Edward Foreman completed his boxing journey from 1969 to 1977, and now he is an American former professional boxer who is also known as “Big George.”

He got famous for holding two-time world heavyweight champion title and he also got a gold medal in Olympics. In his fighting years, he was the most dangerous boxer. Later, he was retired, but he came back in bad shape and it seemed like he was there only for money during Tyson’s rule.

An interviewer said Foreman as ‘piece of cake’ and Tyson as ‘tough cookie’ and he asked Foreman if he could beat Tyson. That time, Foreman replied ‘Not a big deal as he is already afraid of this cake.’

Who Is The Greatest Boxer Of All Time

Tyson took him slightly underestimating that he is such an old man. A few rounds went up and Tyson was amazed that how could this old man stand for this long. At last, it was not cool for Tyson when the referee took up Foreman’s hand in the air, so this makes him one of the best boxers of all time.

10). Joe Frazier

He can be the last one, but he deserves to be on this list of the best boxers of all time. People used to admire him a lot and he was considered as the real Champion.

He was all fearless and a true boxer who was in the ring for his passion, Joe fought almost every champion or the top contenders, and he won every fight. He was also a winner when the fight was against Ali and he kicked his ass to the ground and knocked him out.

He was a perfect combination of a strong body and super strength, so this real champ was hard to be defeated. Indeed, he was one of the greatest boxers of all time who knew the best ways to beat just anyone and the same he did with Ali.

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Conclusion

Boxing is about two persons at once who are engaged in that ring with all their strength, speed, and endurance to fight against each other. Here I mentioned the best boxers of all time, they were all good enough in throwing punches and creating history.