Who Was the Greatest Boxer of All-Time?

Of course this is the eternal question in every sport. Who is the GOAT? Everybody
has an opinion but of course there is no one, true answer and there never could be. That is part of what makes it such a fun topic of discussion. With the sport of boxing, you are comparing fighters at different weight classes, who fought in different eras, against different competition and with different styles that would make even a fantasy matchup not necessarily as telling as to who is really the best.

That all being said though, if you talk to boxing journalists, historians and learned aficionados of the sport, you will generally hear 4 names mentioned when talking about the greatest of all time:

Floyd Mayweather Jr.

Floyd competed professionally about 21 years, from 1996-2017, before retiring undefeated with a record of 50-0. I don't think it can be argued against that he was certainly the most dominant boxer of all-time, at least when it comes to wins and losses. He was a champion in 5 different weight classes. According to CompuBox - a computerized punch scoring system - he is the most accurate puncher ever and has the best plus-minus ratio (him hitting you minus you hitting him) in history. Of course the big asterisk is that CompuBox has only been around since the 80s, when none of the other people on the short list of GOATS competed. But just from watching fights, I bet his record would stand had CompuBox been around since the inception of boxing. And even when he did get hit, you almost never saw Floyd Mayweather hurt or even particularly bothered by a punch. He was never even knocked down! Technically, one knock down was scored against him as his knee may have touched the ground but even then, that is disputable.

As evidenced by those statistics, Floyd is definitely one of the best defensive fighters ever. The goal of boxing is to simply hit and not get hit and nobody did it better than him. He was an incredibly smart fighter as well. High Ring IQ plus he understood the business side of the sport completely. Some of his notable wins were against plenty of great fighters like, Canelo Alvarez , Manny Pacquiao, Oscar de la Hoya, Shane Mosley, Miguel Cotto, Arturo Gatti, Juan Manuel Marquez, Diego Corrales, Ricky Hatton and other high-level competitors.

BUT...Floyd ducked a lot of people too. And for some of the fighters he didn't duck, he waited until they might have been past their prime, most notably Manny Pacquiao whose hand speed might have diminished just enough for Floyd to squeeze out a victory. It worked the other way too. He fought Canelo early, before Canelo turned into the pressure monster that might have beaten Mayweather a few years later. Again, he understood the business of boxing better than anybody else and treated boxing probably more like a business than anyone else. He figured out how to be popular, how to make money and how not to take unnecessary risks. Even his fighting style reflected this, which brings me to the next point.

He didn't necessarily "beat" all of his opponents. He won the fight, yes, and very few could be argued except maybe his first bout with Marcos Maidana, but he won the fights by hitting and not getting hit. About half of his wins were by knockout and those were mostly earlier in his career against lesser competition. Many purists will say, "So what?" Boxing is not about knockouts or beatdowns, it is a sweet science and Floyd Mayweather Jr. mastered that part of it. True in some ways, for sure, but when we are talking about the best boxer of all time, I feel like we need to see a little more danger. There were no points in most of those high-profile matches I mentioned where it seemed like Floyd was going to actually end the fight, as opposed to just out-pointing his opponent. That also meant that there were very few classic fights too. No real wars, other than the Diego Corrales bout. I also feel like that is something we need in an all-time great. We human beings like our drama. Those indelible, historical moments where two men enter the ring and push each other right to the edge, with the better man rising to yet a new level and becoming the stuff of legends. 

Muhammad Ali/Cassius Clay

By many accounts, Ali is the correct to answer to who is the greatest boxer of all time. He is definitely the most well-known, and he transcended not just the sport of boxing, but sports itself. In looking at him in this context versus the abovementioned Floyd Mayweather Jr., Ali is very much the opposite. His record is not at all perfect. He was knocked down numerous times. He lost 5 fights. He even won some that maybe he should have lost (rematches with Ken Norton, shenanigans in the Henry Cooper fight, and certainly wanted to quit in the final fight with Joe Frazier) and hung on too long, suffering sad and embarrassing defeats to Larry Holmes and Trevor Berbick. But unlike Floyd, he fought everyone there was to fight in an era regarded as the greatest for heavyweights. And he was a heavyweight. Fair or not, that is the division that makes boxing relevant to most of popular culture. Also unlike Floyd, Muhammad Ali fought in wars (metaphorically speaking). The Rumble in the Jungle against the seemingly unstoppable juggernaut that was young George Foreman, The Thrilla in Manilla against the greatest rivalry boxing has ever really had between him and Joe Frazier.

Ali started his career as Cassius Clay in 1960 and climbed the ladder quickly getting his title shot against the ferocious Sonny Liston in 1964. Back then, we had not seen speed and footwork like that from a man his size. Ali was a true heavyweight but danced around the ring like a lightweight. He definitely got caught a couple of times, most notably against Henry Cooper but as far as that division goes, he was as untouchable as anyone. He was also known and widely disliked for his trash talk, which was not common at the time or thought of as good sportsmanship. It was effective promotion though and probably helped him get his fight with Sonny Liston for the heavyweight championship. In what would be a major upset, Ali dominated Liston and would defend his title 9 times before being exiled from boxing at age 25, the prime of his career, for refusing to fight in the Vietnam War.

He would win his appeal in 1970 and come back to boxing before quickly getting a chance to reclaim his title against Joe Frazier in 1971, a fight in which he would lose for the first time in his career. He lost again to Ken Norton before getting his rematch against Joe Frazier. Ali won this one by decision but neither fighter looked particularly great. George Foreman was now the champion and many people thought this second incarnation of the the older Ali had no chance against Big George. Once again though, Muhammad Ali proved the doubters wrong by defeating Foreman in what still remains the most legendary fight ever. A close second was final fight in his trilogy with Joe Frazier, which Ali managed to win despite saying he felt as close to death as ever. He would lose his title to Leon Spinks briefly, before winning it back, as well as avenging his loss to Ken Norton. All in all, Muhammad Ali was the greatest heavyweight during the greatest era of heavyweights and the setbacks and subsequent comebacks only really add to his legacy.

BUT...despite being the most culturally-relevant weight class, being a natural heavyweight usually means you can't fight in any other divisions, save for cruiserweight. When comparing pound-for-pound fighters, the smaller weight classes compete in multiple divisions, which can make some of their achievements more impressive. As mentioned previously, Floyd Mayweather Jr. was a champion in 5 different weight classes. Manny Pacquiao was an 8 division champ, going up and down in weight to challenge other fighters. Natural heavyweights cannot really do this. Smaller fighters can move up to heavyweight but going down much further than cruiser isn't realistic. So if you're looking at the numbers and comparing the resumes, Ali's may not be as impressive as other fighters.

Sugar Ray Robinson

The original Sugar Ray, Robinson, is often the pick of sportswriters and boxing historians (including Muhammad Ali himself) as the greatest pound-for-pound boxer ever. He fought in a different era, 1940-1965, and as such has an insane number of fights (201) and wins (174). We will never see anyone amass those kinds of numbers again as most high-level boxers are lucky to get 2 fights per year nowadays. He competed in multiple weight classes including lightweight, welterweight, middleweight and light heavyweight. There were fewer divisions back then so if he was around now, he probably would have earned more belts. 

He is probably most culturally-known to more recent generations as Jake LaMotta's opponent in the movie, Raging Bull. Sugar Ray definitely fought in wars, particularly the St. Valentine's Day Massacre depicted in that film. He fought the highest levels of competition in multiple weight classes, multiple times over, and certainly didn't duck anyone. If he lost a fight, which he rarely did, he won the rematch. As a fighter, he was good at just about everything. There were no weaknesses in his game.

BUT...it was just so long ago. While Sugar Ray's sheer amount of fights is unfathomable now, it is also true that fighters were not nearly at the peak physical levels that they are now. I think this makes it hard to compare him to fighters from other eras. When I watch some of those old fights, I definitely see the greatness everyone talks about but I also don't see a lot of speed and power. Plus I don't know how dangerous his opponents really were. Some were good, tough fighters for sure, like Jake LaMotta, who was also bigger/heavier but did Sugar Ray Robinson get in there with anyone truly scary compared to the other Sugar Ray (Leonard), who took on true killers Duran, Hagler and Hearns and beat them all? When considering who the greatest of all time really is, that is a big criteria for me personally.

Joe Louis

Of the 4 fighters mentioned here, probably the one who gets the least amount of mentions as a potential GOAT is Joe Louis. Still though, my favorite boxing mind of all-time (FBMOAT) is Teddy Atlas and Teddy has said that he thinks Joe Louis was #1 so it's definitely worth considering. He competed even earlier than Sugar Ray Robinson, from 1934-1951 and was the longest reigning heavyweight champion of all time, with 25 consecutive title defenses, which is still a record. Speaking of records, Joe went 66-3, with only one of those losses coming during the prime of his career, a defeat against Max Schmeling that he would avenge in historical fashion. Louis is widely regarded as the first black man to become a national hero in America and Schmeling was also a hero in his native Germany where the Nazi party had recently risen to power. Max Schmeling's first defeat of Louis was touted by the Nazis as proof of their Aryan superiority. The rematch became a lot more than a fight between two great boxers. It was about two nations, two sets of ideals and certainly in the minds of many Americans (including president Franklin Roosevelt), good and evil. The fight lasted about 2 minutes. In that time, Louis knocked Schmeling down 3 times before the referee stopped it. It was one of the more historically-significant sporting of events of all time.

In terms of skill, speed, power and ring IQ, Joe Louis had it all. He would display the latter in his famous rematch with Max Schmeling, making adjustments from the first fight so that he could dominate in the second. Joe wasn't particularly big for a heavyweight but dominated much larger men with his power and accuracy. He may also be the most accurate heavyweight boxer we will ever see.

BUT......there aren't really many "buts" with Joe Louis. He dominated his division, the most important division in boxing, and defeated some monsters. He fought a lot of bums too and I guess the issue for me is that I just don't know how serious that level of competition was compared to say, Sonny Liston, Joe Frazier and George Foreman who were defeated by Ali. Max Baer was huge and killed a man in the ring, and James Braddock, the Cinderella Man, had a movie made about him! And Joe Louis beat them both, so that is certainly something. Good enough to make him the GOAT?

I have to be honest and say that when it comes to both Joe Louis and Sugar Ray Robinson, I am not old enough to properly gauge their GOAT-ness. I study the sport and have read much about them both but I think to truly understand how great an athlete was, you need to also understand the time and climate in which they competed. That being said, I have a lot of respect for my elders and if much of the prevailing wisdom suggests that Sugar Ray Robinson was the greatest pound-for-pound fighter of all time, I have to believe it even if I can't necessarily see it. Ali had the greatest impact though, is probably a Top 10 greatest sportsman of all-time, and will probably continue to represent the entire sport of boxing more than any other single person.

It is hard to imagine anyone from the modern era being on this list at any point in the future. Not because they aren't good enough but because they don't fight enough. Tyson Fury might have had a shot if he took on all the major players in the heavyweight division (Anthony Joshua, Olexandr Usyk, Andy Ruiz Jr., Jared Anderson, and maybe now Zhilei Zhang) multiple times like Ali did in his era. But that is never going to happen. We will be lucky to just get that Usyk fight that just got scheduled. Canelo might even have a chance if he were to take and defeat Terence Crawford and David Benavidez, as well as avenge his loss to Demitry Bivol, then win the rubber match in the trilogy fight. I don't think Canelo could do all of those things, but even if he could, it also will very likely not happen. Modern boxers just don't take that many fights, period, and certainly don't need to take as much risk to their careers, legacy, and health. And I can't say as I blame them either! I wish we could see another Muhammad Ali, but I also know that it can come with the heavy cost to the boxer, so I am happy to just appreciate the high level of talent there is out there in boxing, even if it lacks that historical significance.