Single Weight Boxers

As is now common place the p4p rankings are full of weight hoppers, boxers winning titles at various weights against sometimes dubious opposition but that's a discussion for a different time.

What i'm interested in is those guys who you would call a career lightweight, middleweight, light heavweight, what ever weight it may be. These kinds of fighters seem to get forgotten to a certain extent and often get lambasted for their apparent lack of desire to move up through the weights but surely they should instead be commended. At the time there was no super middleweight division so the next step was Light Heavyweight with which came a fairly big jump of 15lbs, which I feel is too big a jump for either man. Neither was there much desire from the public to see them take on their light heavweight counterparts.

I'll use the example of two of the greatest middleweight champions Carlos Monzon and Marvin Hagler, both of whom racked up numerous title defences and went years without being defeated. They took on all challenges and in Monzons case retired as the champion of the world, their careers took a very similar path and most notably they are both accused of the same thing. Taking on smaller challengers and using thier size as their main advantage.

Having seen both Roberto Duran and Thomas Hearns lose at the hands of Hagler, it makes it very hard to take their later middleweight title wins very seriously, to be be the man you must beat the man surely.

So i'm interested to know whom people feel are the greatest single division fighters through history with the exception of the heavyweights?

For me, its Hagler. Would love to have seen a fight between Hagler and Monzon.

Some boxers simply grow out of their division, but with the super-mids being created, it means small light heavies and large mids can compete equally. I would have added Calzaghe as a SMW until he went up to LHW.

Ricardo Lopez was a single weight champ I believe.

There was a discussion on another page about Jose Napoles, dominated the welterweight division in the 1990s. Featherweight seems to produce some stickers, Saldivar, Pep, Saddler, Sanchez. Some of them may have competed in lower or heavier weight divisions, but pretty sure they didn't hold titles.

I'd reckon Wilde or Villa to be the archetypal flyweights ; perhaps Pete Herman at bantam ; Pep at feather, since Saddler was also superfeatherweight champ ; Benny Leonard at lightweight, and Monzon or Hagler at middle.

Agree with chris that Napoles would be in with a shout at welter, though lightheavy is tricky. Many of the best lightheavies tried their luck with the big boys. Even Bob Foster FOUGHT for the heavyweight title, and not just in a one - off. It's a tough one, and at the moment I can't make up my mind.

Pep, Monzon and Hagler are the three who stand out for me, fought almost entirely at the one weight and would without doubt feature in most peoples top 25 ATG lists.

A lot of single weight champions like Leonard, Wilde, Greb, Moore amongst others but they did of course regularly compete at other weights.

Depends really on what your criteria for a single weight fighter is, whether its where they reigned supreme or just competed, for instance Moore only ever won the Light Heavyweight championship but was at one point or another a highly ranked middleweight and Heavyweight.

Some modern notables: Naseem Hamed, Genaro Hernandez, Ike Quartey.

Aaron Pryor should get a mention really as well as Kostya Tszyu, both only held belts in the light welterweight division but were both top fighters.

God choices, bellchees. Both excellent fighters.

when you see fighters like pac winning titles in 8 divisions think it goes to prove their are to many weights in boxing 17 is to many. (just an example D4 he is a great athlete and for my money the 2nd best fighter of his time before you read this and think I'm having a pop at your beloved pacman)

17 is way too many; particularly at the end of the scale, where a big shiiite can shed you abut 4 weight divisions.

Totally agree, I take part in competitive judo where the gaps between weight divisions are 6k (13 lbs), 7kg (15.5 lbs), 8kg (17.5 lbs), 9kg (20 lbs), and 10kg (22 lbs). Thinking about how much weight some fighters (in judo) can lose in the 2 week run up to a competition I realised that they could probably skip 2, 3, or even 4 boxing weight categories. For me it not only highlights too much padding in divisions, but also at times can encourage unsafe weight draining because lower weight divisions can seem so close that dropping the weight seems plausible. I mean, 3 or 4 pounds (1.3-1.8kg) between the 8 weights leading up to super feather weight?? C'mon. As was mentioned above - a quick visit to the toilet with a newspaper and suddenly you're in a different weight class.

Agreed, it diminishes much of the modern weight jumping for me.

Lennox Lewis was a fine single weight boxer of his era.

samevans1 wrote:Some modern notables: Naseem Hamed, Genaro Hernandez, Ike Quartey.

Naz stepped up to feather for his shot, having previously been a ranked bantam and super bantamweight. Quartey was a ranked 140 lb fighter, champ at 147, and had a title shot at Vargas at 154.....

Yes, but they did their most notable work at one weight; never winning world titles at any of their other weights and spending the vast majority of their careers at those weights.

A notable one from the modern era is Wonjongkam, about whom I did an article on the old 606 which I'll paste here for your article ghosty;
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Pongsaklek Wonjongkam is a fighter that gets mentioned on most current top ten p4p lists but like many top Asian fighters such as Hasegawa and Nishioka he rarely gets discussed in more detail than that. This is of course due to the fact that the vast majority of his flyweight contemporaries are also Asian and as such he fights almost exclusively in japan and thailand. 

But for anyone interested it's well worth checking Wonjongkam out on YouTube. He possesses great skills, great speed and formidable flyweight power. A veteran of 78 fights he has been defeated just 3 times - twice by the same journeyman in the '90's when Wonjongkam was still learning his trade (much like Pacquiao did), the other coming in '07 in an upset loss Daisuke Naito. It's worth noting that Wonjongkam has - in Lennox Lewis style - handed defeats to both his conquerers (wiping out Naito in 34 seconds) meaning he hasnt lost to a foe that he hasn't also beaten. 

In winning the WBC Flyweight strap in '01 he destroyed then champ malcolm tunacao putting him down and out 3 times in round 1. Before losing it to Naito in '07 Wonjongkam made 17 straight defences of the WBC flyweight title, phenomenal in the modern era, and has since regained it and is currently the WBC and Ring flyweight champion. 

A true and active champ of the modern era who defends against a good standard of opposition typically 4 times a year (he only defended 3 times in 2010 which is unusual for him). As I said before it's certainly worth checking him out and hopefully anyone that doesn't know much about him will appreciate how much his place in the p4p top ten is justified. 

Wonjongkam defends against good opposition now does he?

His last 2 opponents had a combined record of 1-4 lol

In the last 5 years he is 2-1-1 against ranked opponents (Kameda, Miranda, Naito x 2)

Idiotic post of the day already

Me Imperial?

Sure thing, i'm sure you can work out for yourself what's so wrong about it

The fact that he's fought 4 ranked opponents in the last 5 years or so (with a 2-1-1 record against them) doesn't mean he is regularly defending against top opponents does it?

With Wonjongkam, you have to distinguish between his title defences and his other fights. He takes a lot of keep busy fights, but his typical opponents in title fights are decent, if unspectacular. For someone so active he could have picked up a few more belts though.

Fairly certain he's fought more ranked contenders than that, will have to research it a bit further

Bit of a backtrack from 'idiotic post of the day'.

Many of the far east asian countries also only recognize the WBC and WBA as world titles

Only means he'd have to fight somewhere else to win them. With or without the belts he hasn't beat them though.

Regardless of what belts are recognised by the far east, Wonjongkam has only faced 4 top 10 fighters since 2006 by my count - and went 2-1-1 against them. Most of his title defences are aainst regional top 10 fighters who wouldn't make the top 50 in the world or journeymen (between the Naito draw and the Miranda win he faced 4 fighters with a combined record of 0-1 lol). If you disagree I'd be happy for you to educate me though.

Wonjongkam receives plaudits from almost all corners of the boxing world, where they now about him. He takes on the odd trainee, but not usually in title defences as far as I know. He's on the fast track to 85+ fights, thats a long career. He's entitled to a few practice bouts. Some of the regional fighters in Japan and Thailand are quality fighters, thats not easy area to ply your trade. In fact currently and historically its one of the top region in the world at FW and BW.

Further in terms of longevity, the guy's been a flyweight champ on and off for almost 10 years. He has one recent loss and draw against Naito, but he also defeated Naito a couple of times, thats a compelling 4 match series. In the modern era, he is certainly an accomplished one division world champ.

I'm not doubting his place in this thread as a good single weight fighter ABChris, I'm just pointing out the fact that his record is actually very bare for someone who has had 70+ fights at flyweight. Calzaghe quite rightly recieves similar criticism for facing a handful of top 10 fighters in a long career, so why can't the same be levelled at Wonjongkam?

None of those were title defences Junky so it's hardly fair to bring warm up fights into the equation

The majority of Wonjongkams defences have come against opponents rated in the rings top ten at the time, they may have since dropped out but doesn't change the fact they were legitimate challengers at the time.

Lopez, Calderon, Calzaghe,

Apart from the 3 fighters (4 fights) I mentioned, which guys have been ring top 10?

Personally, I think fighting 1 top 10 guy every 14 months with journeymen inbetween doesn't equate to a great title reign (even if some of them weren't classed as defences).

Getting back on topic, Buchanan is another good single weight champ from yesteryear, only behind Lewis and Wilde I would guess from these shores (as single weight champs)

Would also have kids Lewis and Berg in front of Buchanan but definitely a contender for best post war british fighter

I'd exclude TK Lewis as he held the EU middle and welter belts

I'm a big fan of Berg but I'd rank him just below Buchanan I think, although I wouldn't argue if you had him higher

Strange how titles have changed nowadays, back then holding the european title was the equivalent of a world title strap nowadays. In some cases the british or commonwealth champion was recognized in some parts.

Berg and Buchanan were both more accomplished than their title reigns would suggest

He was saying that holding both EU belts meant he wasn't a single weight boxer not that he wasn't good I think.

Yeah, TK Lewis was clearly a world class fighter at welter and middle, and good enough to challenge for the lightheavy title as well, therefore I think should be discounted from the discussion

An EU champ in TK Lewis's day was worth more than an alphabelt titlist today for sure!