New Hall of Fame - Las Vegas

A new Boxing Hall of Fame has recently opened in Las Vegas. As tends to be the case with these things to get the ball rolling they have inducted an initial group of 25 fighters. I assume they have restricted their picks to retired fighters only. The list of the initial 25 fighters reads as follows:

Muhammad Ali, Henry Armstrong, Tony Canzoneri, Ezzard Charles, Julio Cesar Chavez, Jack Dempsey, Roberto Duran, Joe Gans, Harry Greb, Eder Jofre, Jack Johnson, Stanley Ketchel, Sam Langford, Benny Leonard, Sugar Ray Leonard, Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano, Archie Moore, Willie Pep, Sugar Ray Robinson, Barney Ross, Sandy Saddler, John L. Sullivan, Gene Tunney and Mickey Walker.

Just wondered what everyone thought of this list. My own view is it does not look to shabby. Nice to see the often overlooked Jofre make the list. If I was to be hyper critical the one glaring omission to my mind would be Bob Fitzsimmons. The sports first triple weight champion and still one of only two guys to have held titles at middle, heavy and light heavy and still the only guy who can claim to have been considered the man at each. Personally would put Ketchel or Canzoneri on the sidelines to accommodate Ruby Rob but other than this I do not think this is a bad stab at getting an initial list of 25 put together. Do you agree?

Anyone who wants to read more can do so here: http://www.ibroresearch.com/?p=7612

Pretty good list of founder members in general, but as you say Rowley you cannae really justify a place for Ketchel amongst that lot, great though he was. Missing out Fitzsimmons is a bit of a baffling oversight, really.

I'm not sure how Whitaker can be left out either, given that Chavez is in there, but then again I suspect most anticipated me saying that!

Not as good as our v2 Hall of Fame, naturally.

Fitzsimmons has to be in there.

Would probably replace Canzoneri, Johnson, Marciano and Dempsey with Fitzsimmons, Whitaker, Mclarnin and Spinks.

A bit heavy on the heavyweight side of things, can never understand how Marciano and Dempsey get into a top 25 when I wouldn't rate either as among the 5 best heavyweights.

Same old story though. Have got past the point of getting wound up about how these types of listings favour the heavies to such an extent. Think you have to accept they will tend to favour both heavies and old timers. Dempsey and Marciano have the double whammy of being both.

Dempsey I personally have less of an issue with because between him and Rickard they really were instrumental in creating the mega star sporting figure and million dollar gates and such things so you can kind of see the argument for including him.

Aye, Dempsey earns his place thanks to taking boxing to a financial level which had been unimaginable only a few years before. Attendance records against Tunney, five gates which topped the $1 million mark which had never been done before (I think the second Tunney fight might have even tipped over the $2 million mark according to Cavanaugh's biography) and it wasn't until the second Conn-Louis fight more than two decades later that the $1 million barrier was broken again.

Unmistakably the biggest name in the first century of Queensberry boxing until a certain Muhammad Ali came along.

It's a bit trickier with Marciano, but as you say he belonged to an era which is always looked back upon by boxing historians as a golden one for the sport, just as television was taking it to a new level and before the true level of Mob influence was known to the public. Regardless of how flattering or overplayed a record it is, 49-0 is one of the most iconic figures in sport. I've known many casuals who basically never watch boxing and take no real interest in it, but ask them who the only undefeated Heavyweight champion was, and usually they'll answer Rocky Marciano.

That is true but even so would have thought Foreman or Frazier would have been a more attractive option than Marciano.

Most of these things start well but they tend to all go the same way and that's downhill.

Very true chris re Marciano, the 49-0 is almost like Bradman's test average, you do not have to follow the sport obsessively to know it.

However it's bound to be usurped by 10-1-1

There's a lot more Mexicans visiting Vegas who will expect to see JCC than Aussies / New Zealanders and even many of those probably have never heard of Fitz anyway.

It's basically the IBRO list.

1. Sugar Ray Robinson
2. Harry Greb
3. Henry Armstrong
4. Muhammad Ali       (Tie)
4. Joe Louis                 (Tie)
6. Sam Langford
7. Roberto Duran
8. Benny Leonard
9. Willie Pep
10. Bob Fitzsimmons
11. Joe Gans
12. Ezzard Charles        (Tie)
12. Sugar Ray Leonard (Tie)
14. Jimmy Wilde
15. Eder Jofre
16. Mickey Walker
17. Archie Moore
18. Jack Dempsey
19. Jack Johnson
20. Gene Tunney

Just missing the cut: Stanley Ketchel, Barbados Joe Walcott, Rocky Marciano, Tony Canzoneri, Barney Ross, Ike Williams, George Dixon, Sandy Saddler, Roy Jones Jr., and Larry Holmes.
 
 

They threw in John L. Sulivan for name recognition it seems

Any list with Archie in it is fine by me.

Glad Whittaker has ben left out...because people forget Boxing is a form of entertainment and that If everybody fought like Pernell there would be no boxing fans and the sport would die on it's butt..

A guy that runs from little featherweight Nelson....

He's a stinker and doesn't belong there..

Thats a bit controversial there Truss. I personally don't mind watching Whitaker fight, granted he stunk the place out a fair few times, but I genuinely quite enjoyed his fight with Chavez and actually pushed him back at times, had a very good fight with McGirt also. The ODLH fight was also good, same with Hurtado, could go on and on, granted he stunk the place out more often than not, but he was in some ok fights. It's not his fault that fighters weren't good enough to make fights actually competetive with him, but the sheer fact that people couldn't do that to him in his prime is a sheer indication of the fact he should surely be in the Boxing Hall of Fame due to an incredible skillset.