1982 - The year of the invincibles ??

Limon and Laciar are probably the weak links but can't think there are many years with this line up.......

Heavy - Larry Holmes
lightheavy - Michael Spinks
midd - Marvin Hagler
jr Midd - Thomas hearns
welt - Ray Leonard
jr welt - Aaron Pryor
light - Alexis Arguello
jr light - Rafael Limon
Feath - Salvador Sanchez
Jr Feath - Wilfredo Gomez
Bantam - Lupe Pintor
Fly - santos Laciar

Awesome. Laciar is an all-time great as well, so only the highly respected Limon and Pintor are short of that status. I think there might have been a time in the 70s when the champs included men such as Foreman, Foster, Monzon, Napoles, Duran, Jofre and Olivares simultaneously, but it's hard to top the depth of 82. Nice trip down memory lane.

Cheers Captain.....Must admit I am a massive 80's fan.....

Should think there are a few good lists from the 40s ....

Would have been even more fabulous in the 40s if the right guys had been allowed to be champs at middle and light-heavy. In 45, for the sake of argument, you might have had a list of champs that read: Louis, Charles, Burley, Robinson, Ike Williams, Pep, Ortiz, Paterson.

Paterson would have been the weak link (he'd just KO'd the great Peter Kane for the flyweight crown), but he was still pretty useful. The rest, though....ouch.

Suspect this is a year that will take some topping, obviously a bit tricky going too far back through having less divisions but having done a bit of quick digging 1939 had some quality, Escobar at bantam, Conn at light heavy, Louis at heavy and Armstrong at welter, Garcia at middle brings the batting average down a little but still looks a decent year on the face of it.

Always had a lot of time for Ike Williams..........Compassionnate guy who had the "audacity" to manage himself.......

How Beau Jack survived that blitz I'll never know......

Helluva list for sure....

Loved to have had a matchup with the 8o's lot!!

Using HG wells timemachine!!!

I'll chuck 1908 into the pot.....Don't think there were even 8 divisions back then but.........

Heavy - Johnson
midd - Ketchel
light - Gans
Feath - Attell.......................

decent lineup...........

Have only done very quick research but some years in the early 20's look pretty strong, Benny Leonard ruling the roost at lightweight, Dempsey at heavy and Greb atop the middle weight tree. Light heavy appears to drag things down with guys like McTigue and Siki holding belts, but given there were also times Walker had his hands on the welter belt there is some decent periods around this time, still struggling to match 1982 for sheer consistency across the board though.

At the other end of the scale, I've come up with 1932 as possibly the weakest year for boxing, proving that there have always been fallow periods in the sport's history.

The champions for that year: Heavy - Max Schmeling/Jack Sharkey; Light-Heavy - George Nichols; Middle - Gorilla Jones/Marcel Thil; Welter - Jackie Fields; Light - Tony Canzoneri; Feather - Tommy Paul; Bantam - Panama Al Brown; Fly - Victor Perez/Jackie Brown

Remarkably ordinary group, with the exceptions of Canzoneri and Panama Al. It just goes to show that the good old days had their flaws too!

Dear god that is poor captain, suspect you have set a bar that will take some getting under with that lot.

Terrible for an 8 division era. Can you imagine the reading if it was 17 divisions?

Just about all the quality in the early 30s was shoe-horned into the 135-140 lb range, manos, and there was in fact a respected and recognised light-welter title on offer at the time as well. You had Canzoneri, Kid Chocolate, Billy Petrolle and our own Jack Kid Berg all vying for the same belts.

North of 140, though, a complete desert for three or four years until the advent of men like Ross, McLarnin, JH Lewis and ultimately, of course, Armstrong and Louis.

I think our ages draw us to the 80's truss, but we were damn lucky. I reckon, there must have been a decent group in the late. 80's, where many of those names were still operating, and you had holy, Tyson, Chavez, Whittaker, nelson, galaxy. Probably didn't have the decency to hold belts at the right weights at the right time to compare to 1982. You could get a pretty tasty list in the early 90's too.

captain carrantuohil wrote:Fly - Victor Perez

A truly heroic individual in the true definition of the term. His exploits in Auschwitz are worth more than any Flyweight world title.

Not a bad little boxer either.

Been reading about Perez, Tino. A tragic, awful tale.

Did he feature in your series Tina, before you moan about me not remembering I voted for it in the end of year awards, more a tactical thing to try and deny chris is rightful award, fat lot of good it ended up doing me.

captain carrantuohil wrote:Been reading about Perez, Tino. A tragic, awful tale.

I did a thread on him at the beginning of last year, Captain. I think you may have been AWOL at the time but I fell in love with the story straight away when researching him. Truly remarkable man and fighter to the very end.

The mental image I have of Young Perez lying dead in the snow on the 'death march', having stolen food for some of the weaker prisoners is one that won't ever leave me.

Rowley wrote:Did he feature in your series Tina, before you moan about me not remembering I voted for it in the end of year awards, more a tactical thing to try and deny chris is rightful award, fat lot of good it ended up doing me.

Me, moan?

Yes Jeff, he was the very first one in the series. All stemmed from a picture of Primo Carnera holding him on his hip.

Although he may not be as celebrated as others in series like Barney Ross or Pancho Villa, I have to admit, Perez is my favourite by some distance.

Thought the name rang a bell, is about time Eugene Baldry made his appearance Tina, if you don't get your finger out might write it myself.

Rowley wrote:Thought the name rang a bell, is about time Eugene Baldry made his appearance Tina, if you don't get your finger out might write it myself.

I thought it was Eugene Bullard?

And you said you would PM me some stuff that you had already read about him? Perhaps I will write something when you keep up your end of the bargain...

It is Bullard, will send you the stuff over the next couple of days mate, am off work so will work out how to use the scanner at home, I have a couple of books with loads about him in so will get them over to you

Rowley wrote:It is Bullard, will send you the stuff over the next couple of days mate, am off work so will work out how to use the scanner at home, I have a couple of books with loads about him in so will get them over to you

Cheers Jeff.

When I see them I will try to do the guy some justice.

Milky I tried my best to make it 83 so I could work CURRY in..

But then Leonard and I think Sanchez and Arguello dropped out..

Broke my heart when I saw that!!

How can you call limon a weak link.

Man was a monster.

The same way you'd call Rooney a weak link If he was put up against Messi and Ronaldo..

Quite possibly the greatest year in boxing history given those list of champions. Each would hold his own against the best ever in their respective division.