How vintage was your year?

First topic message reminder :

Inspired by Truss's 1982 year of the invincibles thread and in the absence of Union who loves this kind of thing, here is a bit of fun that may, or may not, take off. It does involve a wee bit of work and disclosing how old you are, but who were the champions of the 8 original weight classes as of your date of birth. The WBC/WBA split in the early 1960's can cause a bit of grief depending on how old you are, so in that instance, and where there isn't a unified champion, just pick which of the champions you feel is the best.

We can see who was born in the best year.....

Here goes for me (5.11.1977)

Heavyweight: Muhammad Ali
Light Heavyweight: Victor Galindez
Middleweight: Rodrigo Valdez
Welterweight: Carlos Palomino
Lightweight: Roberto Duran
Featherweight: Danny Lopez
Bantamweight: Carlos Zarate
Flyweight: Miguel Canto

Not too shabby a list, and considering I missed out on Monzon at Middleweight by only a couple of months, I am definitely a contender.

Over to you.....

Conteh stronger than Minter, definitely. Stracey stronger than Watt, definitely not, Union. Quality of title reign and opponents beaten, even allowing for the ageing Napoles, are not to be compared.

Was thinking mano a mano, captain.

I have no idea.

Well, your boys are heavier, if that's what you meant, Union!

Mind the windows Tino. wrote:

captain carrantuohil wrote:1980 would have been good for the british contingent, in that you could have had Minter and Watt in your list, with Maurice Hope in light-middleweight support.

1999 would be slightly above average. You could have Lennox Lewis and Naseem Hamed. Not sure how many 14 year old posters we have though.

Waingro still about?

captain carrantuohil wrote:even allowing for the ageing Napoles,

When I met John H at the York Hall, he was singing as a Frank Sinatra tribute act in the middle of the ring between fights. They were playing the Napoles fight in the background on a big canvas screen. Strange night.

Excellent fighter and a surprisingly accomplished singer as well.

Mind the windows Tino. wrote:

TopHat24/7 wrote:I think Boxtthis still takes it personally....

Boxtthis wrote:Mine's a stormer. Got to be the winner (I did more than the main 8 because there were so many good ones)!

02/11/82:

HW - Larry Holmes (and Michael Dokes)
LHW - Michael Spinks/Dwight Muhammad Qawi
MW - Marvin Hagler
LMW - Thomas Hearns (and Davey Moore)
WW - Sugar Ray Leonard
LWW - Aaron Pryor (and Leroy Haley)
LW - Alexis Argüello (and Ray Mancini)
FW - Eusebio Pedroza (and Juan LaPorte)
JFW - Wilfredo Gómez (and Leonardo Cruz)
BW - Lupe Pintor (and Jeff Chandler)
SFlW - Chul-Ho Kim/Jiro Watanabe
FlW - Santos Laciar (and Freddy Castillo)

Aye, agreed. It is saying something about the strength of '82 when Aaron Pryor is not a standout pick.

Pryor is one of my all time favourite fighters, but he's probably mid to lower-mid table here. If he were around circa 2010-2012, it would be him and Floyd that would be the superfight. Even when Pacquiao was a wrecking machine I thought Floyd would be far too slick for him. But, Pryor vs Floyd would be amazing.

Anyway I think we've solved the vintage year question. I can't imagine it getting any better than early November 1982.