A boxing historian with the Twitter handle @BoxerJoeGrim, named for a turn-of-the-20th-century heavyweight who lost consistently but never gave up, posted a fascinating image of a newspaper column written by the legendary Grantland Rice in 1925.
The article (see below) demonstrates that the concept of pound-for-pound predates by many years Sugar Ray Robinson, for whom many seem to believe the term was coined.
“Who is the best fighter in the world for weight – pound for pound?,” Rice wrote. “Our vote goes to Jimmy Slattery – with Mickey Walker possibly in second place.”
Boxing writer Cliff Rold, an astute boxing historian, commented on Joe Grim’s post, Tweeting: “There were lists of the best overall fighters across divisions that used to appear in all sorts of big papers regularly, some using the expression and some not. All the same thought.”
The myth that boxing's "pound for pound" expression was coined for Sugar Ray Robinson is increasingly being replaced by a new, more subtle, myth – that he prompted writers to start formally ranking fighters on a P4P basis. This is also untrue – take this 1925 piece for example: pic.twitter.com/DBzKuO8cJC
— Joe Grim (@BoxerJoeGrim) April 12, 2020
Added another knowledgeable historian, Doug Fischer, Editor-in-Chief of The Ring Magazine: “The #P4P concept goes back to the late 1800s, as Bob Fitzsimmons was described by newspaper scribes as the best boxer ‘regardless of weight’ during his prime.”
To which Joe Grim responded: “At times they also used the exact ‘pound-for-pound’ expression to describe him as well. So many things trace back to Fitz. P4P got a foothold due to him (though not coined for him) as did ‘the bigger they are …,’ which he also popularized (but also not coined for or by him).”
So there you have it, a short lesson on the long life of the term “pound-for-pound.”
And one more thing: Jimmy Slattery? He received heady praise from Rice, who presumably knew what he was writing about.
Slattery, one of the top light heavyweights of the 1920s and early ’30s and a Hall of Famer, was a brilliant, graceful boxer who fought on even terms with some of the greatest fighters in history. He was a two-time 175-pound champ who finished with a record of 111-13 (14 KOs).
And as Rice pointed out, the product of Buffalo, New York, might’ve the best in the business at that moment.
TV commentator Max Kellerman chimed in on the Twitter thread by commenting: “Most interesting thing here is that Slattery is ranked #1. He left a big impression back then. I was asked to write something for Jeff Fenech’s HOF induction, & in the original draft referenced Slattery as an example, like Fenech, of fighter who at his best looked like ATG.”
Check out Boxing Junkie’s pound-for-pound list below. And let us know what you think.
BOXING JUNKIE
POUND-FOR-POUND
- Vasiliy Lomachenko
- Terence Crawford
- Canelo Alvarez
- Naoya Inoue
- Oleksandr Usyk
- Gennadiy Golovkin
- Errol Spence Jr.
- Tyson Fury
- Juan Francisco Estrada
- Mikey Garcia
- Artur Beterbiev
- Josh Taylor
- Manny Pacquiao
- Srisaket Sor Rungvisai
- Leo Santa Cruz
Honorable mention (alphabetical order): Miguel Berchelt, Mairis Briedis, Teofimo Lopez, Shawn Porter and Kosei Tanaka
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