The Pound for Pound Debate: Origins, Questions, Issues and Controversies (Part I)
By Teodoro Medina Reynoso
PhilBoxing.com
Wed, 28 Aug 2019
Sugar Ray Robinson.
Manny Pacquiao has recently been reinstated in the Ring Magazine pound for pound list, last in elite roster of the best ten fighters in the world.
The fighting legislator used to top the P4P list in the later part of the last decade and early to middle portions of the current one.
This has sparked some debates and prompted the author to revisit the beginnings and the concept of the boxing pound for pound and dwell on surrounding questions, issues and controversies.
Part One: Origins
The title as best pound for pound fighter was first officially bestowed upon American boxer par excellence Walker Smith, Jr. better known as Sugar Ray Robinson.
Ring Magazine founder and editor in chief Nat Fleischer was generally recognized as the man who originated that phrase back in the late 30s, early 40s, in the era that produced the likes of Mickey Walker, Tony Canzoneri, Barney Ross, Henry Armstrong, Joe Louis and later on, Robinson.
Significantly, boxing scribes of that time (as today) were in conformity that the best pound for pound fighter not only of that era but of all time was Robinson with Louis and Armstrong as his closest rivals for the honor.
Since then, the title of best pound for pound fighter was used to define a boxer who in theory could have emerged and fought in any of the then just eight (now 17) weight classes and remained as brilliantly dominant at whatever division.
Therefore under this principle, Louis who was a heavyweight was believed to be just as great if he happened to emerge and fight in the lower weights.
However, what distinguished Robinson and Armstrong was that they managed to establish their quality and dominance as pound for pound fighters in actual practice having fought and dominated in not just one weight class.
Robinson reigned in the welterweights and the middleweights in the 40s and 50s.
Henry Armstrong.
On the other hand, Armstrong held and still holds the distinction as the first fighter to win and hold world championships simultaneously in three weight classes? ---featherweight, welterweight and lightweight in mid to late 1930s.
Armstrong would eventually opted to keep only the welterweight crown that he won from another multi-division titlist Barney Ross, vacating the featherweight and losing the lightweight title in a rematch versus Lou Ambers.
Therefore, though the title as best pound for pound fighter has been regarded as essentially theoretical or mythical, this has not prevented fighters of succeeding generations to prove it in practice.
Hence, after another great heavyweight inherited the title from Robinson in the person of Muhammad Ali who dominated boxing in the 60s and the 70s, the distinction passed on to fighters in the lower weights who dominated in more than one weight division.
Leonard and Duran.
Excellent fighters such as "Hands of Stone" Roberto Duran and Sugar Ray Leonard in the 80s, and Julio Cesar Chavez, Roy Jones Jr., Pernell Whitaker and Oscar de la Hoya in the 90s.
It should be mentioned though that heavyweights Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield had briefly ruled in the pound for pound roost at some points in the 80s and the 90s.
The trend continued in the new millennium with De La Hoya and Floyd Mayweather, Jr. crowding heavyweights Lennox Lewis and Vladimir Klitschko for the honor as best pound for pound fighter in the planet.
Then came a formerly obscure fighter from the Philippines who proceeded to break the hold of American and Latin American fighters to the singular and signal honor and distinction.
His name was Emmanuel Dapidran Pacquiao aka Manny Pacquiao, the "Pacman," later rechristened "The Pacmonster."
To be continued...
The author Teodoro Medina?Reynoso?is a veteran boxing radio talk show host living in the Philippines.?? He can be reached at?teddyreynoso@yahoo.com?and by phone 09215309477.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Teodoro Medina Reynoso.
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