Ring Magazine's greatest fighters by division.

[The D3vil]

Remember Ring's ownership & writers room has changed multiple times.

Guys like Nat probably have a different view point than Dougie Fischer & Oscar De La Hoya's folks.

Guys like Ezzard Charles have been elevated over time thanks to people realizing he beat Archie Moore 3x.

I feel like Harry Greb has been elevated over the years too, in spite of the fact that no one's seen him fight.

[Slugfester]

Lists are mostly guesswork, intuition and especially reputation. I don't like intuition. It is overrated like spontaneity. A new generation comes along that suddenly ranks Charles highly and everyone jumps on board--fans, editors, aficionados, casuals. It takes a while for one reputation to fade and another to replace it. Charles may yet fall from grace again--everyone else has. Think of how highly William Henry Harrison was once regarded.

[Willie Pep 229]

Lists are mostly guesswork, intuition and especially reputation. I don't like intuition. It is overrated like spontaneity. A new generation comes along that suddenly ranks Charles highly and everyone jumps on board--fans, editors, aficionados, casuals. It takes a while for one reputation to fade and another to replace it. Charles may yet fall from grace again--everyone else has. Think of how highly William Henry Harrison was once regarded.

Did you mean William Harrison Dempsey?

The 9th President was not highly regarded. Never really got his wheel under him, i.e. dropped dead in 31 days.

But in the early years he was truly loved by the pioneer class out West (as an Indian killer) and that's why Dempsey was named after him.

Tippecanoe and Tyler too! (Election of 1840).

First candidate of the Zero Year Club; founder of the curse.

[DeeMoney]

Outside of Foster, who was the current Lt Heavy champ at the time of the initial ranking, all those men were older than Charles; and save for Archie, significantly older. Save for Foster, which is a different circumstance, everyone Ezzard leapfrogged was older than he (despite the fact that it had been over 20 years since his last light heavyweight bout). So I imagine there could be a couple of factors at play:

-Back in My Day- If you figure that a lot of these writers grew up watching an older generation than Charles' and they want to give it credit, that could play a part. In essence they have a bias from being attached to one generation. This happens a lot in historic debates; luckily for us, Charles' Light heavyweight career was before most of us were alive (let alone watching boxing). So while we can differentiate it from another era (Pre WWI, Depression era, etc), we don't have a first hand bias toward either era because they were all before out time. By 1994 Charles' Lt Heavyweight career was over 40 years gone, so most writers would not have had a first hand bias, or it most likely was a positive one.

-Esoteric Appeal- The ol' hipster method. You support a more obscure choice in an effort to show off your knowledge of the obscure; this makes you appear superior to those who choose the more mainstream option. You disassociate yourself with the casuals who choose the more well known option, which may be the correct answer but since its the choice of the masses you can snobishly turn your nose up at the choice. AND you get to show off your knowledge of previous generations; choosing a fighter from the previous century allows you look more knowledgeable.

[QueensburyRules]

Outside of Foster, who was the current Lt Heavy champ at the time of the initial ranking, all those men were older than Charles; and save for Archie, significantly older. Save for Foster, which is a different circumstance, everyone Ezzard leapfrogged was older than he (despite the fact that it had been over 20 years since his last light heavyweight bout). So I imagine there could be a couple of factors at play:

-Back in My Day- If you figure that a lot of these writers grew up watching an older generation than Charles' and they want to give it credit, that could play a part. In essence they have a bias from being attached to one generation. This happens a lot in historic debates; luckily for us, Charles' Light heavyweight career was before most of us were alive (let alone watching boxing). So while we can differentiate it from another era (Pre WWI, Depression era, etc), we don't have a first hand bias toward either era because they were all before out time. By 1994 Charles' Lt Heavyweight career was over 40 years gone, so most writers would not have had a first hand bias, or it most likely was a positive one.

-Esoteric Appeal- The ol' hipster method. You support a more obscure choice in an effort to show off your knowledge of the obscure; this makes you appear superior to those who choose the more mainstream option. You disassociate yourself with the casuals who choose the more well known option, which may be the correct answer but since its the choice of the masses you can snobishly turn your nose up at the choice. AND you get to show off your knowledge of previous generations; choosing a fighter from the previous century allows you look more knowledgeable.

- - That's why I like to throw up Willie Meehan...

Whooped Dempsey AND Langford, now how about that!