Who doesn’t love a good boxing match? Whether it’s lightweight, heavyweight, featherweight, or even women boxers in any weight class, it’s always fun to sit back and watch two competitors go at each other in the ring. But who’s the best at doing that? Let’s find out.
These are the 5 greatest boxers of all time.
- Floyd Mayweather Jr.
Mayweather is regarded by many as one of the greatest defensive boxers ever. He is the most accurate puncher ever, recorded to have the greatest plus-minus ratio in the history of professional boxing.
He was undefeated throughout his professional career, winning 50 of his 50 fights.
- Rocky Marciano
Rocky is one of the greatest heavyweight fighters the sport has ever seen. He is literally the only heavyweight boxer to go his entire professional boxing career without losing a single match.
Of his 49 victories, 43 of them were won by knockout which means that he had an 87.76% knockout percentage, the highest of any heavyweight boxer in history.
- Joe Louis
Louis was not just a great boxer, he was a very influential figure. Many regard him as the first African-American to reach hero status in the US. That should tell you how good he was in the ring.
The Brown Bomber, as he was fondly called, had 69 fights in his professional career and won 66 of them. He was successful in 25 successive title defenses, a standing record across all weight classes.
- Muhammad Ali
Ali is one of the most influential sports figures of the 20th century. Some call him the greatest heavyweight boxer of all time, but many more just simply call him The Greatest.
He won 56 of his 61 professional career fights.
Muhammad Ali had so many iconic moments in and out of the ring. He famously dodged 21 punches in 10 seconds in a fight against Michael Dokes, he produced one of the greatest boxing photos of all time when he stood over a fallen Sonny Liston at just 22 years of age, but most iconic of all has to be him refusing to be drafted into the US military in 1966.
And oh, he is easily the greatest trash-talker in the history of sports.
- Sugar Ray Robinson
Now, this is the greatest boxer the sport has ever seen. Fans, sportswriters, trainers, and even fellow boxers seem to agree that Sugar Ray Robinson is the greatest boxer ever. And when we say fellow boxers, that includes the likes of Joe Louis and Muhammad Ali.
The term “pound for pound” was coined because of him, so that boxers across different weight classes could be compared. You see, Robinson was not a heavyweight fighter, but pound for pound, he was the greatest boxer that ever stepped foot in a ring.
He was so great that he inspired several other fighters to pick up the nickname “Sugar”: Sugar Ray Leonard and Sugar Shane Mosely, for example. Now, that’s a level of influence you just cannot touch.
