Greatest feat in boxing history?

To me it’s Armstrong simultaneously holding three of the existing eight weight division belts and also fighting to a draw for a version of the middleweight title. Unfathomable.

 

Mike Tyson unifying the belts in the Heavy weight division.

 

It’s Armstrong with this for me as well, & he’s overall my number two all-timer. Even Robinson has to yield the silver to him. Only Greb’s overall career eclipses him.

 

Not to diminish Pacquiao’s eight belts, because that’s not my intent, but he benefits from all the additional classes so many legends through time never had access to.

It’s a little similar to an argument I once saw back when the Olympics had essentially only two names - Usain Bolt, & Michael Phelps. Phelps had many more gold medals, but he also had much more opportunity. Had Bolt been able to participate in things like a 100m backward, 100m sideways sprint etc, more gold may have come. Same with these extra weights in Pacquiao’s time.

 

Douglas knocking out Tyson.

 

I'd parallel this with Ali's KO of Foreman; in both cases, the champ (Foreman, Tyson) was seeing as an unbeatable monster who had run amok in the HW division, facing someone who had been beaten several times - and in Ali's case, Foreman had easily defeated the two men who gave him his losses. But the betting odds between the two are startling: Foreman/Ali was 3 or 4:1 before the fight. Douglas was seen as a 42:1 underdog. If I had a time machine, I'd take everything I had, go back to 1990 and put it all on Douglas.

Both men winning shocked the world, even outside of boxing, and I think that's the mark of something historic -

Just my .02 ...

 

freddy welsh points win over benny leonard.

welsh was a normal guy who drank too much. benny leonard was a straight up goat.

 

But even if Pac accomplished what he did in the 1920s or 30s, he would still be champ at fly, bantam (assuming he doesn’t skip it for 122 like he did), feather, light, super-light, and welter. He was lineal champ in 5 divisions and champion in 4 historical divisions which is still the greater feat purely numbers wise compared to Armstrong’s 3. As a club swimmer too, competing in different strokes takes an insane amount of dedication to master each one and be able to compete with other swimmers who often exclusively swim a single stroke is an insane accomplishment. I can swim a kilometre in front crawl easily but I would die if I had to swim a 200 fly. You have to be a certified masochist to compete in 200 fly and the amount of talent it takes to compete in a 400 IM is ridiculous. Every event has different pacing and techniques. I can easily do a fly touch turn or a back flip turn, but I’ve never figured out how to do a fly to back turn in an IM. A 1500 m freestyle swimmer has a completely different swimming style compared to a 100 m freestyle swimmer for example, down to the basic arm pull, kick, and breathing. Bolt had the chance to run the 400 m at all his Olympics but chose to focus on the 100 and 200 instead as well as the relay. Bolt just hated running a 400. Comparing across athletic disciplines is a troublesome task anyway though.

 

As stated, I wasn’t diminishing Pacquiao’s accolades - if they weren’t special, other people would have achieved them. Just it’s worth noting that there were divisions there a lot of greats never saw.

 

At his Peak Sugar Ray Robinson was 128 - 1 - 2 with his only loss to another all timer Jake LaMotta who he then beat 5 times after that. He also NEVER took a 10 count in 200 fights. IDK, that seems pretty untouchable to me.

 

On the Ring annual ratings, Vander made is 18 consecutive years, Louis made it 15 straight and 17 out of 18 in the top ten. Duran made it 12 years straight. Other than that...

 

Disagree, Pac benefited from modern weigh ins and had an entire day to rehydrate while you had to be ready to fight same day after the scale before the late 1980's. He struggled hard making Flyweight and was even a pound over the weight limit when he got KO'd by Sangsurat, I doubt he'd ever win a Flyweight or Bantamweight title in the 1930's. I can easily see him being a 3 division world champion during that day though, although I don't know how he'd do at Middleweight.

 

For me, George Foreman knocking out Michael Moorer to regain the Heavyweight Lineal Title is the greatest feat in boxing history.