boxing will become. What follows are the 10 best male boxers of the 21st century so far. It’s a pound-for-pound list, which itself is something that has risen to define boxing in recent years, somehow existing in the space between magical thinking and the most important real-world metric for determining a fighter’s value. As such, would- be analysts weigh their criteria in different proportions – results and accomplishments are king, of course, but some value “the eye test” more than others. Measurable quantities like win percentages and the number of divisions traversed and conquered must be considered alongside physical attributes like speed and power, the full range of boxing skills and intangibles like intelligence, creativity and the metallic content of one’s chin. Finally, in order to put a rating on the quality of a fighter’s opposition, all of those questions must again be asked about the people they fought. It’s an arbitrarily scientific equation about everything except boxing’s most fundamental structure: divisions. After narrowing the field down to some top contenders, then it’s just a battle royale in wonderland to pick a winner. To do that, we polled members of the Ring Ratings panel, compiled individual Top 10 lists and assigned scores based on the fighters’ positions in each one. Those scores were then added up to build the final list. Keep in mind, this is a list that ranks fighters who have defined the past 25 years, and that’s how panelists were asked to make their picks. There are pound-for-pound kings of the past, like De La Hoya and Jones, who fought into the new century but are rooted in the previous one, so you won’t see their names here (Jones did get a lot of votes, however). Others who do fit the time frame garnered votes from the panel but just missed the cut. The notables, in the descending order of their vote tallies, include Juan Manuel Marquez, Jones, Wladimir Klitschko, Gennadiy Golovkin, Joe Calzaghe and Nonito Donaire. »
THE FIRST 25 YEARS OF THE 21 ST CENTURY HAVE SEEN THE RISE (AND SOMETIMES FALL) OF MANY ICONIC FIGHTERS
QUARTER MASTERS BY BRIAN HARTY
T he world was supposed to end 26 years ago. In a Cinderella story from hell, every machine from microwave ovens to nuclear reactors was going to turn into a brick at the stroke of midnight on December 31, 1999, leaving Earth’s people to wake up amid blank screens and declined credit cards – a total collapse of digital infrastructure, all because of an early programming blunder called the Y2K bug. But aside from widespread Armageddon-prep buyer’s remorse, maybe a few more hangovers than usual and the occasional electronic calendar showing the date as January 1, 1900, it was just another New Year’s Day. Boxing was also supposed to be facing oblivion as the 20th century neared its end. The Julio Cesar Chavez era was fading into the distance. Where Mike Tyson had once stood, only a puddle remained. Superstars of the ’90s like Oscar De La Hoya, Felix Trinidad and Roy Jones Jr. were either looking down from or a bit past their peaks. The heavyweight division was going to suck without Lennox Lewis and
Evander Holyfield. Nobody would shine in the eyes of purists like Pernell Whitaker and Ricardo Lopez had. At best, boxing wouldn’t be what it used to be, and at worst it was toast. But it seems like boxing is having a Y2K moment every other month. In Self Defence; or, The Art of Boxing , Ned Donnelly wrote: “As it is, the school of boxing is rapidly dying out, and when the professors of the present day have passed away it will be hard to say where the new ones are to come from.” That was in 1879. Donnelly needn’t have gotten his mustache in a twist. John L. Sullivan was still a few years away from becoming the heavyweight champion. Jack Johnson had just been born. Jack Dempsey’s birth was still 16 years in the future, and the world would wait another 26 years after that to welcome Walker Smith Jr., aka Sugar Ray Robinson. The Ring Magazine hatched the year after little Ray did. The 20th century was very good for boxing (and vice versa), but it’s history now. Several new professors have emerged in the new millennium, and the talk now isn’t so much about boxing dying as it is about what
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