Is Pacquiao a top 10 ATG?

Considering belts, wins and longevity, there’s a strong case for his being top 10. Top 20 anyway. It’s all about subjectivity and how you rank criteria.
 
I think so but boxing historians are generally unwilling to revisit all time great lists. No one is willing to bump someone like Roberto Duran from a top spot for a modern fighter.
 
When considering head to head battles, natural weight and age need to come into play.
I don’t doubt Floyd beats Manny at any point in their careers, but Pac’s Natural ideal weight is probably 122-126. Floyd is probably
ideally a 140 pounder. That’s 3-4 weight classes, so Floyd wins head to head, but is he really greater because of that? I don’t think so.
Same reason I think Duran is greater than SRL, Duran is naturally a lightweight and Leonard a Welter. Ray would beat him the majority of the time, but he’s also naturally bigger.
Even recently, Mikey Garcia lost to Errol Spence, but at this point I think Mikey is the greater fighter.

Manny was a welterweight for 7 yrs before he fought floyd, the situation is a bit different to mikey garcia's vs Spence

PAc could easily make the top 10, but when I see people using his victory over thurman as justification for a all time top 10 slot, I have to question it

Robinson
Leonard
floyd
ali
louis
willie pep
harry greb
gene tunney
roy jones jn
Duran
pac
barney ross
jack johnson
 
Manny was a welterweight for 7 yrs before he fought floyd, the situation is a bit different to mikey garcia's vs Spence

PAc could easily make the top 10, but when I see people using his victory over thurman as justification for a all time top 10 slot, I have to question it

Robinson
Leonard
floyd
ali
louis
willie pep
harry greb
gene tunney
roy jones jn
Duran
pac
barney ross
jack johnson
See, for me, Harry Greb is the sort of guy that fighters like Floyd and Pac have surpassed. What did Greb do? Fight a lot? He fought a few legit opponents and about 100 tomato cans. His record is recognized as 107-8-3 yet he had only 7 title fights.
 
See, for me, Harry Greb is the sort of guy that fighters like Floyd and Pac have surpassed. What did Greb do? Fight a lot? He fought a few legit opponents and about 100 tomato cans. His record is recognized as 107-8-3 yet he had only 7 title fights.

Those Legit opponents included gene Tunney, for a 5'8 middleweight to defeat a future undisputed, ATG heavyweight champion , in his prime, is extraordinary. As a one off, in isolation trumps anything pac, or almost anyone on this list did
 
Those Legit opponents included gene Tunney, for a 5'8 middleweight to defeat a future undisputed, ATG heavyweight champion , in his prime, is extraordinary. As a one off, in isolation trumps anything pac, or almost anyone on this list did
Should I list Pac's legit opponents? Thurman, Cotto, MArquez, Margarito, Hatton, Morales, Barerra..... What does a guy have to do to be better than a guy who beat Gene Tunney?
 
PAC is great. I just think perhaps greb is greater, Greb faced 16 hall of famers, including tommy lachlan a man 4 inches taller than greb, who was twice fighter of the yr and a light heavyweight champ, and greb beat him mutlipe times

I thought pac was the topman in a tough featherweight div. The only elite division that he was absolutely dominant in, he largely skipped lightweights and then was the no.2 guy amongst the welterweights . Great showing, of course in the olden days, if he wanted to become welterweight champ, he may have had to go thru floyd and that would have been problematic for him.

Could easily go as high 9 maybe 8. A more spectacular fighter than greb, but not better IMO
 
PAC is great. I just think perhaps greb is greater, Greb faced 16 hall of famers, including tommy lachlan a man 4 inches taller than greb, who was twice fighter of the yr and a light heavyweight champ, and greb beat him mutlipe times

I thought pac was the topman in a tough featherweight div. The only elite division that he was absolutely dominant in, he largely skipped lightweights and then was the no.2 guy amongst the welterweights . Great showing, of course in the olden days, if he wanted to become welterweight champ, he may have had to go thru floyd and that would have been problematic for him.

Could easily go as high 9 maybe 8. A more spectacular fighter than greb, but not better IMO
Pac-
-----------

Greb-

Professional Record

----------------------------------------------------


Pac smokes him.





 
Pac-
-----------

Greb-

Professional Record

----------------------------------------------------


Pac smokes him.





No way does Greb get smoked by anybody

Many of Manny's greatest opponents would look like "tomato cans" in Greb's era, where there are no junior weight classes and 1 world title in each weight class
people like; Chatchai Sasakul, Lehlo Ledwaba, Jorge Eliecer Julio, Oscar Larios, Joshua Clottey, Brandon Rios, Chris Algieri, Jessie Vargas, Medgoen Singsurat, Jeff Horn, and Agapito Sanchez may have nowhere near a world title, if we had Greb's era's rules. Yet you list these guys as if beating them was this great accomplishment.

You didn't list people Greb beat like Jeff smith, listed as the 10th best middleweight of all time by the founder of ring magazine, mike gibbons listed at 9, Levinsky, 4 inches taller than greb, who was world light heavyweight champ for 4 yrs, 9th greatest light heavyweight in that list
Jack dillon a world light heavyweight champ, in the days of 1 title,
o'dowd who was middleweight champ for 4 yrs
Mctigue who was middleweight champ for 3 yrs

I reckon the Hatton, Barrera, Morales, diaz and maybe Juan Marquez wins may have been wins on a similiar level. None of these wins were on the level of the Tunney or Loughran wins however
 
Last edited:
No way does Greb get smoked by anybody

Many of Manny's greatest opponents would look like "tomato cans" in Greb's era, where there are no junior weight classes and 1 world title in each weight class
people like; Chatchai Sasakul, Lehlo Ledwaba, Jorge Eliecer Julio, Oscar Larios, Joshua Clottey, Brandon Rios, Chris Algieri, Jessie Vargas, Medgoen Singsurat, Jeff Horn, and Agapito Sanchez may have nowhere near a world title, if we had Greb's era's rules. Yet you list these guys as if beating them was this great accomplishment.

You didn't list people Greb beat like Jeff smith, listed as the 10th best middleweight of all time by the founder of ring magazine, mike gibbons listed at 9, Levinsky, 4 inches taller than greb, who was world light heavyweight champ for 4 yrs, 9th greatest light heavyweight in that list
Jack dillon a world light heavyweight champ, in the days of 1 title,
o'dowd who was middleweight champ for 4 yrs
Mctigue who was middleweight champ for 3 yrs

I reckon the Hatton, Barrera, Morales, diaz and maybe Juan Marquez wins may have been wins on a similiar level. None of these wins were on the level of the Tunney or Loughran wins however
eh, I went through all the material on Greb years ago. I don't believe his resume is all that deep in comparison to some greats who have come along since.
Who came up with that all time list from Ring you mentioned? That sounds like Nat Fleischer to me, exactly the sort of guy who will never consider anyone post 1980 as great, no matter what they did.

I personally just think the "golden ages" of boxing are massively overrated in a statistical sense. Guys get credit for beating sparring partner level opponents, they get to excuse losses because they had a lot of fights, etc. Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather did more in and for boxing than Greb did. I honestly don't believe anyone could make a list of 10 fighters that are clearly better than Pac and Floyd.

Tunney btw, I don't quite get why that one fight is superior to Pac's entire resume. And really, while we're examining resumes, how has Tunney's resume withstood the test of time? You're telling me we haven't seen a ton of guys who accomplished more than Tunney?
 
eh, I went through all the material on Greb years ago. I don't believe his resume is all that deep in comparison to some greats who have come along since.
Who came up with that all time list from Ring you mentioned? That sounds like Nat Fleischer to me, exactly the sort of guy who will never consider anyone post 1980 as great, no matter what they did.

Yes, that is him. Even if these guys are in the top 10 from 1880 - 1980. That is impressive, these wins deserve to be listed, do you think think Joshua clottey, Lucas Martín Matthysse, Brandon Lee Ríos et al would make it into the top 10 of their weight class from even just 2000 - 2010?

I personally just think the "golden ages" of boxing are massively overrated in a statistical sense. Guys get credit for beating sparring partner level opponents, they get to excuse losses because they had a lot of fights, etc. Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather did more in and for boxing than Greb did. I honestly don't believe anyone could make a list of 10 fighters that are clearly better than Pac and Floyd.

Tunney btw, I don't quite get why that one fight is superior to Pac's entire resume. And really, while we're examining resumes, how has Tunney's resume withstood the test of time? You're telling me we haven't seen a ton of guys who accomplished more than Tunney?

Which 1 win from pac was as good as Greb's win over (4 inch taller) tunney, an ATG dominant heavyweight, who was undefeated at heavyweight who twice beat fellow ATG dempsey?
 
I agree the win over Tunney is a great one, but that still one huge win. Leon Spinks has a win over Ali, Hasim Rahman has a KO over Lewis.
There are actually quite a few wins Pac has on his record that I think are in the same realm as Greb's win over Tunney, or if not equal, really close.
I love Joe Louis and Roy Jones, but both of them do not have the quality wins that Pac has on his record. In fact, outside of Ali and Robinson, I'm not sure anyone really does. Floyd has more great wins on his record that most of those guys too.
 
It’s actually very impressive that many of you can hold legit conversations about boxers who were born in the 1800s
 
Sometimes I think Tidwell makes burner accounts just so he could talk about Pacquiao and then trash him with his primary account.
 
I agree the win over Tunney is a great one, but that still one huge win. Leon Spinks has a win over Ali, Hasim Rahman has a KO over Lewis.
There are actually quite a few wins Pac has on his record that I think are in the same realm as Greb's win over Tunney, or if not equal, really close.
I love Joe Louis and Roy Jones, but both of them do not have the quality wins that Pac has on his record. In fact, outside of Ali and Robinson, I'm not sure anyone really does. Floyd has more great wins on his record that most of those guys too.

It is difficult to compare dominant champions (Louis, Ali, WLad, Hagler), with weight jumpers (Floyd, roy, manny Duran)

I put Roy and floyd ahead of manny, as they jumped weight and were dominant almost untouchable at the higher weight classes( well roy was until 2003)
Manny's record is a little patchier, but Henry armstrong's record is even patchier so I have him below manny for now.

Joe Louis has the most title defences at 1 weight class of all time, it would take a lot to be higher than him in the ranking, only the very best of the weight jumper IMO
 
It’s actually very impressive that many of you can hold legit conversations about boxers who were born in the 1800s

Imo these ATG discussions should be divided into fighters we have enough material about to judge and the ones we dont. Doesnt mean they were bad but just that discussions dont make sense nowadays.

Greb may have very well been the best but we simply dont have a measuring stick to rate his performances.
 
Back
Top