THE BEST EVER-THE LETTER "Z"

In the final installment of their wonderful series Ring has selected the final best of and it is the Man of Iron himself, Tony Zale.

http://www.ringtv.com/blog/2303/the_best_of_all_time_a_to_z_zale/

Middleweight champ twice and with wins over guys like Rocky Graziano, Fred Apistoli, Ali Hostak and Nate Bolden Zale was no joke. Truly a hard man.

The honorable mentions included Carlos Zarate (my pick), Daniel Zaragoza (another warrior's warrior), the dirtiest man in the game Fritzie Zivic and then the excellent Mexican 108 Hilario Zapata and tiny 1930's Mexican and lightweight champion Juan Zurita.


In all of the series I have some quibbles but few real complaints.

In the letter I the choice was Ike Ibeabuchi. That's sort of silly when you have Richard Ihetu (Dick Tiger) available.
The exclusion of Harold Johnson from any mention in the J's when Beau Jack, Lew Jenkins and Roy Jones are mentioned is an outright travesty.

But on the whole just fun to think about.

Marble, I agree with your complaints, but if you only had a few, I think they did a great job. Now, Espn's "Athlete of the Century" was a travesty that was a complaint in and of itself.

The whole A to Z thing was a pretty cool idea, you have to admit. Even if it did get off to a terrible start with not picking Ali for "A"

Tobe06 wrote:

The whole A to Z thing was a pretty cool idea, you have to admit. Even if it did get off to a terrible start with not picking Ali for "A"

Agreed. Good idea. And though I didn't say anything, I was shocked that Ali didn't get the As. Oh well. Henry Armstrong was amazing.

4445Frank wrote:

Tobe06 wrote:

The whole A to Z thing was a pretty cool idea, you have to admit. Even if it did get off to a terrible start with not picking Ali for "A"

Agreed. Good idea. And though I didn't say anything, I was shocked that Ali didn't get the As. Oh well. Henry Armstrong was amazing.

As great as Ali was, and he was GREAT, consider for a second what Armstrong did in ten months and what it implied.

October 1937-Armstrong, who had been weighting in around 131-132 for his previous ten fights drops down to 124 and takes out undisputed featherweight champion Petey Sarron in six rounds. No weight draining issues for Henry huh?

In the next five months Armstrong goes 14-0 with 13 KO's including wins over HOFers Baby Arizmendi (who Henry fought a gazillion times) and Chalky Wright, unbeaten, #3 ranked lightweight Billy Beauhald and # 3 ranked featherweight Young Rightmire.

May 1938-Armstrong just hammers HOFer Barney Ross and wins the welterweight title. He does so while giving up nine pounds to Ross and weighing just 133! While this was Ross' last fight make no mistake. He was 28 and had lost once in eight years and had not lost in four. Ross was still at the top of his game.

August 1938-Armstrong wins a very close decision to take the lightweight crown from HOFer LOU Ambers.

Armstrong in ten months has beaten four HOFer's across what today would be five divisions. In a time of only eight belts he now holds three of them or 37.5% of all the belts in existence. Today there are 88 straps out there. 37.5% of that is 33 belts!

About 18 months later Amstrong gets a draw fighting Cefarino Garcia for the middleweight title. The story is that the agreement was Armstorng could only win by KO. If Garcia finished on his feet he could do no worse than a draw. In this fight Armstrong weighed only 143 and gave up nine pounds to Garcia.

My own view is this is the most impressive single feat in boxing history, more impressive even than Joe Louis title reign.

Marble - that is extraordinary, no doubt.

But, given that Ring stated they take into account a fighters' impact and accomplishments outside of the ring for this list, and that Ali is unmatched in that regard, I still think he should have gotten the nod.

No slur to Armstrong, just that Ali is the G.O.A.T.

Tobe06 wrote:

Marble - that is extraordinary, no doubt.

But, given that Ring stated they take into account a fighters' impact and accomplishments outside of the ring for this list, and that Ali is unmatched in that regard, I still think he should have gotten the nod.

No slur to Armstrong, just that Ali is the G.O.A.T.

I hear ya!