The five greatest achievements in boxing

JACK Britton was one of history’s great welterweight champions, in fact he was so good, he became history’s first-ever three-time welterweight world champion. Ring Magazine founder Nat Fleischer ranked him number three in the division historically.

Britton competed across a jaw-dropping 37 title fights, many against fellow great British brawler, ‘Ted Kid Lewis’, who he fought 20 times. Britton was stopped once in his colossal career, in his third fight against Steve Kinney, via a third-round KO.

Across the remainder of his career, he would never taste a stoppage defeat again. The grit, desire and toughness on display throughout the 25 years, between 1904-1930, is impressive alone. Factor in the resume of truly elite greats, it becomes otherworldly.

Many of these bouts spanned between 10-20 rounds, scoring victories over the top 15 all-time great Benny Leonard a draw over the iconic Packey MacFarland amidst a whole saga of bouts, this fighter went unbeaten across 105 fights. There were 20 fights against Ted ‘Kid’ Lewis and a brawl with the fearsome Mickey Walker, who Bert Sugar ranked amongst the top 10 Greatest Fighters of All Time.

French Hall of Famer Georges Carpentier made his professional debut as a 14-year-old flyweight. Little did he know, years later, he would take place in the most influential heavyweight title fight of his time.

Carpentier battled through the divisions in bizarre fashion, challenging multiple times for the vacant French bantamweight title as a 15-year-old and winning the French welterweight title at 17.

By 18, he KO’d Young Joseph for the inaugural IBU welterweight title in Earl’s Court – London, whilst winning the same title at middleweight with a second round KO over Jim Sullivan.

At 19, he had mimicked the achievement at light-heavyweight and then KO’d Bombardier Billy Wells to fulfil the achievement at heavyweight. He began to fight Hall of Famers ranging from middleweight Jeff Smith to heavyweight, Sam Langford’s rival ‘Joe Jeannette’.

In 1920, Carpentier became the light-heavyweight world champion with a KO over legendary slugger Battling Levinsky. The following year, he challenged Jack Dempsey for the heavyweight title, a bout filled with such anticipation that 91.000 spectators watched the event in person, generating boxing’s first-ever million-dollar gate. He later fought all-time greats in Gene Tunney, Tommy Loughran, Tommy Gibbons and KO’d Ted ‘Kid’ Lewis in the first round.

Ukrainian legend Vasyl Lomachenko’s conquest of amateur boxing defies belief. Across 397 bouts, he lost once to Albert Selimov, returning the sole defeat with two victories. Lomachenko dominated in a manner that has never been matched.

Whilst there have been fighters who have won more medals across their amateur career, none have done so with the same level of consistency as Loma. Whilst the numbers alone are hard to get your head around, the resume makes it even more remarkable.

Many of these wins were compiled at the highest level, with ‘Hi-Tech’ compiling two Olympic Gold Medals, and World Championship Golds respectively, a European Gold and World Championship Silver, in the one blemish across nearly 400 fights. He scored victories over notable professionals in the amateurs, such as: Robson Conceicao, Oscar Valdez and Felix Verdejo, whilst besting many of the amateur greats of his time.

Before converting fully to the professional ranks, Lomachenko compiled a 6-0 record in the World Series of Boxing, defeating notable names in Albert Selimov and Sam Maxwell. The WSB served as a gradual transition to professional boxing, fighting elite amateurs over five-three-minute rounds with no vest or headgear.

Amazingly, he had done all of this by his mid-20s. He fought grizzled veteran Orlando Salido for the world title in his second pro fight, with his incredible amateur background and professional apprenticeship in the WSB granting him the opportunity to break the world record.

Whilst Salido’s experience paid dividends, Loma would defeat highly skilled champion Gary Russell Jr to become the joint-fastest world champion in history after only three fights. He also became the fastest two-division and three-division champion. After just 21 pro fights, he’s defeated nine out of the 12 champions he’s fought as a pro. A truly breathtaking career.

This is a statistic that favours the modern era of boxing more so and I think it needs to be acknowledged. Chavez holds the most world title fights and wins in history, however, his era was one with more divisions and belts than those before him, granting more opportunities for title fights than the earlier greats of the sport.

Nevertheless, it’s seriously impressive, considering much of it was compiled amidst an overwhelming 90-fight unbeaten streak, a stat alone that could make this list. Chavez competed in 37 world title bouts across four divisions, winning 31.

27 of these victories came within that iconic unbeaten streak, where an array of brilliant champions were bulldozed by the ‘Mexican Style’. You may hear the ludicrous suggestion that Chavez beat 89 bums.

It’s not true. Granted Chavez stayed busy, took on mandatory challengers and allowed adoring fans to see him fight opponents he walked over through these years, but these were in between battles with genuinely top-level operators in Meldrick Taylor, Edwin Rosario, Jose Luis Ramirez, Roger Mayweather twice, Hector Camacho, Sammy Fuentes, Rafael Limon, Danilo Cabrera, Rocky Lockridge, Juan Laporte, Ruben Castillo and Mario Martinez.

Chavez’s numbers hold more weight when compared with how far ahead they are in comparison to recent legends, Canelo Alvarez for instance needs 11 more title fights to just draw level. Canelo, coincidentally, is currently on the same number as Floyd Mayweather Jr (26) and two behind Manny Pacquiao (28).

Henry Armstrong, in his prime, lost once in 61 fights across a stretch of just under four years. He would KO Petey Sarron to become the world featherweight champion in 1937 within six rounds. Toppling his first world title opponent amid a brutal successive 27-fight KO streak.

Fellow Hall of Famers Benny Bass, Frankie Klick and Chalky Wright would fall victim to his concussive fists throughout these fights until Mexican All-Time Great Baby Arizmendi took him the full 10 rounds in a losing effort.

Armstrong moved up two divisions to take on one of history’s greatest-ever fighters, Barney Ross, for the welterweight championship, mercilessly battering the champion for 11 rounds before holding the man he deeply admired up across the last four to claim 147lb supremacy.

Just three months after beating Ross, Armstrong moved down to lightweight to challenge champion Lou Ambers for the 135lb title. This bout against another all-time great would prove to be his toughest so far. He was dropped twice in both the fifth and sixth rounds, but Armstrong eked out a split decision victory, becoming boxing’s only ever ‘Simultaneous Three Division Champion’ and he had done so within a 10-month span.

Immediately after, Armstrong went about defending the welterweight crown. Despite being at a huge size disadvantage, he made 19 successful defences of the welterweight title in 22 months, which remains the most successful title defences in the division’s history, over 80 years later.

As if the absurd numbers over such a huge weight span weren’t impressive enough, the Filipino, Ceferino Garcia, who had already lost to Armstrong in a welterweight title fight, had become the middleweight champion of the world. The rematch was set and ‘Hammering Hank’ looked to become a four-division champion.

Armstrong set about in typical fashion, pummelling the champion through the duration of the fight. When the scorecards were announced, all at ringside were convinced Armstrong had won, further immortalising his already freakishly brilliant legacy, but the fight was scored a draw and Garcia kept his title in one of the sport’s worst robberies.

At his best, Armstrong conquered half of the sport all at once. In an era where there were only eight weight divisions, he obliterated four, holding titles in three officially, all of which he cleared up in less than a year.

In the modern day, it’s the equivalent of seven weight divisions. His record across this three-and-a-half-year run was 59-1-1 51KO, the draw was a robbery and loss controversial to a man he’d already beaten in Ambers.

Within this, he won 27 straight fights in 1937 alone, 26 by KO. Then, after all of these, he successfully defended the titles by an all-time record-breaking margin in just 22 months.