LISTS have long been the bone of contention in boxing. To rank the top 25 fighters over the last quarter of a century is a big ask. For example, the timeframe starts at 1990 and some of the boxers here did their best work in the 1980s, but they still earned enough from later performances to warrant their inclusion. Others might have had glowing primes through the 1990s but carried on too long and their once, almost superhero-like qualities have long since been diminished and forgotten.
You can make a case for one boxer to be above another, place one several places higher or lower. I have been fortunate enough to watch or cover at least 21 of those on the list from ringside over the years. There are a select number of standouts, but the other placings are all up for grabs.
Click below to see the list.
25 Dariusz Michalczewski
“THE TIGER” was a long-reigning WBO champion at light-heavyweight and while the big unification fight with Roy Jones never materialised, the Pole ended up beating many of the same men, including Richard Hall, Derrick Harmon, Montell Griffin and Virgil Hill. His legacy would have been enhanced if he’d added air miles to his long list of WBO title defences.
24 Michael Moorer
MOORER was one of the most destructive light-heavyweights we had seen in a long time and his highlight reel of KOs was growing with each title defence until he moved up to challenge the big boys. He became the first ever southpaw world heavyweight champion with a win over Evander Holyfield but made history for all the wrong reasons when old George Foreman scored that historic one-punch win over him.
23 Kostya Tszyu
THERE was a time, after the Australia-based Russian had wiped out an old Julio Cesar Chavez, when Tszyu seemed unstoppable. His two-round blitzing of then-27-0 Zab Judah was phenomenal, although that fight might be best remembered for Judah losing it afterwards and launching a stool at the referee. Still, Tszyu was, for quite a while, the dominant force at 140lbs until he ran into Ricky Hatton.
22 Andre Ward
The super-middleweight has been in one of the sport’s hottest divisions in recent times and he’s cleaned it out with resounding wins over fellow champions including Carl Froch, Arthur Abraham and Mikkel Kessler. He defeated Sergey Kovalev at light-heavyweight this year.
21 Joe Calzaghe
THE Welsh super-middleweight star was unbeaten and rounded out his career with a unification win over Mikkel Kessler then Bernard Hopkins and Roy Jones, albeit when the latter in particular was past his best. A southpaw with fast hands, resilience and a breakout win over American Jeff Lacy, Calzaghe was a first-ballot Hall of Famer in 2014.
20 James Toney
THIS hugely gifted American was one of the best fighters in the 1990s and the naughties. The slick, shoulder-rolling Michigan man was a brilliant middleweight who drew with and then defeated Mike McCallum, while also defeating Michael Nunn, Reggie Johnson, Iran Barkley and Tony Thornton. In 2003 he lit up the cruiserweight division with a win over Vassily Jirov for the IBF title and destroyed Holyfield at heavyweight.
19 Vitali Klitshcko
CRUDER and more durable than brother Wladimir, Vitali lost just twice, when tearing his rotator cuff against Chris Byrd and when badly cut by Lennox Lewis. Aside from that, he was a dominant force who stopped an astonishing 41 of 45 victims but unfortunately was plagued by injuries later in his career.
18 Michael Carbajal
CARBAJAL’S career spanned from 1989-1999 and all of his top work was done in the last 25 years. A first-ballot Hall-of-Famer, the little man from Phoenix, dubbed “Little Hands of Stone” won the IBF light-flyweight title in 1990, and beat Humberto Gonzalez in a 1993 unification. He went out on a high, beating the up-and-coming Jorge Arce for the WBO belt in 1999.
17 Wladimir Klitshcko
HOW a fighter returns from a setback is often the mark of his championship pedigree. After defeats to Lamon Brewster and Corrie Sanders he subsequently dominated at heavyweight. He has arguably not had a defining fight but landslides over David Haye, Alexander Povetkin, Kubrat Pulev, Sam Peter, Tony Thompson and Hasim Rahman exhibited his vast qualities.
16 Oscar De La Hoya
PERHAPS no other boxer better represented the ‘90s than De La Hoya but the criticism of the East LA icon will always be that he lost the big ones. Some of those losses were controversial, though. Turn the close defeat to Felix Trinidad around, reverse the second loss to Shane Mosley, and say he managed to hang on for a draw against Floyd Mayweather and you have a much-enhanced résumé compared to the one he retired with.
15 Shane Mosley
AN awesome lightweight who cleaned out the division, Mosley twice beat De La Hoya (at welterweight and light-middle, the second time was hugely controversial) and holds wins over Antonio Margarito, Fernando Vargas, Luis Collazo and Ricardo Mayorga. Defeats to Manny Pacquiao, Miguel Cotto and Floyd Mayweather are relevant but came well past his dazzling peak, although Vernon Forrest and Winky Wright were each twice too much for him.
14 Miguel Cotto
BECAME Puerto Rico’s only four-weight champ in the timespan, winning belts at light-welter, welterweight, light-middle and now at middleweight. He was more vulnerable at 140lbs and involved in some thrilling wars. The fights did not get any easier at 147 and 154 but his resilience seemed to improve. He’s been at the highest level for more than a decade, guarantees excitement and is an icon to his countrymen.
13 Felix Trinidad
THE Puerto Rican idol lost three of his last five and his win over De La Hoya was disputed, but in the 1990s he was awesome. Pernell Whitaker managed to go the distance with him but David Reid was never the same again, while Fernando Vargas, Oba Carr and Yory Boy Campas were all stopped by a devastating welterweight who rose to win a world crown at middle.
12 Erik Morales
“EL TERRIBLE” was able to add a win over Manny Pacquiao (against two losses) to one victory out of three against Marco Antonio Barrera. He debuted at the age of just 16 in 1993 and quality wins over the likes of Wayne McCullough, Junior Jones, Paulie Ayala, Jesus Chavez, Carlos Hernandez, In-Jin Chi, Kevin Kelley and Guty Espadas Jnr followed.
11 Marco Antonio Barrera
THE exciting Mexican warrior was reborn after two losses to Junior Jones. He debuted a month before the opening date of this list so his big wins over Naseem Hamed, Morales (two out of three), Johnny Tapia, Kevin Kelley, Kennedy McKinney and many others make him a hugely relevant name from the last 25 years.
THE former heavyweight world champion (his cruiserweight days were pre-1990) and one of the game’s great warriors, Holyfield shared a thrilling trilogy with Riddick Bowe and as an underdog he twice scalped Mike Tyson, once by stoppage, and then when a frustrated Tyson snapped and bit him. Holyfield harmed his reputation by fighting on too long, but so nearly capped his career with an unlikely title win over Nikolay Valuev in 2008 when he lost narrowly to the giant Russian on the cards. By then, though, Holyfield was well beyond an amazing prime that had seen him avenge a defeat to Michael Moorer and dish out losses to Buster Douglas, Ray Mercer and veterans Larry Holmes and George Foreman. Remember Holyfield for the ‘90s, not the naughties.
THERE was a time when it looked like Marquez would always be third place to Barrera and Morales in that trio of wonderful Mexicans. Despite accusations about how he has gone up in weight – he’s now operating as a fully fledged welterweight near the end of his illustrious career – Marquez’s huge knockout of Pacquiao is one of the defining images in modern boxing. He’d pushed Pacquiao to the wire on three previous occasions (one draw), cleaned up with wins at lightweight over Joel Casamayor, Juan Diaz and Michael Katsidis, defeated Barrera at super-feather and beat a whole host of champions including Derrick Gainer, Robbie Peden, Orlando Salido and Victor Polo. The one-sided loss to Floyd Mayweather was made at catchweight, which “Money” did not make and had to pay a fine for.
THIS irresistible Mexican undoubtedly scored some of his great wins in the 1980s but he won bouts with Meldrick Taylor (twice), Hector Camacho, Greg Haugen in front of more than 130,000 people and Tony Lopez, as well as avenging a defeat to Frankie Randall in the 1990s. Past his best by the time a young Oscar De La Hoya put his fast hands on him, still many of Chavez’s best nights came in the last quarter-century. A Mexican idol, one of the very best in the history of the sport and a crowd-pleasing body puncher who ran up 107 wins, he would be higher if we could include those big nights when he and Mike Tyson ran the sport in the mid-to-late 1980s. He scored plenty of wins late in his career, but it was not the same Chavez; it was not the same calibre of opponent, either.
THE brilliant lightweight/welterweight and slick southpaw opened the 1990s with title wins over the likes of Azumah Nelson, Freddie Pendleton and Jorge Paez. He drew with fellow great Julio Cesar Chavez in 1993 in a bout many thought he deserved to win, and he dominated almost all before him until losing to Oscar De La Hoya and Felix Trinidad in two of his final four bouts. He would be higher up the list but some of his best work came in the 1980s, more than 25 years ago, but victories over the likes of Buddy McGirt, Diosbelys Hurtado, Wilfredo Rivera (twice), Jake Rodriguez and Rafael Pineda add real weight to his inclusion. Whitaker was one of the game’s great masters at hitting without getting hit but was a fighter for the connoisseurs rather than the masses.
6 Ricardo Lopez
THE Mexican great suffered from two things: being too small and being too good. He retired with a record of 51 wins and a draw with no losses, fighting from 1988-2001, battering all-comers from the US, South America and the Orient. Hugely gifted, massively underrated, he could do it all and for a little guy he had big power, knocking out 38 of his victims. He defeated the likes of Surachai Saengmorakot, Andy Tabenas, Mongkol Charoen and Alex Sanchez but was dropped in a technical draw with Rosendo Alvarez. Lopez won the rematch on a split decision, and retired three fights and three years later in 2001.
LEWIS put the exclamation mark on his career with a gritty cuts win over Vitali Klitschko and a hammering of 1990s rival Mike Tyson in a megafight that came too late. His breakout win came with a two-round crushing of Donovan ‘Razor’ Ruddock in 1992, and the ‘90s included big wins over Tony Tucker, Frank Bruno, Ray Mercer, Andrew Golota and Holyfield. He took his eye off the ball in damaging KO losses to Oliver McCall and Hasim Rahman, but rebounded to defeat both emphatically. He turned a highly dubious draw with Holyfield into a deserved win, then set about the next generation of heavyweights with one-sided triumphs over Michael Grant and David Tua.
THE long-reigning middleweight king scored the win of his long career when he handed Puerto Rican star Felix Trinidad his first loss on an emotional night in New York. He’d already beaten a number of dangermen, including John David Jackson, Glen Johnson, Antwun Echols and Simon Brown. The Philadelphia veteran, still active at a high level today at the age of 50, eventually climbed to light-heavyweight where he defeated the likes of Jean Pascal, Antonio Tarver, Tavoris Cloud and Beibut Shumenov. His legacy, as a boxer who seemed to get better with age, has been secured despite losses to Joe Calzaghe, Chad Dawson and Sergey Kovalev later in his career.
FOR a few years, until around 2010, Pacquaio was one of the most amazing attacking forces boxing has witnessed. His shellacking of Marco Antonio Barrera will live long in the memory, as will his battering of Erik Morales in their rubber match. That he never quite got his head around Juan Manuel Marquez is no disgrace, but the destructive warpath that saw him annihilate De La Hoya, David Diaz, Ricky Hatton, Cotto and Antonio Margarito was awe-inspiring. A controversial loss to Timothy Bradley (since avenged) and the face-first KO loss to Marquez saw his stock drop, but at his best “Pac Man” was an all-time great who won titles from flyweight through to light-middle.
UNBEATEN in 49, Mayweather’s record is looking better as he adds each name to it. You could argue he fought fighters at the wrong time, when they were too old, or inactive, but you can’t question Mayweather’s skills. His huge win over Pacquiao last year was the highest grossing fight in the sport’s history but already Mayweather had become a one-man brand, his legacy secure thanks to titles at super-feather, lightweight, light-welter, welter and light-middle. He destroyed the likes of Genaro Hernandez, Angel Manfredy and Diego Corrales on the way up, and holds wins over fellow-listers De La Hoya, Pacquiao, Mosley, Marquez and Cotto.
MANY remember his prime perhaps as an untouchable light-heavyweight when, frankly, he made world-class fighters look silly. But his win at middleweight over Bernard Hopkins and victory at super-middleweight over James Toney look even better in time. And even though John Ruiz was not the strongest heavyweight champion at the time, Jones schooled him. He relied on speed, reflexes and angles and will be talked about for years to come as a unique talent. Unbeatable at his peak, save for that avenged disqualification loss to Montell Griffin, he was never the same after dragging his body back down to light-heavyweight following the Ruiz triumph.
