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The 50 Greatest Middleweights of All Time Part One: 50-41

These are deep waters.
In the fathoms below lie sunken warriors, extraordinary boxers that I was sad, angry even, at not being able to include here. The explanation as to why is simple: middleweight is stacked.
When I broke down the 50 Greatest Light-Heavyweights of All Time, I started with 33 names and worked my way back to about 70, from which I divulged my 50. At middleweight I started with 90 names. It is so much deeper than light-heavyweight and heavyweight as to be beyond comparison.
There is no room, for example, for Archie Moore or Ezzard Charles, legendary 175-pound fighters that cut their teeth on the stacked middleweight ranks of their times, taking impressive scalps but nevertheless barely missing out here. There is; no room for Thomas Hearns, who fought that immortal combat with Marvin Hagler in 1985; no room for the 1960s stylist Luis Manuel Rodriguez, for Dave Shade, for champions like George Chip or Paul Pender; and no room for the current golden boy Gennady Golovkin. Sergey Kovalev strolled onto the top 50 list at 175 pounds while smoking a cigar, but it was apparent in the very first hour of research for this one that Golovkin wasn’t going to get anywhere near it.
And it’s not the relative quality of the fighters that makes it so, but rather the relative quality of the company they keep. Welterweight and lightweight lie ahead but it is possible that middleweight will represent the peaked wave of boxing’s depth. We shall see.
For now, I need to get the boring stuff out of the way:
This list is concerned with matches made at middleweight. Some leniency exists for fights that weigh in slightly over the weight limit of 160 pounds and it should be noted that it is the heavier fighter that denotes the class; a 144-pound fighter taking on a 158-pound fighter is engaging in a middleweight match and it will be treated as such for the purposes of this list. Similarly, a fighter weighing 160 pounds matching a fighter who weighs 173 is taking part in a light-heavyweight contest, as was credited for it in the construction of that list.
The middleweight division is ancient. It encompasses almost the entire history of gloved boxing in a form akin to what we recognize today. As such comparing eras and the fighters within them is a difficult, perhaps even an impossible task. Head-to-head comparisons are important, even enticing in making these comparisons but they are the least of criteria here. More weight is attached to achievement in the ring, championship reigns, champions bested, greats mastered and the general level of the quality of opposition bested. That said, I can think of at least two occasions where head-to-head matters decided a spot upon the list – as I said, skill set, ability on film, they are enticing factors and are not ignored.
I promise this will be the longest introduction in the course of the series; I promise that the fighters and not the dull points of order take center stage – but do please note, I need this structure to take these difficult decisions in separating these fighters who are often distinct from one another by the tiniest sliver of gold.
This, is how I have them:
#50 – HUGO KELLY (34-10-21; Newspaper Decisions 5-2-1)
The level of competition met by the unheralded Hugo Kelly is absurd. It may be that no fighter outside of the top 10 tangled consistently at such an elevated level and this must be borne in mind when considering the dozen losses and numerous draws on his professional record.
Born Ugo Micheli in Florence, Italy, Kelly’s family arrived upon the wave of humanity that crashed on the shores of the United States in time for his debut to be fought in his adopted home of Chicago in the last year of the old-world’s century, 1899. He was 18 years old.
Four years later he met the much more experienced Philadelphia Jack O’Brien at 158 pounds, signaling the beginning of what would be an assault upon the best fighters of as stacked a middleweight division as may ever have been assembled. The result was a disputed draw, the Indianapolis Journal reporting that Kelly perhaps deserved the victory; underwhelming, perhaps, as promulgation, until it is considered that in the next six months O’Brien would knock out Jack “Twin” Sullivan, Kid Carter, before boxing a draw with light-heavyweight contender Charles “Kid” McCoy. O’Brien was on stellar form and that was reflected when he took a decision from Kelly over six as a part of this excellent run. But Kelly kept coming; in 1905 he got the decision many believed he deserved in 1903, behind after six but rallying brilliantly despite O’Brien’s persistent fouling to get the win in ten rounds.
With this victory came the poisoned chalice of a middleweight title claim. Nobody really took Kelly too serious as a champion, in much the same way that the likes of the WBA are ignored by fight-fans today. Two draws followed with Tommy Burns, Kelly getting the better of the first, Burns getting the better of the second; more draws followed with Jack “Twin” Sullivan, the great Tommy Ryan and the lethal Billy Papke. Probably deserving of the win in at least one of his two contests with Sullivan, the Ryan match seemed an even draw, Kelly dominating the opening rounds and Ryan fighting back aggressively to salvage a deserved share. The wild, 10-round draw with Papke was described in one newspaper as the “fastest, bloodiest and cleverest fight that was ever witnessed in a Milwaukee ring.” Both men visited the canvas, and the decision was “well received.”
Although Kelly did not win many in what must have seemed his prime run, he had now gone undefeated against former pound-for-pounder Jack Sullivan, future world heavyweight champion Tommy Burns, future world middleweight champion Billy Papke, future world light-heavyweight champion “Philadelphia” Jack O’Brien and a number of other worthies and wanderers.
But no mere mortal could survive in orbit around the blooming twin suns that were Billy Papke and Stanley Ketchel. Perhaps no fiercer pairing has ever existed in the same division at the same time and Kelly was swallowed up by them in 1908. However, despite suffering two devastating knockout losses, he came again, defeating future middleweight champion Frank Klaus, Tommy Sullivan and boxing another thrilling draw with the homicidal Papke, this time over 25 rounds.
To my mind, he did just enough to scrape the #50 spot ahead of Vince Dundee, who is left marooned at #51, and old foe Jack O’Brien, stuck at #52.
#49 – COCOA KID (176-56-11)
The Cocoa Kid, born Herbert Lewis Hardwick, out of Mayaguez, Puerto Rico, is one of the legendary Murderer’s Row of black middleweights who terrorized the division throughout the 1940s. The Kid, more than any of the other men that made up that reluctant cabal of shadowed figures, was drawn into the silent corridors of the back-alleys he was forced to do business in. Rumors of fixes, bribes and coercion stalk him down the years and render his paper-record a curious document, one twisted by a fifth dimension, one we cannot quite see and therefore judge. It is possible, as Springs Toledo has done on this very website, to explore these ideas and see what can be unearthed; that, for the most part is not the way things are to be done here. The single concession given to the mystery surrounding some of Cocoa Kid’s shadier dealings is that it is considered very likely that he is better than the numerous losses his record describes. There is certainly plenty of evidence in support of this.
The crux of the matter is Cocoa Kid’s dominance of Holman Williams. Williams and his astonishing career will be discussed in detail later – much later – in this series, suffice to say here that he has one of the better resumes in the history of the division and thereby the sport. Cocoa Kid beat him consistently in their shared days in the welterweight Murderer’s Row and he continued to dominate him when the two moved up to middleweight. The measure of their series was 3-2-1,and it swung dramatically between styles and fortunes as Williams, a genius by any measure, sought the road that would lead to mastery over his nemesis; his success was limited. Williams clashed repeatedly with every member of the Murderer’s Row in their shared primes that helped define those halycon days – only the Kid dominated him.
Supplemental wins over men like Jack Chase and Joe Carter help to stave off those damning losses that condemn him to the lower reaches of the top 50.
#48 – JERMAIN TAYLOR (33-4-1)
Here is a sobering fact: before Jermain Taylor was matched with the godfather of the middleweight division, Bernard Hopkins, he defeated just a single ranked contender, William Joppy, who had dropped a wide decision to the champion a year earlier. Joppy was legitimately ranked, but the inside-line was that he had become damaged goods, an older fight who had suffered serious beatings at the hands of Hopkins, and earlier, Felix Trinidad. The veteran was surprisingly lively however, not that it spared him as Taylor romped home without losing a single minute of a single round. Almost as a unit the boxing media closed ranks around Taylor and insisted that a star has been born. The only problem was the tactical genius that sat atop the division.
Taylor seemed genuinely assured of his chances against Hopkins and he had three aces to back his bullish confidence: size, speed and power. Overcoming all three of these disadvantages is all but impossible, but Hopkins has made a career out of overcoming the impossible and the fight that resulted was a tension-soaked affair that first saw Taylor dominate and then began to ebb steadily towards the old master. At first the Hopkins plan had looked anemic; walk Taylor around the ring and into a right hand. But as the rounds trickled by the champion inched closer while offering Taylor the same virtual threat as a counter and Taylor had been hooked. Hopkins won the ninth through the 12th rounds on most cards.
It was enough to earn him a draw on my card, but Taylor took a split decision via the officials. Spared, I think, by his organized footwork more than any other single attribute, Taylor had edged across the line.
He edged across the line, too, in the rematch, a fight I also scored a draw and a fight where each of the officials saw it 115-113, making Jermain Taylor a two-time victor over Bernard Hopkins. He lines up alongside two other fighters who very nearly made it onto this list by virtue of a pair of victories over a wonderful middleweight — Ceferino Garcia, who twice defeated a green Lloyd Marshall and the teenaged Ezzard Charles, who twice defeated the immortal Charley Burley. Taylor is preferred here not just because he defeated a great incumbent champion, but also because he successfully defended that title on four separate occasions. Deposed by Kelly Pavlik in 2009 for his only loss at the weight, Taylor added to resume taking out ranked contender Sam Soliman to pick up a strap years after he had been written off by many. He has been written off again now behind highly publicized personal and mental health issues.
Whatever the outcome where those issues are concerned, the dual wins he posted over the legendary Bernard Hopkins can never be taken from him, least of all by someone like me, although I have never quite been able to score them in his favor.
#47 – JACK CHASE (82-25-12)
Another reluctant resident of the savage back-alley that was the Murderer’s Row, Jack Chase met Archie Moore an astonishing six times, four of them at middleweight and the single visceral, lauded win he produced was among the best of his career. As for Moore, his victory in the series with Chase was the high-water mark for his middleweight career, but Chase had more. He warred onwards to West Coast monster Eddie Booker, and did what Moore couldn’t in three efforts, outpointed Booker over the championship distance. Charley Burley had too much firepower for Chase and Holman Williams too much craft, but the wonderful Lloyd Marshall only managed 1-1-1 against him in a savage exchange of punches and strategy. Lesser light Aaron Wade was twice crushed in 10 rounds. Cocoa Kid’s surprising defeat of him plants Chase right in the middle of the Murderer’s Row pack.
And the middle of that pack is good for a place in the lower reaches of this list.
#46 – MARCEL THIL (113-23-14)
The highest ranked opponent Marcel Thil ever met appears to have been the superb Canadian-born tough Lou Brouillard who made the trip to meet the Frenchman on his own soil not once but three times. In their first meeting, in 1935, Thil’s superb, cultured right hand seems to have been deployed with enough variety in order that he was able to take a legitimate 12-round decision from Brouillard but the competition provided was stiff enough that Brouillard was invited back for a shot at Thil’s belt. The resulting contest ended bizarrely when Brouillard was disqualified in the fourth for a low blow that may not have happened. Certainly Georges Carpentier, who was apparently ringside, was of the opinion that the disqualification was bogus, describing the offending punch as a “beautiful uppercut to the liver” and at least some of the reported 40,000 in attendance seemed to agree, booing the ruling and even attempting to storm the ring according to The Associated Press.
The inevitable rubber match, fought early the following year, ended even more embarrassingly with Thil writhing on the floor clutching his groin when film, ringside reports and the humiliating exhibition of the fight in French cinemas revealed no low blow.
It seemed an inauspicious ending to world-class competition for a man who fought tooth and nail to get there. Thil turned professional as a boy and was little more than a journeyman winning a small proportion of his first 20 fights, but who clawed his way into the world class until he was named among the plethora of fighters making a claim for the middleweight championship in the wake of the great Mickey Walker’s retirement.
Boxing mostly in defense of the lightly regarded IBU title (Thil had a spell as NBA champ also), he nevertheless built a superb resume in his native France, winning the strap from the superb Gorilla Jones who was legitimately disqualified for low blows with Thil in firm control of the fight. Ranked men like Kid Tunero, who he bettered in a three-fight series, Jock McAvoy, Carmelo Candel and Len Harvey were all bested. That said, he was never lineal and at no time did he defeat the man ranked the best middleweight in the world but he learned his trade and the way he went out against Brouillard seems not to have sat in his gut as Thill, for his last contest, set sail for the first time for the USA where he matched the great if green Fred Apostoli, who he out-hustled – only to be pulled with a disastrous cut after 10.
#45 – BOBO OLSON (97-16-2)
Bobo Olsen was blasted out twice by the immortal Sugar Ray Robinson in the mid-1950s and immediately departed for the desert of the light-heavyweight division, finding beating up the much bigger Joey Maxim more to his liking than the tender attentions of Sugar. The mark he left upon the 160-pound division, including a total of four disastrous clashes with Robinson, was a significant one: 71-8, 4-4 record in title fights – with each and every one of those losses in championship fights coming against Robinson.
Already in the course of this rundown we have met fighters who had bad luck in sharing an era with fighters unconquerable, but Olson wins first prize in this regard. The fortitude he showed in picking himself up and dusting himself up after every subsequent detonation of his ambitions by perhaps the single best fighter in history was considerable.
It was after his second loss to Robinson in 1952 that Olson really began to motor. This fight, according to Sugar, was among the single hardest of his career. Olson in fact surrendered the first six rounds in rather tame fashion, but battled back and on without pause until Robinson was being made to fight for every advantage. Olson acknowledges his master’s superiority, and then went on a 21-fight winning streak that was only ended by the light-heavyweight champion Archie Moore. In the course of that run Olson fulfilled his dream by lifting the world middleweight title upon the retirement of Robinson by defeating former king Randy Turpin over 15 rounds in October of 1953. The only loss Turpin had posted in the previous five years was against Robinson, who he had also, famously, defeated; after his customary slow start, Olson began slowly to climb into Turpin’s space, dropping him in the ninth and10th and very nearly beheading him in the 13th. It was a clear victory for the Hawaiian whose stalking, succinct style propelled by as fine an engine as the middleweight division has seen left Turpin marooned in Olson’s fight.
A narrow defeat of the wonderful welterweight champion Kid Gavilan followed, Olson basically was able to out-tough his more cultured opponent despite suffering desperately from the attentions of Gavilan’s left hand; he had to climb from the canvas to take the decision against No. 1 contender Rocky Castellani. It was never easy being Bobo. His style was one of grind and pressure, a life of constant danger – worse, after another successful defense against Frenchman Pierre Langlois, Robinson returned and the blinds were closed upon Olson’s middleweight career. Sugar was the only man ever to stop him at the weight.
#44 – SUMBU KALAMBAY (57-6-1)
When Sumbu Kalambay dropped a split decision to Ayub Kalule late in 1985 it may have seemed that the Congolese was doomed to the hell of not just a journeyman but a journeyman determined to impersonate Muhammad Ali. All grace of movement and left hand, it can be seen why his adopted countrymen in Italy roared the former heavyweight’s second name at Kalambay as he moved – but having lost two in five, surely a downward spiral beckoned.
In reality, of course, Kalambay probably deserved the decision against Kalule, not only dropping him twice but by my count winning no fewer than six rounds. After posting this “loss” in 1985, Kalambay looked something approaching invincible through to 1989 and took some serious bodies on his travels in the second half of that decade.
Rebuilding in his adopted home of Italy against solid if unspectacular opposition it was in Britain he laid down the marker which was to represent the beginning of an impressive run. Herol Graham, ranked among the three best middleweights in the world and an unbeaten 38-0, was seen by many as the living definition of southpaw awkwardness; a defensive specialist par excellence. Kalambay happily crushed him at his own game. He was harder to hit than Graham, drawing the favorite on in a merry dance for the first six rounds before getting down off his toes and beating him straight, too, leaving Graham badly cut and desperately hurt in the final seconds of the 12th.
Kalambay hypnotized fighters into following him with buttery movement and a jab that slid off his unerring mobility like bullets from a gun; the rest of his offense crackled with the possibility of the unexpected. He would toss up distant uppercuts timed perfectly on an opponent made to lead in a tricky spot. When they got used to following him, he turned them on to short rights that belied his supposed lack of power.
His defeat of Graham made him the European champion and the visit to Italy of a second top three middleweight, Iran Barkley, made him a strap-holder. Barkley was on a 13-fight winning streak and only months from his first defeat of Thomas Hearns – at his savage best – when Kalambay unpicked him over 15 in October of 1987. It was not a competitive fight but one in which, despite the small ring and slippery canvas, Kalambay beat Barkley in a fight so one-sided it had the appearance of a spar. By the end of the 10th, Kalambay knew not only where Barkley was but where he was going to be.
What is truly extraordinary is that Kalambay turned in a similar performance against the wonderful Mike McCallum. He made McCallum, 32-0 and in the middle of his prime, look stupid, something nobody else came close to doing. He out-jabbed one of the division’s best jabbers, out-moved one of the division’s best generals, and out-bodypunched one of the division’s great body punchers. It was an absurd massacre that James Toney, the only other man to defeat McCallum at middleweight, didn’t come close to replicating.
Kalambay holds a spot in the 50 based principally upon this run but there is something more, specifically that during these years Kalambay looked like a great middleweight, not a good one. It’s very possible that there are men ranked above him who wouldn’t manage to win three rounds against him. For all that, his run of brilliance was ended brutally by Michael Nunn in a single round in 1989. Robbie Simms and Doug DeWitt had been beaten before the disaster against Nunn, and men like Francesco Dell’Aquila and Steve Collins succumbed after, but in terms of legacy, it is Nunn that holds Kalambay’s reigns.
#43 – CHARLES “KID” MCCOY (85-7-10; Newspaper Decisions 5-1-1)
So talented was Charles “Kid” McCoy that he was able to answer the heavyweight call and indeed become a force of significance in that most prosperous of divisions. Veteran readers of this series will recall the anguish with which your writer greeted the departure of light-heavyweights for fistic pastures more lush and McCoy was no less a loss to the middleweight division than the likes of Gene Tunney and Michael Spinks were to the light-heavyweight division. Of course, it is possible that at over 5’11”, McCoy was better suited to the bigger division at a time when boxers of great height were rare.
Whatever the truth of the matter, McCoy turned professional in the distant year of 1891 and moved into the middleweight division several years later, signalling his brilliance with a savage battering of Tommy West. West survived some of the most vicious contests in boxing history with “Barbados” Joe Walcott and Tommy Ryan, but was blasted out in two by the rampant McCoy. This result set up a meeting between McCoy and the legendary Ryan, who started a 4-1 favorite but was “beaten unmercifully” before being dispatched in the 15th round.
Like Kelly, McCoy made a claim for the middleweight title at this time, a claim that is not generally held in high regard despite the fact that the next universally recogniz. ed middleweight champion would be Ryan. Ryan had to wait for McCoy to head north before he took that title, however, failing to get the better of McCoy despite being afforded two further attempts to do so.
Clever, quick, with a punch of note at the weight, McCoy fought another 20 contests at or around the poundage, none of them recorded as losses, before announcing his intention to move up to heavyweight; had he remained a middleweight it seems doubtless he would have ranked considerably higher on this list.
#42 – YOUNG CORBETT III (121-12-22)
Young Corbett, born Raffaele Capabianca Giordano in Italy, arrived on American shores while still an infant grew to become one of the premier welterweights of a golden age for the division in that country before being run from the division by a primed Jimmy McLarnin who smashed him out in a single round. Such ignominy had never afflicted the teak-tough southpaw before and never would again; he moved north, in search of bigger game. Corbett’s time at 160 pounds was limited, but he made an astonishing impact, an impact he does not receive the proper credit for.
Not a huge puncher, his power has become underrated as he proved in his first meaningful contest at the new weight, against the highly rated Young Terry, who he took out with a single body shot. Standing at around 5’7”, he would often give away height and reach to more natural middleweights, a problem, too, encountered by his next opponent, the great Mickey Walker. Walker was fading but was also coming off a victory over the great Maxie Rosenbloom; against Corbett he won only a single round. After earning a decision over the wonderful Dutchman Bep Van Klaveren (who had just defeated Ceferino Garcia) Corbett then dropped one, to the excellent Lou Brouillard and promptly vanished from the ring for a full year. When he returned, it was still as a middleweight and in short order he defeated two future light-heavyweight champions of the world, stopping the rugged Gus Lesnevich in five and then, even better, outpointing the legendary Billy Conn. Conn would improve, but he was already a wonderful fighter and in the previous 20 months he had defeated no fewer than two all-time great fighters in the shape of Teddy Yarosz and Fritzie Zivic. Conn was also the darling of the American press, anointed a future king at the tender age of 19. Corbett, a veteran in the truest sense of the word, smiled and gathered to himself every facet of Conn’s relative inexperience, cutting him – some say with a deliberate headbutt – before dropping him with punches in the second. Conn never recovered.
But he did impress with a show of heart and chin undisputed and this, in combination with his status as golden-child of boxing, guaranteed him a rematch, which Conn comfortably won. Still Corbett was not finished but rather matched the man being named the uncrowned champion of the middleweight division, Fred Apostoli. A huge favorite, Apostoli spoke of Corbett, “his idol,” as does a man at a great rival’s funeral, respectfully but without fear of reprisals. Corbett dug in for one last great performance, winning the fight 5-3-2 on The Associated Press card and gaining the official decision despite the fact that in the 10th he seemed desperately close to collapse, his face a mess of blood and injury. Apostoli avenged himself as Conn had and in forcing Corbett to submit on the canvas he signaled the coming end of what had been a wonderful career. But going 1-1, past prime and outsized, with monsters like Apostoli and Conn speaks for, not against Corbett’s legacy; I hope he receives long overdue credit for his work in the middleweight division with his placement here.
#41 – JEFF SMITH (88-12-3; Newspaper Decisions 53-23-1)
Jeff Smith’s name litters the top 10 lists of numerous old time historians, not least the eminent Charley Rose. Here’s a question I would have loved to have asked Charley had I been spared a few moments with him during his extraordinary life: Why?
He met the great Harry Greb on seven different occasions and ringsiders who managed to find for him in these contests are few and far between. There is no shame, perhaps, in being consistently outfought by Greb, and it is true that Smith gave him some of the hardest fights of his career, but seven failures are what he is generally held to have recorded.
He got a more modest four cracks at the other great middleweight of his era, Mike Gibbons, each of them no-decision bouts with the winner generally held to be the man who most impressed newspapermen ringside; here he posts a more respectable three losses, managing a single newspaper win in July of 1919. It was the middle match in an unprecedented three-fight losing streak that would herald Gibbons’ first retirement from the ring.
In matches with the two premier middleweight of his era, he is generally held to have managed just 8-1-1.
Greb and Gibbons were astonishing talents, but nevertheless this is not the form of a top-10 ATG.
It’s hard to know what to make, too, of his 1-1 tally with the legendary Les Darcy, especially as each result was a disqualification rendered in bizarre circumstances, each so badly received by the Australian public that “The Bayonne Globetrotter” found he had become unwelcome in the Antipodes and a swift departure for the USA became necessary. Back on home soil he recorded newspaper decision losses to Jack McCarron, Gus Christie and Mike Gibbons, a win over Zulu Kid, and was awarded another DQ victory, this time over George Chip.
Still, Smith did record some excellent results on his travels, not least among them against future light-heavyweight champion Mike McTigue who named Smith the toughest opponent he met. Bob Moha, Jimmy Clabby, Len Rowlands and the Jamaica Kid were among some of the better fighters to fall to him during a storied career that makes him a rival to Hugo Kelly in terms of opposition met – it’s just that, like Kelly, for me at least, his failure to beat the best despite multiple chances leave him lying some way distance from the No. 7 spot Charley Goldman awarded him, or No. 10 spot Nat Fleischer reserved for him. Undoubtedly a superb defensive artist, and a difficult opponent for any fighter unlucky enough to share a ring with him, just outside the top 40 is where I feel happiest positioning him, with apologies to old-time wisdom.
More apologies to established thinking will follow in Part Two.
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Avila Perspective, Chap. 323: Benn vs Eubank Family Feud and More

Next generation rivals Conor Benn and Chris Eubank Jr. carry on the family legacy of feudal warring in the prize ring on Saturday.
This is huge in British boxing.
Eubank (34-3, 25 KOs) holds the fringe IBO middleweight title but won’t be defending it against the smaller welterweight Benn (23-0, 14 KOs) on Saturday, April 26, at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London. DAZN will stream the Matchroom Boxing card.
This is about family pride.
The parents of Eubank and Benn actually began the feud in the 1990s.
Papa Nigel Benn fought Papa Chris Eubank twice. Losing as a middleweight in November 1990 at Birmingham, England, then fighting to a draw as a super middleweight in October 1993 in Manchester. Both were world title fights.
Eubank was undefeated and won the WBO middleweight world title in 1990 against Nigel Benn by knockout. He defended it three times before moving up and winning the vacant WBO super middleweight title in September 1991. He defended the super middleweight title 14 times before suffering his first pro defeat in March 1995 against Steve Collins.
Benn won the WBO middleweight title in April 1990 against Doug DeWitt and defended it once before losing to Eubank in November 1990. He moved up in weight and took the WBC super middleweight title from Mauro Galvano in Italy by technical knockout in October 1992. He defended the title nine times until losing in March 1996. His last fight was in November 1996, a loss to Steve Collins.
Animosity between the two families continues this weekend in the boxing ring.
Conor Benn, the son of Nigel, has fought mostly as a welterweight but lately has participated in the super welterweight division. He is several inches shorter in height than Eubank but has power and speed. Kind of a British version of Gervonta “Tank” Davis.
“It’s always personal, every opponent I fight is personal. People want to say it’s strictly business, but it’s never business. If someone is trying to put their hands on me, trying to render me unconscious, it’s never business,” said Benn.
This fight was scheduled twice before and cut short twice due to failed PED tests by Benn. The weight limit agreed upon is 160 pounds.
Eubank, a natural middleweight, has exchanged taunts with Benn for years. He recently avenged a loss to Liam Smith with a knockout victory in September 2023.
“This fight isn’t about size or weight. It’s about skill. It’s about dedication. It’s about expertise and all those areas in which I excel in,” said Eubank. “I have many, many more years of experience over Conor Benn, and that will be the deciding factor of the night.”
Because this fight was postponed twice, the animosity between the two feuding fighters has increased the attention of their fans. Both fighters are anxious to flatten each other.
“He’s another opponent in my way trying to crush my dreams. trying to take food off my plate and trying to render me unconscious. That’s how I look at him,” said Benn.
Eubank smiles.
“Whether it’s boxing, whether it’s a gun fight. Defense, offense, foot movement, speed, power. I am the superior boxer in each of those departments and so many more – which is why I’m so confident,” he said.
Supporting Bout
Former world champion Liam Smith (33-4-1, 20 KOs) tangles with Ireland’s Aaron McKenna (19-0, 10 KOs) in a middleweight fight set for 12 rounds on the Benn-Eubank undercard in London.
“Beefy” Smith has long been known as one of the fighting Smith brothers and recently lost to Eubank a year and a half ago. It was only the second time in 38 bouts he had been stopped. Saul “Canelo” Alvarez did it several years ago.
McKenna is a familiar name in Southern California. The Irish fighter fought numerous times on Golden Boy Promotion cards between 2017 and 2019 before returning to the United Kingdom and his assault on continuing the middleweight division. This is a big step for the tall Irish fighter.
It’s youth versus experience.
“I’ve been calling for big fights like this for the last two or three years, and it’s a fight I’m really excited for. I plan to make the most of it and make a statement win on Saturday night,” said McKenna, one of two fighting brothers.
Monster in L.A.
Japan’s super star Naoya “Monster” Inoue arrived in Los Angeles for last day workouts before his Las Vegas showdown against Ramon Cardenas on Sunday May 4, at T-Mobile Arena. ESPN will televise and stream the Top Rank card.
It’s been four years since the super bantamweight world champion performed in the US and during that time Naoya (29-0, 26 KOs) gathered world titles in different weight divisions. The Japanese slugger has also gained fame as perhaps the best fighter on the planet. Cardenas is 26-1 with 14 KOs.
Pomona Fights
Super featherweights Mathias Radcliffe (9-0-1) and Ezequiel Flores (6-4) lead a boxing card called “DMG Night of Champions” on Saturday April 26, at the historic Fox Theater in downtown Pomona, Calif.
Michaela Bracamontes (11-2-1) and Jesus Torres Beltran (8-4-1) will be fighting for a regional WBC super featherweight title. More than eight bouts are scheduled.
Doors open at 6 p.m. For ticket information go to: www.tix.com/dmgnightofchampions
Fights to Watch
Sat. DAZN 9 a.m. Conor Benn (23-0) vs Chris Eubank Jr. (34-3); Liam Smith (33-4-1) vs Aaron McKenna (19-0).
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Floyd Mayweather has Another Phenom and his name is Curmel Moton

Floyd Mayweather has Another Phenom and his name is Curmel Moton
In any endeavor, the defining feature of a phenom is his youth. Philadelphia Phillies outfielder Bryce Harper was a phenom. He was on the radar screen of baseball’s most powerful player agents when he was 14 years old.
Curmel Moton, who turns 19 in June, is a phenom. Of all the young boxing stars out there, wrote James Slater in July of last year, “Curmel Moton is the one to get most excited about.”
Moton was born in Salt Lake City, Utah. His father Curtis Moton, a barber by trade, was a big boxing fan and specifically a big fan of Floyd Mayweather Jr. When Curmel was six, Curtis packed up his wife (Curmel’s stepmom) and his son and moved to Las Vegas. Curtis wanted his son to get involved in boxing and there was no better place to develop one’s latent talents than in Las Vegas where many of the sport’s top practitioners came to train.
Many father-son relationships have been ruined, or at least frayed, by a father’s unrealistic expectations for his son, but when it came to boxing, the boy was a natural and he felt right at home in the gym.
The gym the Motons patronized was the Mayweather Boxing Club. Curtis took his son there in hopes of catching the eye of the proprietor. “Floyd would occasionally drop by the gym and I was there so often that he came to recognize me,” says Curmel. What he fails to add is that the trainers there had Floyd’s ear. “This kid is special,” they told him.
It costs a great deal of money for a kid to travel around the country competing in a slew of amateur boxing tournaments. Only a few have the luxury of a sponsor. For the vast majority, fund raisers such as car washes keep the wheels greased.
Floyd Mayweather stepped in with the financial backing needed for the Motons to canvas the country in tournaments. As an amateur, Curmel was — take your pick — 156-7 or 144-6 or 61-3 (the latter figure from boxrec). Regardless, at virtually every tournament at which he appeared, Curmel Moton was the cock of the walk.
Before the pandemic, Floyd Mayweather Jr had a stable of boxers he promoted under the banner of “The Money Team.” In talking about his boxers, Floyd was understated with one glaring exception – Gervonta “Tank” Davis, now one of boxing’s top earners.
When Floyd took to praising Curmel Moton with the same effusive language, folks stood up and took notice.
Curmel made his pro debut on Sept. 30, 2023, at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on the undercard of the super middleweight title fight between Canelo Alvarez and Jermell Charlo. After stopping his opponent in the opening round, he addressed a flock of reporters in the media room with Floyd standing at his side. “I felt ready,” he said, “I knew I had Floyd behind me. He believes in me. I had the utmost confidence going into the fight. And I went in there and did what I do.”
Floyd ventured the opinion that Curmel was already a better fighter than Leigh Wood, the reigning WBA world featherweight champion who would successfully defend his belt the following week.
Moton’s boxing style has been described as a blend of Floyd Mayweather and Tank Davis. “I grew up watching Floyd, so it’s natural I have some similarities to him,” says Curmel who sparred with Tank in late November of 2021 as Davis was preparing for his match with Isaac “Pitbull” Cruz. Curmell says he did okay. He was then 15 years old and still in school; he dropped out as soon as he reached the age of 16.
Curmel is now 7-0 with six KOs, four coming in the opening round. He pitched an 8-round shutout the only time he was taken the distance. It’s not yet official, but he returns to the ring on May 31 at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas where Caleb Plant and Jermall Charlo are co-featured in matches conceived as tune-ups for a fall showdown. The fight card will reportedly be free for Amazon Prime Video subscribers.
Curmel’s presumptive opponent is Renny Viamonte, a 28-year-old Las Vegas-based Cuban with a 4-1-1 (2) record. It will be Curmel’s first professional fight with Kofi Jantuah the chief voice in his corner. A two-time world title challenger who began his career in his native Ghana, the 50-year-old Jantuah has worked almost exclusively with amateurs, a recent exception being Mikaela Mayer.
It would seem that the phenom needs a tougher opponent than Viamonte at this stage of his career. However, the match is intriguing in one regard. Viamonte is lanky. Listed at 5-foot-11, he will have a seven-inch height advantage.
Keeping his weight down has already been problematic for Moton. He tipped the scales at 128 ½ for his most recent fight. His May 31 bout, he says, will be contested at 135 and down the road it’s reasonable to think he will blossom into a welterweight. And with each bump up in weight, his short stature will theoretically be more of a handicap.
For fun, we asked Moton to name the top fighter on his pound-for-pound list. “[Oleksandr] Usyk is number one right now,” he said without hesitation,” great footwork, but guys like Canelo, Crawford, Inoue, and Bivol are right there.”
It’s notable that there isn’t a young gun on that list. Usyk is 38, a year older than Crawford; Inoue is the pup at age 32.
Moton anticipates that his name will appear on pound-for-pound lists within the next two or three years. True, history is replete with examples of phenoms who flamed out early, but we wouldn’t bet against it.
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Arne’s Almanac: The First Boxing Writers Assoc. of America Dinner Was Quite the Shindig

The first annual dinner of the Boxing Writers Association of America was staged on April 25, 1926 in the grand ballroom of New York’s Hotel Astor, an edifice that rivaled the original Waldorf Astoria as the swankiest hotel in the city. Back then, the organization was known as the Boxing Writers Association of Greater New York.
The ballroom was configured to hold 1200 for the banquet which was reportedly oversubscribed. Among those listed as agreeing to attend were the governors of six states (New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Maryland) and the mayors of 10 of America’s largest cities.
In 1926, radio was in its infancy and the digital age was decades away (and inconceivable). So, every journalist who regularly covered boxing was a newspaper and/or magazine writer, editor, or cartoonist. And at this juncture in American history, there were plenty of outlets for someone who wanted to pursue a career as a sportswriter and had the requisite skills to get hired.
The following papers were represented at the inaugural boxing writers’ dinner:
New York Times
New York News
New York World
New York Sun
New York Journal
New York Post
New York Mirror
New York Telegram
New York Graphic
New York Herald Tribune
Brooklyn Eagle
Brooklyn Times
Brooklyn Standard Union
Brooklyn Citizen
Bronx Home News
This isn’t a complete list because a few of these papers, notably the New York World and the New York Journal, had strong afternoon editions that functioned as independent papers. Plus, scribes from both big national wire services (Associated Press and UPI) attended the banquet and there were undoubtedly a smattering of scribes from papers in New Jersey and Connecticut.
Back then, the event’s organizer Nat Fleischer, sports editor of the New York Telegram and the driving force behind The Ring magazine, had little choice but to limit the journalistic component of the gathering to writers in the New York metropolitan area. There wasn’t a ballroom big enough to accommodate a good-sized response if he had extended the welcome to every boxing writer in North America.
The keynote speaker at the inaugural dinner was New York’s charismatic Jazz Age mayor James J. “Jimmy” Walker, architect of the transformative Walker Law of 1920 which ushered in a new era of boxing in the Empire State with a template that would guide reformers in many other jurisdictions.
Prizefighting was then associated with hooligans. In his speech, Mayor Walker promised to rid the sport of their ilk. “Boxing, as you know, is closest to my heart,” said hizzoner. “So I tell you the police force is behind you against those who would besmirch or injure boxing. Rowdyism doesn’t belong in this town or in your game.” (In 1945, Walker would be the recipient of the Edward J. Neil Memorial Award given for meritorious service to the sport. The oldest of the BWAA awards, the previous recipients were all active or former boxers. The award, no longer issued under that title, was named for an Associated Press sportswriter and war correspondent who died from shrapnel wounds covering the Spanish Civil War.)
Another speaker was well-traveled sportswriter Wilbur Wood, then affiliated with the Brooklyn Citizen. He told the assembly that the aim of the organization was two-fold: to help defend the game against its detractors and to promote harmony among the various factions.
Of course, the 1926 dinner wouldn’t have been as well-attended without the entertainment. According to press dispatches, Broadway stars and performers from some of the city’s top nightclubs would be there to regale the attendees. Among the names bandied about were vaudeville superstars Sophie Tucker and Jimmy Durante, the latter of whom would appear with his trio, Durante, (Lou) Clayton, and (Eddie) Jackson.
There was a contraction of New York newspapers during the Great Depression. Although empirical evidence is lacking, the inaugural boxing writers dinner was likely the largest of its kind. Fifteen years later, in 1941, the event drew “more than 200” according to a news report. There was no mention of entertainment.
In 1950, for the first time, the annual dinner was opened to the public. For $25, a civilian could get a meal and mingle with some of his favorite fighters. Sugar Ray Robinson was the Edward J. Neil Award winner that year, honored for his ring exploits and for donating his purse from the Charlie Fusari fight to the Damon Runyon Cancer Fund.
There was no formal announcement when the Boxing Writers Association of Greater New York was re-christened the Boxing Writers Association of America, but by the late 1940s reporters were referencing the annual event as simply the boxing writers dinner. By then, it had become traditional to hold the annual affair in January, a practice discontinued after 1971.
The winnowing of New York’s newspaper herd plus competing banquets in other parts of the country forced Nat Fleischer’s baby to adapt. And more adaptations will be necessary in the immediate future as the future of the BWAA, as it currently exists, is threatened by new technologies. If the forthcoming BWAA dinner (April 30 at the Edison Ballroom in mid-Manhattan) were restricted to wordsmiths from the traditional print media, the gathering would be too small to cover the nut and the congregants would be drawn disproportionately from the geriatric class.
Some of those adaptations have already started. Last year, Las Vegas resident Sean Zittel, a recent UNLV graduate, had the distinction of becoming the first videographer welcomed into the BWAA. With more and more people getting their news from sound bites, rather than the written word, the videographer serves an important function.
The reporters who conducted interviews with pen and paper have gone the way of the dodo bird and that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. A taped interview for a “talkie” has more integrity than a story culled from a paper and pen interview because it is unfiltered. Many years ago, some reporters, after interviewing the great Joe Louis, put words in his mouth that made him seem like a dullard, words consistent with the Sambo stereotype. In other instances, the language of some athletes was reconstructed to the point where the reader would think the athlete had a second job as an English professor.
The content created by videographers is free from that bias. More of them will inevitably join the BWAA and similar organizations in the future.
Photo: Nat Fleischer is flanked by Sugar Ray Robinson and Tony Zale at the 1947 boxing writers dinner.
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