with the year coming to an end i've been asked by a friend to make the case for 15 fighters (i think it's about 4 too many) to be to be regarded as the top lot p4p since the turn of the millenium. Rules are the achievements in the 00's are the key facts (so no Holyfield or Tyson) the only time we can look at the 1990's is in regards to "hasn't lost since 199X" or "has been a world champion since 199X".

So any suggestions apart from the obvious 5 or 6?
Manny
Floyd
Mosley
Hopkins
Calzaghe
Cotto (maybe...his opponents have been top tier whilst many others haven't)
Barrera
JMM

Edit
Morales seems worthy as well, despite how his career ended

Calderon

------- If including Morales, you'd have to include Tzsyu.

Hatton has dominated Ring jrwelt rankings for the latter half of the decade and been on their p4p lists. Juan Diaz in lightwt ranks most of the decade with some p4p. Same with WinkyWright in 154/p4p.

The Klitschkos did their best work the 00s with Wlad being top ranked to open, close, and most of the time inbetween as well as Vitali save his years off.

So, that's 14 names, and if including Mosley, gots to include Oscar who may be the most relevant fighter as far as his influence in boxing in history probably on top of a fine career. Then Roy makes it 16 if you got Cotto and Popkins in there. Roy never left the LH rankings and was Ring fighter of the 90s and p4p ranked until 04.

1. Manny
2. Oscar
3. Popkins
4. Floydy
5. Roy
6. Wlad
7. Vitali
8. Joe
9. Ricky
10. Barrera
11. Tszyu
12. Wright
13. Diaz
14. JMM
15. Morales

I'd skip Mosley because of the drugs issue. Also, he took all 5 losses in 00, without beating many top fighters in worthy performances.

Compile the results and make it BB's top 15 fighters of the 00s.

Oscar as far as I see it had his best days in the 1990's he lost 5 of his 13 fights in the decade and was lucky against Sturm so you could have made him 7-6 quite easily.

Kostya is one i think will be nip and tuck only fighting 9 times doesn't help him, though wins over Judah and Urkal were good, were they good enough?

Roy has drug questions as well as shane...though shane holds wins over De La Hoya (twice...though yes i know he was lucky in one), Vargas twice, Mayorga, Collazo and Margarito, as well as being close with Cotto

Jones has 4 losses (of his 5 career) to his 14 wins including beating Gonzalez, Woods, Ruiz, Tarver though has beaten stiffs and nobody's since 2003 so i can't see him making it tbh. (easily in the same thing for he 90's though)

diaz is one i'm personally wavering on

Morales beat Barrera, Pacquaio, Kelley, Jesus Chavez, Hernandez, and won titles in 3 weights...

I think the No.1 is Manny Pacquiao, followed by Barrera and Morales

Rafael Marquez and Israel Vasquez should be on the list IMO.

I'd chuck Lennox Lewis in there. I dont personally see how you can put Vitali in there and not Lewis. I know Lewis only work was from 2000 - 2003 but in that time he fought a majority of top rated fighters and avenged a loss to Rahman.

Lewis three years in 2000 are a hell of a lot better than Vitalis in my opinion. The names might look better but the likes of Gomes, Peter etc. where proven to either be not World class fighters or just quite simply long past there sell by dates.

No Floyd? The first 5 years I think he fought some pretty decent names.

God can you believe it's already 2009!!!?

I don't think Gomez proved to not be a world class fighter... he did better then most did against Vitali.

Lewis lost against Rahman, beat Rahman, Tua, Michael Grant (Biggest bust in quite a while), Botha (who's pretty bad), and Tyson.

I wouldn't put Lewis in here. (Waiting for Welsh's reply)

Gatti anyone ? Certainly excitement and guts counts for something. mayweather on top allthough he bores me. His defence is unbelievable.

David Haye.

He may not quite be top 15. However the Thai chap Wongjongkam, who was Flyweight Champion for most of the decade, deserves a mention. Okay, the opposition wasn't up to much, but it's still some going.

Pongsalek wongjonkam...looking at him as a maybe.

Forrest deserves to be considered to.
Vitalis a no wlads a maybe

I think Winky Wright deserves a shout, too.

That I would agree with. Pretty much everyone of his 00's fights was for a world title and bar his last two he pretty much won every single one of them and in my opinion was cheated out of a win against Jermain Taylor.



I suppose it depends on your view of Vitali at the moment. I personally think that although hes probably the second best Heavyweight at the moment, hes nothing like the fighter that he was. I personally think that a pre retirement Vit would have dealt with Gomes a lot earlier. In my opinion, since his comeback, hes beaten a version of Sam Peter who looks to have lost all motivation to Box, a supremely overated Boxer in Arreola and Gomes.

Prior to that his competition, bar Lewis, was against the likes of Larry Donald, Danny Williams, Kirk Johnson, Corrie Sanders, non of which in my opinion are better than the fighters Lewis fought in those three short years (discounting the fact that they fought each other).