Greatest Boxers of all Time

Nobody knows how boxing came into existence, but this combat sport, wherein two individuals fight each other with their fists, has been a part of the Ancient Olympics since 688 B.C. Over the period, boxing has come a long way to become one of the most popular sport in Olympics today. The world has witnessed the rise and fall of several boxing sensations throughout the history of boxing, thus making it difficult to decide who are the greatest boxers in the history.

List of the Greatest Boxers of all Time

Other than their performance in the ring and achievements in their career, their mass appeal is also an important pointer that should be taken into consideration when compiling the list of the 'greatest' - and that is exactly what we have done to compile this list given below.

Muhammad Ali: Muhammad Ali, born as Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr., is undoubtedly the greatest boxer the world has ever seen - courtesy his 3 World Heavyweight Championships and an exceptional record of 56 wins from 61 fights, 37 of which were knockouts.

Sugar Ray Robinson: Sugar Ray Robinson, born as Walker Smith Jr., with an impressive record of 85-0 as an amateur boxer, is regarded by some as greater than Ali. From these 80 victories, 69 came as knockouts for Robinson. Overall he won 175 of his 200 bouts, 109 of which came as knockouts.

Roberto Duran: Roberto Duran was nicknamed "Manos de Piedra", meaning "Hands of Stone", for his impressive performance in the ring. He fought a total of 119 bouts and won 103 of them. Interestingly, 70 of his victories came as knockouts for him.

Henry Armstrong: Henry Armstrong's claim to fame was that he was the only boxer to hold three world championships at the same point of time. Armstrong fought a181 bouts and won 151 of them. From 151 victories for Armstrong, 101 were knockouts.

Joe Louis: Joe Louis, aka the Brown Bomber, was the World Heavyweight Champion for a period of straight 140 months. Out of his 61 wins from a total of 65 bouts, 51 were impressive knockouts. In 2005, he was honored as the Greatest Heavyweight Boxer of All Time by the International Boxing Research Organization.

Willie Pep: Guglielmo Papaleo, more popular as Willie Pep, was an Italian-American boxer hailing from Connecticut, USA. One of the best boxers in the history of American boxing, Willie fought a total of 241 bouts over a period of 26 years. His impressive record of 229-11-1 featured 65 knockout wins.

Jack Johnson: Nicknamed the "Galveston Giant", Jack Johnson was the first black to win the world heavyweight boxing championship. His orthodox style of making his opponent to commit a mistake and then capitalizing on it won him 73 of his 104 fights, more than half of which were knockout wins.

Jack Dempsey: Jack Dempsey, nicknamed Manassa Mauler, was best know for his 7 year world heavyweight title stint from 1919 to 1926. In his career spanning over a period of 14 years, Dempsey won 66 of the 83 bouts he fought, 51 of which came as knockouts.

Sam Langford: Sam Langford, nicknamed "Boston Bonecrusher" or "Boston Terror", was regarded as one of the greatest punchers of the last 100 years. His 200 wins from 314 bouts, 130 of which were knockouts earned him the title "Greatest Fighter Nobody Knows" from ESPN.

Mike Tyson: Finally, when compiling any such list, we can't ignore one name - Mike Tyson. He won the World Boxing Championship at the age of 20 years by technical knockout. He may be more famous for his out-of-the-ring antics, but we can't ignore the fact that he was the youngest man ever to win the heavyweight titles of WBC, WBA and IBF, and still is.

It wouldn't be fair to rank these stalwarts of the 'ring', as we all know that they were the best athletes in the history of this sport. With a million people having a million opinions about who the greatest boxer is, we leave it to you to decide who you think was the best boxer you ever saw.