3. Benny Leonard
Floyd Mayweather Jr. has assembled a glistening perfect record of 48-0. He is the king of modern day boxing, the defensive savant of his time, not always putting the sweet but surely the science in the sweet science.
For all that, as Lee Wylie, boxing analyst for The Fight City maintains: “Many of the same tactics and techniques that Floyd Mayweather uses to dominate the field today, Benny Leonard was employing even more authoritatively almost 100 years ago.”
A century ago, Benny Leonard was 19 years old. Between then and his first retirement in 1925, the “Ghetto Wizard” would fight 127 times, losing on just four occasions.
One defeat to the Hall of Famer Freddie Welsh was avenged by technical knockout in 1917. It was for the right to call himself the best lightweight in the world and Leonard nearly sent him through the ropes in the fateful Round 9 with a “volley of rights,” per the Syracuse Herald.
Another Hall of Famer in Johnny Dundee bested Leonard over six rounds a year earlier. As the champion, Leonard beat Dundee four times—thrice in 1919 alone.
The year 1919 also saw fortune favor Willie Ritchie, though, narrowly edging Leonard in an insignificant four rounder. The lightweight champion put him away in the rematch within eight rounds.
Leonard’s disqualification to all-time great welterweight Jack Britton in 1922 was his final and most bizarre loss before retiring atop the 135-pound class but even so, Leonard holds two decisive decisions over the defensive maestro Britton, overcoming a weight disadvantage in both cases.
“In an era where sluggers were at the forefront of the sport, Leonard’s highly mobile style and analytical approach breathed new life into pugilism,” Lee Wylie continued. “Leonard was a consummate tactician—the ultimate thinking man’s boxer.”
