A mid-year boxing revision

Many people believe Manny Pacquiao is the best pound-for-pound fighter today. If you look at his last seven fights, he's fought Erik Morales (twice), Oscar Larios, Jorge Solis, Marco Antonio Barrera, Juan Manuel Marquez and David Diaz.

Those fighters had a combined record of 282-17. And now he reportedly is set to take on Edwin Valero in November. Valero is a perfect 24-0 all by knockouts.

Pacquiao doesn't need to fight Valero. He could wait until the other lightweight champions fight mandatories and then clean up the division. But Manny has shown he doesn't duck anyone.

Still, in my scoring system Pacquiao isn't among the 100 greatest fighters of all time will contemporaries such as Floyd Mayweather, Miguel Angel Cotto and Arthur Abraham are.

I started looking at the system to see if it needed to be tweaked and discovered a flaw. I was overvaluing knockouts in non-title fights compared to title fights.

It was a small screwup easily rectified. It didn't change Pacquiao's standing much. I'll get back to him in a little while. But it did affect quite a few fighters, especially ones that wracked up a lot of KOs in non-title bouts, like an Edwin Valero, who was a top 100 fighter before but now will have to beat Pacquiao to climb into the ranking again.

So now that it's halfway through 2008 and with several important fights coming up in the summer and fall, here's my adjusted top 100 boxers:

Rank, fighter, years, country, points
1. Muhammad Ali, 1960-81, U.S., 83.984
2. Joe Louis, 1934-51, U.S., 83.331
3. Henry Armstrong, 1931-45, U.S., 79.020
4. Sugar Ray Robinson, 1940-65, U.S., 74.970
5. Rocky Marciano, 1947-55, U.S., 62.826
6. Wilfredo Gomez, 1974-89, Puerto Rico, 61.101
7. Carlos Monzon, 1963-77, Argentina, 60.772
8. Joe Gans, 1891-09, U.S., 59.866
9. Archie Moore, 1936-63, U.S., 59.182
10. Larry Holmes, 1973-02, U.S., 59.142
11. Alexis Arguello, 1968-95, Nicaragua, 58.787
12. Roy Jones Jr., 1989-08, U.S., 58.588
13. Manuel Ortiz, 1938-55, U.S., 58.499
14. Carlos Ortiz, 1955-72, Puerto Rico, 58.440
15. Ezzard Charles, 1940-59, U.S., 58.417
16. Marvin Hagler, 1973-87, U.S., 58.112
17. Aaron Pryor, 1976-90, U.S., 57.740
18. Barney Ross, 1929-38, U.S., 57.323
19. Willie Pep, 1940-66, U.S., 56.766
20. Michael Spinks, 1977-88, U.S., 56.058
21. Jose Napoles, 1958-75, Cuba, 55.117
22. Ricardo Lopez, 1985-01, Mexico, 54.701
23. Salvador Sanchez, 1975-82, Mexico, 54.474
24. Eder Jofre, 1957-76, Brazil, 54.147
25. Bernard Hopkins, 1988-08, U.S., 53.439
26. Julio Cesar Chavez, 1980-05, Mexico, 53.310
27. Roberto Duran, 1968-01, Panama, 53.256
28. Thomas Hearns, 1977-06, U.S., 52.447
29. Antonio Cervantes, 1964-83, Colombia, 52.372
29. Felix Trinidad, 1990-08, Puerto Rico, 52.372
31. Abe Attell, 1900-17, U.S., 52.353
32. Sandy Saddler, 1944-56, U.S., 51.878
33. Sugar Ray Leonard, 1977-97, U.S., 51.697
34. Azumah Nelson, 1979-98, Ghana, 51.619
35. Khaosai Galaxy, 1980-91, Thailand, 51.594
36. Tommy Ryan, 1887-07, U.S., 51.296
37. Eusebio Pedroza, 1973-92, Panama, 51.207
38. Evander Holyfield, 1984-07, U.S., 51.167
39. George Foreman, 1969-97, U.S., 51.096
40. Yoko Gushiken, 1974-81, Japan, 51.083
41. Terry McGovern, 1897-08, U.S., 51.046
42. Flash Elorde, 1951-71, Phillippines, 51.030
43. Gene Tunney, 1915-28, U.S., 51.018
44. Mike Tyson, 1985-05, U.S., 50.988
45. James Jeffries, 1896-10, U.S., 50.908
46. Floyd Mayweather Jr., 1996-07, U.S., 50.886
47. Jimmy McLarnin, 1923-36, U.S., 50.762
48. Carlos Zarate, 1970-88, Mexico, 50.760
49. Joe Frazier, 1965-81, U.S., 50.686
50. Jack Johnson, 1897-28, U.S., 50.238
51. Tony Canzoneri, 1925-39, U.S., 50.202
52. Joe Calzaghe, 1993-08, United Kingdom, 50.039
53. Oscar De La Hoya, 1992-07, U.S., 49.648
54. Pascual Perez, 1952-64, Argentina, 49.632
55. Duilio Loi, 1948-62, Italy, 49.558
56. Harry Greb, 1913-26, U.S., 49.539
57. Floyd Patterson, 1952-72, U.S., 49.437
58. Bob Foster, 1961-78, U.S., 49.435
59. Lennox Lewis, 1989-03, United Kingdom, 49.294
60. Emile Griffith, 1958-77, U.S., 49.282
61. Stanley Ketchel, 1904-10, U.S., 49.188
62. Vicente Saldivar, 1961-73, Mexico, 49.180
63. Kostya Tszyu, 1992-05, Australia, 49.095
64. Benny Leonard, 1911-32, U.S., 49.003
65. Dariusz Michalczewski, 1991-05, Poland, 48.180
66. Naseem Hamed, 1992-02, United Kingdom, 48.120
67. Nino Benvenuti, 1961-71, Italy, 48.115
68. Erik Morales, 1993-07, Mexico, 47.965
69. Sam Langford, 1902-26, U.S., 47.957
70. Jackie "Kid" Berg, 1924-45, U.S., 47.913
71. Miguel Angel Cotto, 2001-07, Puerto Rico, 47.870
72. Ike Williams, 1940-55, U.S., 47.728
73. Michael Carbajal, 1989-99, Canada, 47.688
74. Chiquita Gonzalez, 1984-95, Mexico, 47.555
75. Pernell Whitaker, 1984-01, U.S., 47.483
76. Hector Camacho, 1980-05, Puerto Rico, 47.429
77. Marcel Cerdan, 1934-49, France, 47.282
78. Panama Al Brown, 1922-42, Panama, 47.096
79. John Henry Lewis, 1928-39, U.S., 47.086
80. James Toney, 1988-07, U.S., 46.984
81. Maxie Rosenbloom, 1923-39, U.S., 46.836
82. Sugar Shane Mosley, 1993-07, U.S., 46.683
83. Myung Woo Yuh, 1982-93, South Korea, 46.653
84. Jack Dempsey, 1914-27, U.S., 46.639
85. Juan Carlos Gomez, 1995-07, Cuba, 46.546
86. Marco Antonio Barrera, 1989-07, Mexico, 46.502
87. Freddie Welsh, 1905-22, United Kingdom, 46.370
88. Sven Ottke, 1997-04, Germany, 46.315
89. Wilfredo Benitez, 1973-90, Puerto Rico, 46.195
90. Jorge Arce, 1996-07, Mexico, 46.061
91. Pongsaklek Wonjongkam, 1994-07, Thailand, 45.983
92. Lou Ambers, 1932-41, U.S., 45.975
93. Ratanapol Sor Vorapin, 1990-07, Thailand, 45.875
94. Fabrice Tiozzo, 1988-06, France, 45.857
95. Bob Montgomery, 1938-50, U.S., 45.701
96. Arthur Abraham, 2003-08, Germany, 45.627
97. Victor Galindez, 1969-80, Argentina, 45.515
98. Mickey Walker, 1919-35, U.S., 45.515
99. Johnny Kilbane, 1907-23, U.S., 45.464
100. Miguel Canto, 1969-82, Mexico, 45.406

Now, where is Pacquiao. I have him at No. 120, just below Jose Torres and just above Ruben Olivares. The main reason is that Pacquiao has spent much of his career fighting for lesser belts. He held something called the WBC International Super Bantamweight Title from 1999 through 2001 and then the WBC International Super Featherweight Title from 2003 until this March when he beat Juan Manuel Marquez for the WBC Super Featherweight Title.

In fact, he's fought just 10 fights for full world titles versus 15 fights for lesser or stepping stone titles. The lesser title fights aren't worth as much in my system.

For a comparison, Cotto already has 12 full title fights (WBO, IBF, WBA, WBC) out of his 32 fights.

But Pacquiao, if he never fights again, eventually will move way up.

Here's how. As I wrote earlier, he's fought an impressive array of fighters. Morales and Barrera are locks for the International Boxing Hall of Fame, Marquez has a very good chance and even Larios may get in.

Right now, in my system, Pacquiao has collected 123.75 points against those four fighters (he is 6-1-1 against them). That's worth 2.06 of his total score. If all four eventually make the IBHoF then his point totals increase to 527.5, which would boost his score by 6.7 points or up to the 50.9 range. That puts him up with James Jeffries and Floyd Mayweather Jr. -- who is going to move up over time -- in the No. 45 to No. 46 range.

And Pacquiao looks like he has several good years left and unlike Mayweather, no problem with his motivation.