He would continue his winning ways until he lost a newspaper decision to Jackie Sharkey in 1919 and then picked up once again where he left off, winning 10 in a row. Wilde avenged the loss by stopping Lee the following year and two fights later, when he knocked out Young Zulu Kid, he became the first to gain universal recognition as flyweight champion of the world. It’s no wonder that cerebral heavyweight champion Gene Tunney described Wilde as, “the greatest fighter I ever saw.” The Welshman’s first loss came in 1915 against Tancy Lee of Scotland, who stopped Wilde in a fight for the European flyweight title and an early world championship belt. And two of his four losses – in 136 total fights – came in his final two fights, when he was well past his prime. “The Mighty Atom” went undefeated in his first 95 fights (more according to some historians) even though he was almost always the smaller man. Wilde often weighed less than 100 pounds when he fought yet, with inexplicable punching power, he knocked out almost 100 men in his career. In the end, though, the smallest of the bunch was probably the greatest. And modern fighters such as Ken Buchanan, Joe Calzaghe and Lennox Lewis have to be in the conversation. as a child so he doesn’t meet our criteria. Bob Fitzsimmons comes to mind but he left the U.K. Other old-timers such as Benny Lynch, Jack “Kid” Berg, Jim Driscoll and Freddie Welsh are also legendary. Ted “Kid” Lewis fought successfully from flyweight to heavyweight, which would’ve made him a good choice. made it difficult to select the best of the best from this nation. Greatest victories: Young Zulu Kid (twice), Tancy Lee, Memphis Pal Moore, Sid Smith (three times), Joe Symonds (twice)īackground: The sheer volume of great fighters from the U.K. For example, a fighter who left one country as a small child was assigned to his second country. We assigned each to the country where they spent their formative years. … Some boxers lived in more than one country. Notes: The “five more” listed at the bottom of each capsule were among other fighters in the discussion for each nation. The countries will be rolled out in alphabetical order one day at a time at The Ring. And, second, choosing a single boxer from the countries that did make the cut was easy in some cases – Panama, for example – but excruciating in others. Some nations that have produced memorable fighters didn’t make the list. First, we had to select the 20 countries, which proved to be painstaking. In this feature, The Ring looks closely at 20 countries with strong boxing traditions and selects the best fighter from each. That includes tiny nations like Puerto Rico and behemoths like the U.S. Most countries have produced at least one or two special boxers whose ring exploits have been etched permanently in our collective memory.
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