Last month Max defended his list of the greatest of the Millennium by talking about guys like Eder Jofre, Willie Pep and other lighter weight fighters. This week Max defends his greatest-ever picks in the welterweight through heavyweight divisions:

	Was Joe Louis, here shaking hands with Max Schmeling, the top heavyweight of the century? Not according to Max.

Welterweight
Ray Robinson's one loss in over 100 welterweight fights came to a prime Jake LaMotta, an all-time great middleweight who outweighed Sugar Ray by 15 pounds. By the time the Robinson-LaMotta rivalry was complete the tally was Robinson 5, LaMotta 1. Robinson convincingly beat a prime, top 10 all-time Kid Gavilan in two tough fights at welter. Robinson then went on to make a case for himself as the greatest middleweight of all-time. No one is close at welter, and there is no reason to explain why Robinson ranks ahead of Sugar Ray Leonard, Mickey Walker, Joe Walcott, Henry Armstrong, Jose Napoles, Kid Gavilan, Emile Griffith, Thomas Hearns or Carmen Basilio. But if forced to make a welter top ten, that would be mine, in that order. If anyone wants to make an argument for Armstrong as the top choice at 147, I'd be glad to debate it in my next chatroom.

Middleweight
Harry Greb's ring record is the most spectacular in the history of boxing. Boxing people often refer to the record of a great fighter who took on great opposition by saying "it reads like a who's who of boxing in that era." The number of name fighters "The Pittsburgh Windmill" bested shames -- literally shames -- the record of any other fighter in the history of boxing. Every single middleweight and light heavyweight of note (white and black) between 1916 and 1926 were whipped at least once, and usually they were whipped multiple times. Since Greb was fighting in an era of no-decisions, most of these fights went down as "ND's," but if you look them up, the newspapers almost always had Greb winning. When the papers didn't have him winning, they had him drawing, and often that was when the opponent outweighed Greb by 20 pounds.

Much has been made of Greb's losing to Gene Tunney. Greb thoroughly beat Tunney in their first meeting, handing Tunney what turned out to be the only loss of his entire professional career. The rematch went to Tunney in a robbery. Tunney was in his prime and outweighed Greb by 15 pounds, and yet lost 9 or 10 of the 15 rounds according to all of the newspapers of the day that I have read. Subsequent Tunney-Greb fights all took place when the smaller Greb was past his prime, and according to many sources, totally blind in one eye. When they were both at their best, the smaller Greb proved clear superiority over the larger Tunney -- at the very least Greb was superior in a pound-for-pound sense.

Greb also fought and beat Jack Dempsey's opponents more often than Dempsey himself did (Willie Meehan, Bill Brennan, Battling Levinsky, Ed Smith, Gene Tunney, etc.), and Greb pursued a match with Dempsey, which he never received. When Greb was in his prime between 1918 and 1922, through approximately 150 fights against the consistently best competition anyone has ever fought, he lost twice and drew six times. He avenged all of his losses with multiple wins. The rest of the all-time middles (if forced to put them in order): 2) Sam Langford, 3) Ray Robinson, 4) Stanley Ketchel, 5) Marvin Hagler, 6) Carlos Monzon, 7) Bob Fitzsimmons, 8) Tony Zale, 9) Mickey Walker, 10) Jake LaMotta, or something like that.

Light heavyweight
It's Ezzard Charles (The Cincinnati Cobra). I am primarily -- though not exclusively -- interested in the quality of a fighter's prime. I define the quality of the prime as the level of excellence that a fighter was able to attain and then the length of time that they maintained that excellence. Using this definition there is no reasonable argument that can be made for anyone other than Ezzard Charles at light heavy. Between the middle of 1942 and the middle of 1951, Charles fought every good fighter in the middleweight, light heavyweight and heavyweight divisions, and there were plenty of them at middle and light heavy.

Charles suffered three losses during this time. Two of these losses (one to Jimmy Bivins, one to Lloyd Marshall) came during World War II and Charles took them on short notice. They were the only two fights Charles would have during his war years semi-retirement from 1943-1945. Charles avenged both losses several times after the war was over and he resumed his professional career full-time. Other than these excusable losses to two great or near-great fighters, Charles' only other defeat during his entire nine-year prime was to Elmer Ray, and that defeat was also avenged (by knockout) in the rematch.

In three fights, Charles decisioned fellow contender Archie Moore twice and knocked him out once. He beat Charley Burley and Joey Maxim multiple times. At light heavy, Charles' dominance was unparalleled. Even as a heavyweight, he must rank alongside Rocky Marciano -- 49-0 in and of itself is meaningless. It is Rocky's wins over Archie Moore, Joe Louis, Jersey Joe Wallcott and Ezzard Charles that ensure his spot in the pantheon of heavyweight greats. Charles beat Wallcott, Louis and Moore when they were younger, and (it could be argued) a little better than when Marciano beat them. Charles also won these fights with (again, it could be argued) less difficulty than Marciano did.

Finally, Charles and Marciano fought each other twice when Rocky was in his prime and Ezzard was clearly no longer in his. Marciano was only a little better than Charles in their two fights. Perhaps had it been the Charles of 1949 and not of 1954, he would have taken at least one from the Rock. Point is, even at heavyweight, Charles has an argument for top 10 honors. The rest of my light heavyweight top 10 after Charles: 2) Billy Conn, 3) Sam Langford, 4) Archie Moore, 5) Michael Spinks, 6) Bob Foster, 7) Tommy Loughran, 8) Harry Greb, 9) Gene Tunney, 10) Harold Johnson.

Heavyweight
I know a lot of people like Joe Louis, but believe me, Louis over Muhammad Ali is an argument you will lose. Badly. If you want to debate it, catch me in my weekly chat room sessions on Friday afternoons at 1:30 p.m. ET, and I will be glad to get into it. Ali is the clear-cut top guy at heavy, and Louis is the clear-cut choice for the second slot. After Louis, the next tier includes Jack Johnson, Larry Holmes, George Foreman and Evander Holyfield. To round off the greatest heavyweights ever is the final tier, composed of Joe Frazier, Rocky Marciano, Mike Tyson, Jack Dempsey, Sonny Liston, Jim Jeffries and Ezzard Charles. I am not suggesting that a prime Marciano or Charles would compete with the much larger prime Mike Tyson -- they would not. Marciano, however, proved to be as great a heavyweight in the 1950's as Tyson has been in the 80's and 90's. Should Tyson somehow win back the title, his place among the all-time heavyweight greats will rise.