Emile Griffith

Griffith's record is built on durability and range. He won world titles at welterweight, light middleweight, and middleweight, a five-time world champion in an era when moving up in weight meant facing bigger, stronger men with no catchweight concessions. The Ring placed him #33 among the 80 greatest fighters of the past 80 years in 2002, and BoxRec's all-time pound-for-pound list puts him at #127. He was in the first class inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1990. Beyond the sport, his life became the subject of a documentary and two operas, a level of cultural attention almost no other boxer has received.