By David Martinez / Boxing Historian / dmboxing.com

There are many boxers who have retired having never been knocked out in their respective careers.

The most logical rating formula for compiling such a list would be to judge them according to the quality and level of their competition, or by their total number of fights.

However, I have chosen to rate each on their greatness as a fighter; how I see them pound-for-pound at the height, peak, prime, pinnacle of their great careers.

Arguably, you could move them around, changing the order as you wish; but this likely would be the group at the top of most lists.

Here are my top twenty five, with the total number of bouts each fought (in parenthesis), who amazingly had the distinction of never being knocked out in their professional careers.  

1 – Eder Jofre (78)

2 – Carlos Monzon (99)

3 – Barney Ross ( 79)

4 – Rocky Marciano (49)

5 – Gene Tunney (67)

6 – Pancho Villa (86)

7 – Charley Burley (97)

8 – Marvin Hagler (67)

9 – Packey McFarland (49)

10 – Floyd Mayweather Jr. (50)

11 – Kid Gavilan (143)

12 – Salvador Sanchez (46)

13 – Panama Al Brown (161)

14 – Ricardo Lopez (52)

15 – Jimmy Barry (68)

16 – Mike Gibbons (133)

17 – Hector Camacho (88)

18 – Joe Calzaghe (46)

19 – Khaosai Galaxy (48)

20 – Juan Manuel Marquez (64)

21 – Les Darcy (50)

22 – James Toney (90)

23 – Billy Graham (126)

24 – Joe Lynch (71)

25 – Jack McAuliffe (38)

There were many that just missed my list because they had one career KO loss. Here are my top 25 rated boxers (in order) who have only a single knockout loss:  Sugar Ray Robinson, Muhammad Ali, Jack Dempsey, Tony Canzoneri, Jimmy McLarin, Sandy Saddler, Tommy Ryan, Marcel Cerdan, Jack Britton, Sugar Ray Leonard, Jim Driscoll, Freddie Welsh, Larry Holmes, Pernell Whitaker, Carlos Ortiz, Jim Jeffries, Lew Tendler, Manuel Ortiz, Tommy Gibbons, Pete Herman, Michael Nunn, Marco Antonio Barrera, George Foreman, Benny Lynch, Billy Papke.