Dempsey was naturally rated top heavyweight, with his perennial shadow, Harry Wills, in the number two spot. Tunney was a light heavyweight in those days and was ranked first in the 175-pound division. Young Willie Stribling and Kid Norfolk were second and third, respectively. The great Harry Greb headed the middleweights, and the man who was to succeed him, Tiger Flowers, was in the runner-up spot. Mighty Mickey Walker was welterweight kingpin, followed by Dave Shade, who was to trail the Toy Bulldog throughout his career. The peerless Benny Leonard was still showing his heels to a new generation of lightweights, his old rivals having fallen by the wayside. Sid Terris and Sammy Mandell, a couple of up-and-coming youngsters, had edged the oldsters out of the second and third positions. Kid Sullivan topped the junior lightweight division, a favorite of the time, and Louis Kid Kaplan led the feathers. Cannonball Eddie Martin was ranked best of the bantams, and Pancho Villa headed the popular flyweight division as world champion. Rickard continued to make his choices in the pages of _The Ring_ for some years, but Tex, while a genuine connoisseur of heavyweight material, was not always as painstaking in his examinations of the smaller fellows. It was difficult to convince him that the selections in the lighter divisions were just as important. The big lads were always closest to Tex’s heart. That was where the money was. They were the raw material for the promotional extravaganzas that had placed Rickard at the top of the heap in his field. After Rickard’s death in 1929, I had Jack Dempsey make the selections. However, Jack suffered from the same shortcomings as his predecessor. He knew all the answers so far as heavies were concerned, but was inclined to overlook the lighter classes. He lasted only one year. By this time _The Ring_ rankings had attained such a position that I realized that their compilation required the knowledge of one whose boxing interest and knowledge included all the divisions. The Matchmaker of Madison Square Garden seemed an obvious choice because he had to be fully informed concerning boxers in all classes all over the world. Tom McArdle, then occupying that position in the Garden, fell heir to the job, which he capably performed for the next few years. As the interest in ratings grew, however, I decided on a staff compilation, and in 1933 I inaugurated the present system of rating boxers on the basis of a census of _Ring_ correspondents throughout the world. Their decisions are looked upon as the official ranking in every division by the European Boxing Union and the various boxing commissions. The wide range of opinion to which the ratings are exposed has put the name of many an obscure but talented lad before the public. A typical example of this was Billy Conn, whose first real recognition by Mike Jacobs came as a result of the high ranking he received in _The Ring_. Conn’s was just one of many similar cases.