4. Jim Driscoll
Welshman Driscoll so impressed audiences in America, where he bamboozled the best boxers the vast country had to offer, they dubbed him “Peerless Jim”. In his prime, the Cardiff maestro was simply untouchable.
There’s one reason, and one reason alone, why Driscoll didn’t get the world title he so richly deserved.
His peak came during the “no decision” era where you had to stop the other guy to win. If a contest went the distance the winner was adjudged from the consensus view of the following morning’s press reports, dubbed “newspaper decisions”.
Driscoll faced titleholder Abe Attell in 1910, dominated every round but failed to halt the champ.
Jim’s career was stalled by World War One and he continued to box despite being riddled by consumption, the disease that claimed him in 1944, aged just 44.
Over 100,000 people lined the streets as his coffin was taken to Cathays Cemetery, Cardiff.
His career statistics read: 53 wins, four losses and six draws, but that tally doesn’t include the many “newspaper decision” contests he took part in.
