Can a case be made for Charles as a top 10 HW?

To be more explicit, Marciano remains unpegged - nobody ever proved his level. Charles had his level proven by Walcott, especially, and Ray probably. With certain kind of eyes it's possible to see Walcott above Charles (not me), it's very close between them.

What i'm saying is that Charles was pegged by guys who belong clearly outside the ten or something like it.

Wills too? Or is he similarly drawn into the ten by Langford's possible presence in the five, like with Rocky and Charles (As you see it).

 

I always point out when someone says "faded" that a) Wills was green as grass when he first got in with Langford - in fact, he had slightly less experience (by Boxrec!) than Demspey did when he turned Langford down. I think this is not insignificant. Secondly, when Wills first turned Langford over, Sam was still getting really good results.

So while I think it is fair to say that Langford wasn't at his best when their rivalry started, Wills certainly wasn't at his!

 

Unforgiven, this is what I would expect a ten that included Charles to look like based upon this thread, something like this:

1 - Louis
2 - Ali
3 - Mariano
4 - Holmes
5 - Langford
6 - Frazier
7 - Holmes
8 - Charles
9 - Wills
10 - Walcott

 

Ehhhh....naw. I wouldn't rank him that high normally. I would see him as almost inarguably above Charles I'd have him at 7,8 or 9 myself, I was just trying to think of a fighter that fit the Charles mould. Holmes beat a great number of contender types, suffered an inconvenient "pegging" when arguably just past (heavyweight) prime and failed miserably to set the world on fire in his own era.

But you could replace him with whoever for the purposes of that exercise which was basically just seeing what those guys looked like on paper.