Hasim Rahman also said Sanders hit him harder then anyone he faced. And that was after he had fought Tua.
The voters involved seemed a pretty wide cross section of those involved in the sport There are anomalies in there as far as I am concerned too, but Johnson and Dempsey are neither, IMO.
agree, people arent going to like that Opinion but thats all it is my Opinion. He has Jimmy Ellis resumee plus Jimmy Ellis and Ali, but Norton beat Ali as well and he doesnt make my top ten. Douglas beat Tyson Bowe beat Holyfield they're not top 10 either IMO. Fraziers resumee is just a little too short for me. His claim to a top 10 ATG HW spot is beating a guy(and putting up a great fight the 3rd time) who's talent had eroded to the point where his technical flaws were exploitable by someone of Frazier's style. The fact that Ali was larger than life and that Frazier was his main rival elevates Frazier's legacy alot. If he had been the main rival of a different HW who was as good as Ali was after the layoff but didnt have the personality and great "comeback/overcoming the odds" moments in his career like maybe Larry Holmes he would be seen as much less great than he is now.
It's interesting that the author of the article, and he implied most or all of the contributing judges as well, all recognized that hws from 40 years ago etc couldn't have beat the top atg SHWs of the modern era. They used varying criteria to make their greatness list, with h2h fairly low on the totem poll. I thought it was a great article and great way of looking at HW greatness. Why is it the top boxing historians and professionals can accept that old atgs should be evaluated on different, non h2h criteria, but its so hard for forum goers?
Well a 1971 Frazier beats the hell outta Holyfield and Lewis in 15 round fights. Holy couldn't keep Joe off him so he'd be fed a steady diet of hooks. Lewis could beat Joe in 12 but he'd wither in a 15 rounder
HW Top 10 - All Time Greatest 1. M. Ali 2. J. Louis 3. L. Holmes 4. L. Lewis 5. W. Klitschko 6. M. Tyson 7. J. Dempsey 8. E. Holyfield 9. J. Johnson 10. G. Foreman I am not as familiar with boxing history as most on the forum. Only fairly recently reading and watching material from the 'black & white' days in depth. This is about how I see an all time greatest top ten at the moment although with further study I may change this view. Is there a thread with a discussion of head-to-head rankings? If so I would very much appreciate a link as the search function doesn't work for me.
Disagree. Lewis stops him in 5 rounds if he feels aggressive. Holyfield? Frazier probably beats him, prime holyfield had a very leaky defense and didnt fight smart alot of times, The bigger older version of Holyfield had the strength to push frazier back(Holyfield was always a very physically strong guy but even more so with the extra weight) and was much smarter and more savy but might not have thrown enough punches to keep Frazier from outworking him.