Hello ESB Members, Myself and Edward Morbius combined our minds together as a team to form a Top 50 Heavyweights during the period of 1930-1960. Over the past 4 days, Edward and I have had great discussions with some very difficult decisions to make. Today, we were able to come to an agreement and complete our list for the entire forum to view. I think everyone is going to enjoy this list. This period was a very interesting era in boxing history. We look forward to some lengthy discussions, and will answer any questions people might have on our selections. We would love to hear your feedback. Criteria: A boxer rated in The Ring Magazine Annual top five between 1930-1960, or if not rated this high or at all, his career peaked during this era. We would like to emphasize that we also looked at pretty much every "major player" during this era and strongly considered men like Eddie Blunt and Karel Sys who never, or only briefly, appeared high in the ratings, but had strong careers. Here is the basis for how we formed our selections 1--beat top men at or near their career peaks 2--fought and beat a lot of good men. 3--consistency 4--longevity 5--bad losses and inconsistency hurt, but aren't as important as #1 or #2. We were more interested in which good fighters were defeated than which bad fighters were lost to. 6--high paper ratings don't trump the above. 7--performances before 1930 or after 1960 count if the fighter meets the eligibility requirements. Look Below for the Top 50 List
SuzieQ49 & Edward Morbius present Top 50 Heavyweights during the period of 1930-1960 1--Joe Louis 2--Rocky Marciano 3--Sonny Liston 4--Ezzard Charles 5--Max Schmeling 6--Jersey Joe Walcott 7--Floyd Patterson 8--Max Baer 9--Ingemar Johansson 10--Elmer Ray 11--Billy Conn 12--Archie Moore 13--Jack Sharkey 14--Harold Johnson 15--Eddie Machen 16--Primo Carnera 17--Tommy Loughran 18--Jimmy Bivins 19--Rex Layne 20--Zora Folley 21--Steve Hamas 22--Nino Valdes 23--Ernie Schaaf 24--Lou Nova 25--Bob Pastor 26-- Larry Gains 27--Joey Maxim 28--Lee Q Murray 29--Turkey Thompson 30--Jimmy Braddock 31--Joe Baksi 32-- Hurricane Jackson 33--Melio Bettina 34--Clarence Henry 35--Roscoe Toles 36--Bob Satterfield 37--Bob Baker 38--Tommy Farr 39--Lee Savold 40--Paulino Uzcuden 41--Arturo Godoy 42--Buddy Baer 43--John Holman 44--Walter Neusel 45--Henry Cooper 46--Roy Harris 47--Lem Franklin 48--Alberto Lovell 49--Roland Lastarza 50--Tami Mauriello We would like to acknowledge a few near misses who were outstanding fighters but fell just short of making our top 50. Near Misses: Lee Oma, Nathan Mann, Gus Dorazio, Eddie Blunt, Harry Bobo, Karel Sys, Curtis Sheppard
Difficult task but excellent Job, I may have switched Walcott above Schmeling but Max did have the tremedous win over the brown bomber so can not argue with that
Cool, thank you guys for the content. Can’t argue with the top 3. I can’t see how Carnera shouldn’t be #10. Good work again.
Close to how I see it. The guy most out of place is Henry, who for a while looked like the next champion. While I don't think there was a lot of depth from 1930-1960, there were some very good filmed fights.
See if you considered a fighter, did you consider his whole career? Or were you just looking at things that happened in this time?
Our criteria is listed. If the fighter made the top 5 of The Ring annual rankings between 1930-1960, or his career peaked during this period if he didn't. This rules out guys like Ernie Terrell and Cleveland Williams, who peaked after 1960, and George Godfrey and Johnny Risko, who peaked before 1930. A guy like Folley, a top contender in the 1950's, is in, and his total record counts. We tried to be precise because this is obviously a tricky problem when going across decades. I hope we were clear on our criteria. Any criteria would be a bit arbitrary on this point I think.
Henry "for a while looked like the next champion." So did several guys on this list. Nova for example. And Machen. But potential is not reality. When you get down to it, whom did Henry beat? Old Bivins? Only after getting stopped in the first fight. Satterfield? A good win, but totally an in and outer. Baker? Stopped by Moore and Satterfield, and beaten twice by Jackson. Henry fought only the two LH champions, Johnson and Moore, and lost to both. Even on the way up, there is the bad loss to Buford. Perhaps this was poor luck, or an injury, or some combination, but we went by real inside the ring accomplishment. If you ask why fellows like Nova & Machen, who also came up short of what seemed their potential, finished higher, they still did a lot more than Henry. Nova KO'd Baer twice. Machen only lost or drew with top five men until well past thirty.
Well, we just decided to do 1930-1960 as an era, which is arbitrary, of course. All these were name fighters from this era, except Jack Johnson, who was from a much earlier era, although he might have had a few "fights" when in his fifties after 1930. I assume because of the high placement you are referring to Jack Johnson the champion, and not Young Jack Johnson, who was a contender in the 1950's with KO wins over Ezzard Charles and Zora Folley, and so worthy of at least consideration on this list, but I can't see putting him anywhere near #3. Other than Jack Johnson, your 1-11 list is composed of men we had near out top also, and would be justifiable on some basis. Liston behind Walcott & Schmeling is probably the most controversial. Why do you put them before Liston? We viewed Renault as a fighter of the 1920's. If the 1920's were included, he would have been a candidate, but never as high as you have him. Stribling and Matthews had fine careers, but were at their best at light-heavy. I honestly think Matthews deserves a bit more consideration than Stribling at heavy. The Carnera bouts were both decided on fouls, which devalues them for me. I personally consider Rademacher a terrible choice, and Lamar Clark a pretty much outrageous choice. Clark simply ran up a long KO record against preliminary boys and then fell apart against the first trial horse he fought. If you want, I would be glad to discuss any fighter you feel we overlooked, or any fighter who made our list but you feel shouldn't have--or any placement questions.
