1. Ali, has potential to go 14- 0 but I'm not going to be biased so I will make him 12 wins and 2 losses. 2. Lewis - the best big man boxer of the lot, surely his size would be too much for Louis, Johnson and Dempsey etc. 11 wins, 3 losses. 3. Holmes - vastly underated and could beat everyone on his day but will suffer a few defeats along the way. 10 wins, 4 losses. 4. Vitali Klitschko - H2H remember? Most won't like this choice but your old timers ain't stopping this guy. Maybe a Holyfield or Foreman would stand a good chance. H2H beats a lot of them I reckon. 9 wins, 5 losses. After this it gets extremely difficult so here goes: 5. Louis - based on merit but you just never know how he would compete with many. The purest boxer on the list with the most fluid and compact punches. 6. Foreman - again he could lay them all out, looked a little crude at times but I bet the folk boxing him didn't think that. 7. Holyfield - no one will enjoy boxing this guy and he will claim a fair few wins in fights he would be expected to lose, and probably lose some you would expect him to win. 8. Jack Johnson - very much a questionable choice in terms of he could be a nightmare for everyone or he won't be as good as we thought. This guy for his era was something else though. 9. Sonny Liston - probably comes out on top against a lot of them. The bully of the group along with Foreman and Tyson for intimidation. 10. Joe Frazier - unrelentless and gives some of the guys there toughest fights. Heart of a Lion. His run would depend on the draw and who he faced when. 11. Mike Tyson - doesn't have the atg wins but fit and focused, a few on the list will be ko'd after boxing Mike. The mentally strong fighters will come out on top against Mike like Ali, Holyfield, maybe a prime Holmes. 12. Bowe - he will fade as the tournament wears on however when at his best he is a nightmare for everyone. 13. Wlad Klitschko - sheer size and clever boxing ability will see him a get a few wins. At times he will underperform though and take a few pastings. 14. Marciano - the thing with Rocky is I think everyone can beat him?? That statement might not be popular and I'm sure he would be higher in most lists. I would happily be proved wrong. 15. Dempsey - Surely a lot of the guys would learn how to deal with Jack? His ferocity might be too much for some of them but modern fighters would be clever boxing Jack right? Another I am maybe not appreciating how good he actually was maybe.
Yep. Kinda looks like they were taking turns in wins against each other. Bowe won the third fight but was more or less finished after that as shown in his next fight. Holyfield went on to win the title again against Tyson and avenge his his loss against Moorer. I’ve no doubt Holyfield would have won the fourth fight against Bowe had there been one. Anyway like I said before my list wasn’t based on records and statistics against each other but my own feelings and instincts on how good they were. Bowe will always match up well against Holyfield especially with his advantages in size, weight and power but I just feel the best Holyfield has a slight edge on a H2H lists though I can see why some would disagree.
Enclosed are my top 15 ranked heavyweights at 20-year intervals. The criteria for the ranking as follows. 1 ) Head to head vs. the field, which is strictly my personal opinion. 40% weighting 2 ) Resume of wins and losses, excluding losses that happened when a fighter was past their prime. 30% 3 ) The distinction of the fighter as champion by beating top contenders in title matches if applicable. 20% 4 ) Historians input, which matters most to fighters, not on film. 10% I will try to list each fighter only once, placing him closest to his prime years. 1885-1905 Pioneer era: The transitional time between bare knuckles and London Prize-ring rules to Queensberry rules. 1.Jeffries 2.Fitzsimmons 3A. Jackson 3B. Corbett 5. Sullivan 6. Sharkey 7. Slavin 8. Ruhlin 9. Goddard 10. Maher 11. Choynski 12. Hart 13. McCoy 14. O’Brien 15. Root 1906-1925 Black and white filmed era: 1. Dempsey 2. Tunney 3A. Johnson 3B. Langford 5. Wills 6. Jeanette 7. McVey 8. Willard 9. Greb 10. Gibbons 11. Burns 12. Miske 13. Godfrey 14. Norfolk 15. Smith 1926-1945 Great Depression to World War II: An era where war and the great depression in the USA hurt boxing. I have trouble with the bottom of this list, and the depth is rather thin. I also think very few in this timeline would be in the top ten today. 1. Louis 2. Charles 3. Schmeling 4. Walcott 5. M Baer 6. Carnera 7. Godfrey 8. Moore 9. Bivins 10. Schaff 11. Conn 12. Hamas 13. Pastor 14. Farr 15. Loughran 1946-1965 Golden age era: 1. Liston 2. Marciano 3. Patterson 4.Johansson 5. Ray 6. Terrell 7. Machen 8. Folley 9. Williams 10. H. Johnson 11. Valdes 12. D Jones 13. Chuvalo 14. Cooper 15. Harris 1966-1985: TV expansion to Cable and PPV: This era is loaded with talent. 1. Ali 2. Holmes 3. Foreman 4. Frazier 5. Norton 6. Witherspoon 7. Thomas 8. Quarry 9. Page 10. Coetzee 11. Shavers 12. Lyle 13. Cooney 14. Young 15. Weaver 1986-2000: 12 round era and super heavyweight era. This era had tremendous depth and a lot of talent. 1. Lewis 2. Holyfield 3. Tyson 4. Bowe 5. Ibeabuchi 6.Byrd 7. Morrer 8. Mercer 9. Douglas 10. Tua 11. Morrison 12. Bruno 13. Tucker 14. Rhaman 15. McCall 2001-( ratings are of 2013 ) 2021 – European dominance era. While this era is only half over, the nations producing the top talent has shifted. Once the iron curtain in Eastern Europe fell both the amateur and professional ranks have been dominated by Eastern Europeans. Since many of the below fighters careers are over, and future talent in the amateurs will arrive, this list will likely look very different by 2021. Hopefully, we will all be here to debate it! 1A. V Klitschko 1B. W Klitschko 3. Povetkin 4. Chagaev 5. Sanders 6. Ibragimov 7. Haye 8. Brewster 9. Peter 10. Adamek 11. Chambers 12. Valuev 13. Gomez 14. Solis 15. Arreola ***Edited since 2013. Joshua now at #6 and trending upward and Fury at #7 but both can quickly go down with a loss. The others move down a spot. From here on it, it seems like 8 of 10 ranked Ring Magazine heavyweight is 6'4" to 6'9" tall, so the next bracket should be named Super Heavyweight dominance. I expect young Hrgovic to rate and possibly mostly likely Usyk.
1.Ali 2Louis 3Holmes 4Lewis 5Foreman 6Frazier 7Dempsey 8Johnson 9Marciano 10Holyfield 11Tyson 12 Liston 13Charles 14 Tunney 15W.Klitschko
Hi Mr SILVER,your friend all you guys great ratings ,for me its hard to rate all the eras.ON the book GREAT JEWISH FIGHTERS #1,PHILLY PHAN YOUR GREAT ALSO!!! your 76ers all the way over GS!!!Embid,gotta keep my wife away from future NOW Ben Simmons thanksHOF
I gotta just sayAli, Foreman ,Frazier gotta ge there The Rock ,Dempsey,LIL ARTHA Fitz wow what power I should have been a blacksmith. All ERAS gotta be presented,thats the evaloution of SPORT.....
All-time: 1. Muhammad Ali 2. Joe Louis 3. Larry Holmes 4. Jack Johnson 5. Rocky Marciano 6. Jack Dempsey 7. Joe Frazier 8. Mike Tyson 9. George Foreman 10. Evander Holyfield 11 Lennox Lewis 12 Sonny Liston 13 Ezzard Charles 14 Vladimir Klitschko 15 Gene Tunney H2H: 1. Muhammad Ali 2. Larry Holmes 3. Joe Louis 4. George Foreman 5. Lennox Lewis 6. Vitali Klitschko 7. Riddick Bowe 8. Evander Holyfield 9. Sonny Liston 10. Mike Tyson 11. Rocky Marciano 12. Joe Frazier 13. Vladimir Klitschko 14. Ezzard Charles 15. Jack Johnson -Ali is no. 1 in both lists but I don't think he goes 14-0 H2H. He would take a loss somewhere, maybe even a couple. -Louis is no. 2 all-time, no. 3 H2H -Holmes is no. 3 all-time, no. 2 H2H Outside the top 3, the all-time list probably favours older heavyweights and the H2H list favours modern heavyweights, e.g. Jack Johnson makes no. 4 all-time but no. 15 H2H; Lennox Lewis does better H2H (no.5) than all-time (no.11) where I have him lower than a lot of people do. My all-time heavyweight list changes all the time anyway, so the positioning is not far off a coin toss in some cases.
1. Joe Louis 2. Muhammad Ali 3. Jack Johnson 4. Larry Holmes 5. Rocky Marciano 6. Mike Tyson 7. Lennox Lewis 8. George Foreman 9. Joe Frazier 10. Evander Holyfield 11. Wladimir Klitschko 12. Jack Dempsey 13. Sonny Liston 14. Sam Langford 15. Ezzard Charles
As I mentioned in a thread about Foreman a couple of weeks back, once you get past the top three or so, a Heavyweight list can look very arbitrary, with very little separating the chasing pack. Mine could easily change in a few positions quite often, but right now I'd go something like.... 1) Ali 2) Louis 3) Holmes 4) Johnson 5) Jeffries 6) Foreman 7) Lewis 8) Tyson 9) Frazier 10) Marciano 11) Holyfield 12) Dempsey 13) Liston 14) Wladimir 15) Tunney Ali is always my clear number one, and Louis always my number two - no doubt there in my head. Holmes is someone I've started rating more highly as time has crept by; ten years ago, I'd have probably had him something like seventh or eighth. I suspect he's higher in my list than he is for many others, but while he's perhaps not top three in any single category (ie, quality of opposition beaten, how he'd fare head-to-head, all-round ability as a fighter, forgivable / unforgivable nature of his defeats, general achievements etc.) he scores consistently well, if not spectacularly, across all of them, whereas others are huge scorers in one or two of those areas, but are very poor in others. I'm quite happy having him as a solid number three based on that all-round mix, but can appreciate that most would disagree. As for head-to-head ratings...Honestly couldn't formulate an ordered list. General observations or beliefs, however, is that Marciano might struggle to make the fifteen, Louis would move down a couple of slots and that Foreman and Lewis might go a few places higher. That's assuming of course we're imagining every man at their best.
Completely agree with you that no one loses less than 3 times against that list of opponents. I can't believe that some people can pick anyone to go through that opposition undefeated or with just 1-2 losses. That's the list of the most talented, giftted and overall best HWs in history. If you win 9-10 fights and lose 4-5, you're good enough to be top-5 head-to-head
in 14 fights against the other all timers no one would escape unscathed, I'd say with styles being what they are I'd say with confidence that Ali would probably lead the pack at 11-3 followed by Holmes 10-4 Foreman 10-4 etc. I'd also pick Marciano to do the worst, and I not certain Holyfield would fair very well either, is that blasphemy?
Agreed. Three defeats out of 14 would be top notch for anyone. In fairness, no-one has said any fighter is going through this lot unbeaten. I said Ali would lose at least 1, maybe 2 and I can see him losing three. Given he fought Liston, Foreman, Frazier and Holmes at various points of his career then he obviously already has h2h losses against some of these guys. But assuming he was in his physical prime for all of these, I think he'd be given a really tough time by at least half a dozen of these fighters so splitting that down the middle and making 3 losses seems reasonable.
This is how my list turned out. The marks next to each indicates how I think they do against the corresponding fighter starting from top to bottom: 1. Ali (NA, L, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W) 2. Lewis {W, NA, L, W (went back and forth here almost was a L), W, L, W, W, W, W} 3. Foreman (L, W, NA, W, L, W, L, W, W, W) 4. Tyson (L, L, L, NA, W, L, W, W, W, W) 4. Holmes (L, L, W, L, NA, W, L, W, W, W) 4. Holyfield (L, W, L, W, L, NA, L, W, W, W) 7. Louis (L, L, L, L, W, W, NA, L, W, W) 8. Johnson (L, L, L, L, L, L, W, NA, W, L) 9. Marciano (L, L, L, L, L, L, W, L , NA, W) 10. Frazier (L, L, L, L, L, L, L, W, L, NA ) I wanted to give Frazier better than this, but frankly I just had him the worst of the bunch which is sad.
1 Louis (12-2) 2 Ali (11-3) 3 Marciano (6-8) 4 Lewis (14-0) 5 Johnson (4-10) 6 Frazier (7-7) 7 Holmes (7-7) 8 Wladimir (9-5) 9 Foreman (10-4) 10 Tyson (9-5) 11 Holyfield (5-9) 12 Liston (9-5) 13 Dempsey (2-12) 14 Jeffries (0-14) 15 Wills (1-13) For me, after the top 4, who are arguably interchangeable, it becomes a bit of popularity contest, this is my top 15, i think that's what the OP wanted, or that's at least what it asked for and then to match them together. Also the addition of Wlad into the mix makes it even more of a headache. Maybe I've been a bit bias towards Lewis, but in 1 on 1 match ups, prime for prime, but that's just how I see it.
