1993 1 Evander Holyfield W Stewart Bowe 2 Riddick Bowe - W Dokes Ferguson L Holyfield 3 Lennox Lewis - W Tucker Bruno 3 Tony Tucker - W Graves L Lewis 4 Larry Holmes w Martin Papali Lacusta Poirer Ribalta 5 Herbie Hide W Diaz Martin Halstead Martin 6 Everett Martin - L Moorer Bowe (pre rank) Tucker W Witherspoon 7 Tim Witherspoon - No Fights 8 Phil Jackson - Woffard Millard Carter Dixon Gonzalez 9 Buster Mathis Jr - Fortune Williams Billups Young Dixon Hunter 10 Brian Nielson - Gaffney Weiss McKenzie Chanet Dixon 11 Mike Dixon - W Garcia L Jackson Mathis Hide Nielson Mcall (prerank) 12 Derek Williams - W Smith Robinson Wilson Nicholson Swindell Davis Young Fitch 13 Garing Lane - W Payne L Williams 14 Alex Garcia W Turner Curry Dixon L Dixon Lane 15 Michael Bent W Wofford Wills Morrison 16 Ray Mercer w Willis Wills Ferguson L Ferguson 17 Mark Wills - W Jones Jones L Bent Mercer 18 Alexander Zolkin W Williamson Jones L Tubbs Hunter (prerank) 19 Jerry Jones - L Wills Zolkin 20 Tommy Morrison - Williams Murphy Foreman Tomashenk L Bent 21 Frank Bruno - W Williams L Lewis 22 Carl Williams - L Morrisson Bruno 23 Jesse Ferguson - W Mercer Pepeli L Bowe Mercer 24 Lionel Butler - W Willis Payne Shelby Bullock Carter 25 Lawrence Carter - W Thomas L Jackson Butler 26 Pinklon Thomas - L Carter 27 George Foreman - W Coetzer L Morrison 28 Adilson Rodriguez -W Jaco Gonzales & others 29 Donovan Ruddock - No Fights 30 Corrie Sanders - Brooks Cooper Stevens Billups 31 Levi Billups - W Fitch L Mathis Sanders 32 Oliver McCall - Dixon Damian Card 33 Francesco Damiani - L McCall 34 Michael Moorer - Smith Swindell Pritchard & Others 35 James Smith - W Tillery Tillman Jackson others L Moorer 36 Mike Hunter - W Biggs Zolkin Coffee NC Mathis Riddick Bowe's reign lasts just the year. Outside of Holyfield, his challengers werent very impressive. Lewis' win over Tucker was a good win. It will be interesting to compare his early results with Riddick's. So far they are reasonably close and similar, despite Riddick having the Holyfield series. It is a little surprising to see Larry Holmes move straight back into the top 10. It is funny how the ATGs always seem to have no trouble fighting the best fighters and earning and maintaining their top rankings. AT First Clance Garcia's loss to Dixon was a shocker with the no of losses Dixon followed this win with. But you have to give some credit to Dixon. The guys who beat him all fought often and won often that year. Funny that Michael Bent's win over Tommy Morrisson was technically not his biggest win of the year. There does seem to be a slight blip in the rankings at the moment.
1994 1 George Foreman - W Moorer 2 Michael Moorer - W Holyfield L Foreman 3 Evander Holyfield L Moorer 4 Riddick Bowe - W Donald Hide NC Mathis 5 Oliver McCall - W Murph Lewis 6 Lennox Lewis - W Jackson L McCall 7 Tony Tucker - W Stevens Coffee Murphy 8 Larry Holmes w Layne Ferguson 9 Herbie Hide W Bentt 10 James Thunder W Mackay Parez Wilson Donaldson Mason Tubbs 11 Tony Tubbs W Martin L Thunder Nc Morris 12 Everett Martin - L Tubbs 13 Tim Witherspoon - W Griffin Fitch 14 Phil Jackson - l Lewis W Card Foster 15 Buster Mathis Jr - Biggs Griffin Fualkner McDowell Lane NC Bowe 16 Brian Nielson - Acey Purity Smith Anderson Merritt & Others 17 Larry Donald W Dixon Diaz Cooper Murphy L Bowe 18 Zjelko Mavrovic W Dixon Tillman Jones Wilson & Others 19 Joe Hipp - W McMurray Garcia Ribalta marin 20 Alex Garcia - w O Mara Dixon Donaldson Stevens L Hipp 21 Mike Dixon - W Bedwell moore L Donald Mavrovic Garcia 22 Derek Williams -No Fights 23 Corrie Sanders - W Tillman Williams De Leon Lane L Tubbs (pre rank) 24 Garing Lane - W Jackson L Holmes Sanders Mathers 25 Michael Bent L Hide 26 Ray Mercer D M Wilson 27 Jeremy Williams - w Williams Stokes Cooper Wills Billup L Donald 28 Mark Wills - L Williams 29 Alexander Zolkin W Swindell Williams McCain Hunter 30 Lionel Butler - w Smith Jones 31 Daniel Dancutta W Hall Jones Davis Robinson 32 Adilson Rodrigues - w Neto Davis Jones & Others 33 Jerry Jones - L Butler Dancutts Mavrovic Rodrigues 34 Tommy Morrison - Toia Scott Griffin D Purity 35 Frank Bruno - W Ferguson 36 Carl Williams - L Zolkin 37 Jesse Ferguson - L Bruno Holmes 38 Donovan Ruddock - W Wade Evander Holyfield loses to michael moorer who was ranked no 34. The biggest upset since Spinks won the title and interestingly, the second World Light heavy champ in a row to go through and take the no 1 ranking. Although it is funny that when he fought Foreman, he was technically fighting someone who the year before was ranked above him so maybe Foreman Moorer shouldn’t be viewed as quite the upset it actually was. Bowe certainly seemed to have the better year than Lewis and Holyfield. It is interesting and a little surprising that Lewis and Holyfield both Lost to fighters ranked outside the top 30. And Moorer's conqueror was ranked at 27. In all time sense, that rarely happened. I am not sure what it says about the 90s. Was there an increased quality of the lower ranked fighters, compared to say the 50s and 60s, or do these losses indicate that the 90s was not really as stacked at the top as other eras? Or is there a different explanation. I am a little surprised that Phil Jackson at 14 was actually won of Lennox' better wins so far.
Good question. I think the 1990s was still an entertaining time in the heavyweight division even if (or because) a rank outsider could walk into a championship and win it. After the 1980s, in the 1990s it at least seemed like it was possible to unify alphabet titles which I think at least gave the championship level men more incentive than the majority of titled contenders In that decade. I think most of the 80s alphabet holders only regarded themselves as contenders anyway. The fans took them more seriously than they should have. By comparison the 1990s guys seemed a more positive enthusiastic bunch. However, I had a hunch that the 1990s level must have shifted somewhat anyway. This will explain the existence of 1970s fighters being able to compete in the 1999s as grandparents ..and once again this system bares this out. Great work.
Yeah, the rules are linear. You have to beat a guy to replace him in the ranks. The alphabet rankings are bull****. These rules are legit. Boilermakers linear rankings are the most accurate rankings of them all. He has painstakingly compiled the results of each year and listing contenders only in order of who they replace in the ranks by actually beating them. It has never been done before and is an outstanding resource to assess things in the correct way.
I think Boilermaker's rankings are simply another way to look at the history of the division. I find them to be extremely fascinating and Boilermaker's work to be extremely worthy. But they clearly have their shortcomings - Everett Martin, for instance, was never the sixth best heavyweight in the world. He only, as far as I can tell, got that high by scoring an upset win over a disinterested Witherspoon. Michael Moorer was certainly better than #34 when he challenged Holyfield. The fact that Boilermaker's ranking rules don't allow for human opinion is both a plus - no inflation of rankings because of promotional influence or favoritism - and a minus because they allow for C-level fighters to sneak in on an upset win (and then other C-level fighters to get in because they subsequently beat the C-level fighter who scored the upset). Organizational - WBA, WBC, IBF, WBO - rankings have been a sham since 1977 or so, when the powers that be seemingly decided that rankings would no longer be about merit but rather about promotional influence and arbitrary decisions. A good rankings system has a good degree of balance: the man who beat the man combined with human interpretation of events.
You make an excellent case, and I respect that. Whilst I accept that Everet big foot Martin was never the 6th best in the world I recognise that this is a small price to pay for a system that I believe is 99.9% legit the rest of the time. Just look at the alternative for context. Tony Tucker and Buster Douglas being the best two fighters in the world when they fought, or Ernie Terrell And Machen being the best two when they fought? You have to remember the world title organisations come up with utter nonsense most of the time. By comparison, Everett Martin being 6th best is a small price to pay for a system that largely has the right guy on top most of the time.
Thanks Ra's. That is an actually a mistake as i have put Hide in twice. from time to time this has happenes. i have fixed it now. Hide is ranked 9th. Though i take your point that Bent was perhaps surprisingly low. The WBO title was never considered a real heavyweight title (in relation to heavyweights at least) at this time. It had no higher status than IBO, WBF and other similar organisations. From memory at the lower weights they started to get some traction by agreeing to have title fights in Europe and other non us areas. But in the heavys it had zero legitimacy until the lucked out and Moorer came along. From memory it was the fact that Moorer was a WBO World Light heavy champion that actually legitimised the organisation a little bit, for the first time. Bert Cooper was a good fighter who had some decent results. But he got his "World" Championship shot at a vacant title on the strength of losses to Everett Martin, Nate Miller, George Foreman, Ray Mercer, Riddick Bowe, Evander Holyfield. (i have written off the loss to Cedric Parsons). His only wins to balance this was his win over Orlin Norris where Norris twisted his Knee and had to retire. Outside of this, i dont know what his bes win was, maybe Henry Tillman, Willie de Witt or Carlos Hernandez. When you look at coopers career, he would go on to lose to (among others) Alexander Zolkin, Craig Peterson, Mike Weaver, Larry Donald, and many others including, unless i have missed someone every single top 10 contender he ever fought. It is actually hard to understand why he is so highly rated to do. (by everyone including me before this post). When you look at it, he didnt achieve as much as Brian Nielson, James Thunder, Everett Martin or Garing Lane, just to pick some random names.
You do definitely see blips such as the Martin one. But they do correct themself over time. In an ideal world (perhaps), an independent body would use these lineal rankings and stop the blips. It is probably not a bad idea to put in something like a rule that where a fighter loses three times to a fighter more than 10 spots or more below them, then they should drop off the rankings. To me though the key is not so much stopping the blip but publishing the rankings system. For example, if this was the only system used, the best fighters would be jumping on Everett Martin and other "easy" rankings gains with big money offers to fight and the natural order would be restored even quicker. It is actually quite amazing to me that the blips correct each other so quickly as it is. The C level fighters virtually never stay above the A level fighters for more than a year or so. The biggest losers are probably the up and coming fighters who look impressive in the way that they win but dont really seem to risk their rankings much. But if they dont fight and beat fighters how can you rank on Potential or How they look? i havent cross checked ring ratings, but the top 10 are nearly always substantially the same as these rankings. Looks pretty similar How or why did the Ring Title become vacant? i cant remember Title Vacant George Foreman Oliver McCall Riddick Bowe Michael Moorer Lennox Lewis Herbie Hide Larry Holmes Henry Akinwande Jorge Luis Gonzalez Lionel Butler Akinwande Gonzalez and Butler are the main differences. Not sure what these three did to rank over Tucker, Thunder and Holyfield. Holyfield's retiement probably helped and to be honest, i think i would have tipped Tony Tubbs to beat Lionel Butler.
No system is ever going to be 100% perfect. I mean every day on these boards you will see disagreement over which of 2 fighters are the best fighters, even after they have a fight and a declared winner. Sometimes after a fighter has been cleanly knocked out. YOu will never find the perfect system. At the end of the day you can only find some type of fair system. The only alternative is some type of points for a win system but i dont see how it is fair that fighters can lose rankings to fighters who beat people who were lower ranked or not as good as the fghter they are beating. The good part is that this system has the potential to give context to every single fight. An organisation is limited. You cant assess every fighter. If done properly, something like boxrec could have a legitimate top 1000 for every single fighter. That has to be exciting for the journeyman type club fighters and help keep them focussed and stay in the game. I would imagine that it would be a huge honour for some fighters to crack the top 100! Anyway, this is getting a little bit theoretical.
Re: Foreman and the Ring belt. Ring magazine stopped recognizing champions in early 1990 when the magazine changed publishers. At that time they only recognized a straight 1 through 10. It wasn't until late 2001 that they listed champions again and instituted what I think was called the "Ring Championship Policy." So Foreman never held a Ring title during the 1990s because the Ring title didn't exist at that time.
1995 1 George Foreman - W Schulz 2 Michael Moorer - W Foster 3 Riddick Bowe - L Holyfield 4 Evander Holyfield W Mercer L Bowe 5 Frank Bruno W McCall 6 Oliver McCall - L Bruno 7 Lennox Lewis - W Butler Fortune Morrisson 8 Bruce Seldon - W Tucker Hipp 9 Henry Akinwande - W Tucker Jones Wright 10 Tony Tucker - L Seldon Akinwande 11 Larry Holmes w McCAll Donaldson 12 Herbie Hide L Bowe 13 Chris okoh - W Lawson Wanyamo 14 Franco Wanyama - L Delaney Wallyn 15 James Thunder W Berbick Dancutta Parker Anis Foster L Wanyama 16 Alexander Zolkin - Pepelli Cooper Tubbs 17 Brian Nielson - Tubbs De leon & Others 18 Tony Tubbs W Crowder L Zolkin Nielson 19 Everett Martin - No Fights 20 Tim Witherspoon - W Shelby Davis Puller 21 Chris Byrd - W Rouse Jackson Puller Fitch & Others 22 Phil Jackson -W Wainwright Ellis Davis L Byrd 23 Mike Tyson - McNeeley Mathis 24 Buster Mathis Jr - W Smith Garcia Aklea L Tyson 25 Larry Donald D Dixon W Sargeant 26 Zjelko Mavrovic W Fitch Young Bizot Murray & others 27 Joe Hipp - W Brown Jaques L Seldon 28 Alex Garcia - L Mathis I inserted 1995 here to keep things inorder. Not sure why i lost it. Thanks, That makes sense, when i looked at it i thought that Foreman must have been stripped for not handpicking opponents or something simillar but your explanation makes perfect sense. I do remember that at this time, no one really mentioned the lineal title all that often. it was a funny time. Michael Spinks was promoted as the "people's champion" when Tyson was considered the World champion. While Foreman as i recall was just considered by mainstream as one of the World Champions, even though he was actually the lineal and imo real world champion of the time. Foreman made it worse at the time by opening declaring he would hand pick opponents who were young and would stand in front of him and fight. I dont recall any of them (including Briggs) being considered anywhere near the no 1 contender.
Yeah, I don't recall the word "lineal" being used prior to internet forums. Prior to the Lewis-Briggs fight people were questioning why Lewis would "defend" against a guy like Shannon Briggs. Ring, in an editorial I think, pointed out that Briggs was actually the real champion because he beat Foreman. It seemed to me at the time that even Briggs and his people didn't know what he had in the (now known as) lineal title. While I've never read this, I've always felt that Lewis smartly pursued a Briggs fight to cement his claim to the real world heavyweight championship. Some people put down the whole "lineal" champion concept, but I like the idea of a World Champion and I think lineal is a lot better than the whole money-go-round nonsense of organizational titles.
1996 1 George Foreman - W Grimsley 2 Michael Moorer - W Shulz Botha 3 Riddick Bowe - w Golota 4 Evander Holyfield - W Czyz Tyson 5 Mike Tyson W Bruno Seldon L Holyfield 6 Frank Bruno - W McCAll 7 Oliver McCall - W Maskaev Stanton 8 Lennox Lewis - W Mercer 9 Bruce Seldon - L Tyson 10 Henry Akinwande - W Williams Zolkin 11 Orlin Norris - w Woods Tucker Peques Wilson 12 Tony Tucker - W Dixon Campbell L Norris 13 Larry Holmes w Navarre Willis 14 Herbie Hide W Murray Swindell 15 Chris okoh - W Lawson Lanyama 16 Garry Delaney - W Wanyama Paladino 17 Dirk Wallyn W Wanyama Carranza & others L Smulders (pre rank) 18 Franco Wanyama - L Delaney Wallyn 19 James Thunder W Hinton Morris Navarre 20 Alexander Zolkin - L Akinwande 21 Brian Nielson - W Jackson Maciel Hunter Halstead Maynard Rhode 22 Tony Tubbs No Fights 23 Hasim Rahman - W Rone Michell Purity Edwards Knight Foster Young Berbick Sergeant Gonzalez Delgado 24 Marcos Gonzalez - Arvizu Smith Martin L Rahman 25 Everett Martin - W Burgess L Gonzalez 26 Ray Mercer - L Lewis W Witherspoon 27 Tim Witherspoon - W cole Gonzaez L Mercer 28 Phil Jackson - l Lewis W Card Foster 29 Lou Savarese - W McDowell Puller Mathis 30 Buster Mathis Jr - W Smith NC Sullivan L Savarese 31 Larry Donald W Hinton Valdes Roddy Mason Gaines 32 Zjelko Mavrovic W Bizot Mills Mitchell 33 Joe Hipp - W Corrigan Houpe Roberts Hinton 34 Alex Garcia - No Fights Foreman's opponent was unranked, which is a litle sad. Riddick Bowe retires as the second best heavy in the world rankings. I am a bit surprised his last two fights against Golota were technically against an unranked fighter, but it does show just how protected many of the contenders have become. Tyson Holyfield was technically 4 vs 5. Tyson actually earned his spot by beating 2 of the top 10. It is no surprise that the great fighters are not afraid to meet the tough opposition. Bruce Seldon retires inside the top 10. A respectable finish and will be interesting to see if he can reclaim that position in his second career. The jimmy thunder blip is causing havoc still. Although when I think of the decent Australian heavys over the years such as thunder, Meehan and others, they all seem to have all been Kod quickly when fighting the best Brit and Euro heavys and had a little more success against some of the americans. And back in the 80s rankings I did, the local brits fared better than expected, so maybe the Brits were actually a touch better than usually given credit for? Brian Nielson is always given a bad wrap for level of competition, but the reality is that he is one of the few fighters fighting regularly and his level of competition is no worse than anyone else other than the actual elite.
I just looked at the hide situation, but it seems correct to me. He dropped because his Bent win was completely overridden by wins by Moorer, Foreman, and McCall over Holyfield, Moorer and Lewis. To be honest i dont see how a win over Michael Bent compares to any of these wins, under any criteria. I will have a look at Williams in 91.