There were heavyweight contenders prior to 1905! Sharkey, Jackson, Maher, Ruhlin, Choynski, O'Brien, Goddard, Slavin, McCoy etc, etc. Good idea though; Archie Moore; 1-Johnson 2-Bivins 3-Maxim 4-Henry 5-Valdez My top 3 are kinda lightheavies I know and I've left out Satterfield, Baker, Sheppard, Lavourante etc
Just on Bivins. He first weighed over 175 at 180 lbs in 1941 against Tony Musto. For a next couple of years he seemed to fight both at light-heavy and at heavy. The last time he made 175 was in 1943 against Lloyd Marshall. From there to the end of his career he fought 71 fights and always weighed above the light-heavyweight limit, all but six fights over 180 and with six fights over 190. If he could have fought at light-heavy, I don't understand why he didn't.
It always has been. It's the lure of boxing. I always recall Eddie Mustafa Muhammad's comment when he made that ill-fated venture up to heavyweight. He said, "I'm only the vice president (light heavyweight champ), I want to be the president." And the money is with the presidency.
How did you settle on these 40 and is there any particular order? This could be a great thread but it needs a little structure. Maybe do 3 contenders at a time from a specific decade?
The decade thing won’t work...to many people span into two sometimes three decades. I took what I saw as the most obvious ones and as I got closer to 40 some were up in the air. Left some room to go to 50 maybe more. But maybe doing two at a time would make it go quicker. There is no order into terms of greatness just as I have them numbered so we have some structure. They goal is to kind of separate the cream from the crop
Opening a new guy every day but leaving the old guys open for two or three days before totaling them up sounds like a good way to go to speed up going through a long list of contenders. So, moving on to the #2 listed man: Chris Byrd 1-----Vitali Klitschko 2-----David Tua 3-----Evander Holyfield 4-----Jameel McCline 5-----Eliecer Castillo A very impressive list, especially the first three. Really better than a lot of lineal champions. The Vitali fight is like the Maxim-Robinson fight in which one guy wins but doesn't really get credit from many for winning, even though the result is not in dispute, unlike tight decisions.
I'll keep moving with Vitali even though I consider him a champ. No signature win for such an accomplished fighter; 1-Peter 2-Asamick 3=Sanders $-Hide 5=Norris and about 5 more of the se ilk, surprisingly poor.
Archies top 5 were 1) Harold Johnson 2) Nino Valdez 3) Jimmy Bivins 4) Bob Baker 5) Bob Satterfield I think this next round we can start going two fighters at a time to speed this up. Next two up for voting are Chris Byrd Sam Langford
