Heavyweight Wx10 Universal Ranking System

As suggested by @sasto and seconded by @JunlongXiFan, here is a Heavyweight Wx10 Universal Ranking System.

The premise is ranking all active heavyweights based on how many top 10 opponents they have defeated. Just to be clear this is not a ranking of who is the best fighter.
Obviously this ranking system produces unexpected results (no Joyce, no Hunter), but it does give us an idea of which fighters are actually fighting and beating other top fighters.

Rules:

1. For a win to qualify as a top 10 win, the opponent needed to be ranked by

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independent ranking bodies at the time of victory:

PBO IWBR: Heavyweight (premierboxingorganisation.com)

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The Ring The Ring Magazine's Annual Ratings - BoxRec (monthly where possible)
TBRB Rankings Archive – Transnational Boxing Rankings Board (tbrb.org)
The Boxing News Rankings | Boxing News (boxingnewsonline.net)​

2. No draws, only wins.
3. You can beat the same guy twice.
4. Where there is a tie, primacy is given to recency of the Win.
5. Empty Rankings (12 to 15) were filled by fighters with a top 10 win recognized by

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of the above ranking bodies. See notes: **, ***.
5. Consideration is given to Cruiserweight victories

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all three ranking bodies agree. However, primacy is given to Heavyweight Wins as described in Rule 1.​

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(Martin '16, Klitschko '17, Takam '17, Parker '18, Povetkin '18, Ruiz Jr. '19, Pulev '20, Wallin '23)​

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(Chisora '14, Klitschko '15, Wilder '20, Wilder '21, Whyte '22)​

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(Joshua '21, Joshua '22, Fury '24, Fury '24)
(Glowacki '16, Huck '17, Briedis '18, Gassiev '18)​

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(Stiverne '15, Ortiz 1 '18, Ortiz 2 '19)​

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(Hrgovic '24, Joshua '24)​

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(Joshua '19, Ortiz '22)​

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(Parker '18, Povetkin '21)​

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(Dimitrenko '12, Thompson '13)​

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(Chisora '11*, Kownacki '20)​

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(Anderson '24)​

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(Joyce '24)​

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(Parker '22)​

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(Glazkov '16)​

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(Jennings '15)​

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(Thompson '14)​

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(Arreola '13**, Arreola '14**)​

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(Mitchell '13***)​

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(Lebedev '16, Dorticos '18)​

Notes:

* TBRB rankings began 2012
** Only ranked top 10 by The Ring
*** Only ranked top 10 by PBO
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Special mention - Is this guy retired yet???:

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(Lewis '94)​

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- Empty

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- Fury

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- Usyk, Parker

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- Wilder, Zhang

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- Whyte, Pulev, Helenius, Ruiz Jr., Dubois, Kabayel

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- Martin, Ortiz, Takam, Joyce, Chisora, Bakole

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- Joshua, Fury, Usyk

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- Empty

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- Whyte, Parker

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- Wilder, Pulev, Ruiz Jr., Joyce, Dubois, Kabayel

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- Fury, Ruiz Jr.

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Updated 2025/02/23: Parker stops Bakole; Kabayel stops Zhang

 

Just a bit of fun, but what are people's thoughts?
Does this demonstrate a weak era, or is it relatively what is to be expected?
Also does it affect how you view the current top tens we see provided by the various orgs?

 

Yeah, I agree.
The other thing I found was it's really difficult for the "independent" rankings bodies to agree on a fighter for whatever reason.
e.g. The Ring magazine seem actually hate Dereck Chisora. lol

If I only listed guys who had top 10 heavyweight wins across all three ranking bodies, things looked really bad:

1. Joshua (x3)
2. Fury (x2)
3. Wilder (x2)
4. Whyte (x2)
5. Ruiz (x1)
6. Martin (x1)
7. Ortiz (x1)
8. Pulev* (x1)
9. Empty - Usyk (x4 CW)
10. Empty - Gassiev (x2 CW)

 

That would be a great video.

Good luck to him with that. It would only be possible if he has been keeping track of the rankings. e.g. TBRB wasn't formed until late 2012. You can't search the PBO for retired fighters. Boxrec's ranking system is constantly being fiddled with and no one can make sense of it. The Ring would be the easiest source to use, but then you are putting all your faith in The Ring ratings.

You could potentially do something with Champions defending their belts. Because PBO does seem to keep a record of Championship fights along with the at time ranking of the contenders, and then cross reference that against The Ring ratings. That might work. But again, that is a lot of effort to go through.

Maybe there are some private databases out there that have been maintain by fans. I know there are hobbyists who have been doing that for years.

 

Yeah, that happened a few times with TBRB. Wilder v Ortiz 1, was unranked due to inactivity as well. It seemed the fair approach to count wins where two ranking bodies were in agreement. It seems to even out some discrepancies and potential bias.

 

Ah I see, so it's like tiers across history.
Fighters could be put in tiers based on their total number of top 10 wins.
And then do the same with tiers based on the number of top 5 wins.
Rather than actually rankings them 1 to 15.
That would be interesting. Though it would take bloody ages hahaha.

But using the above rules with current heavyweight, but changing for Top 5 wins instead of Top 10 you would end up with:

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(Klitschko '17, Parker '18, Povetkin '18, Ruiz Jr. '19)​

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(Parker '18, Povetkin '21)​

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(Klitschko '15, Wilder '20)​

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(Joshua '19)​

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(Stiverne '15)​

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(Dimitrenko '12)​

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(Glowacki '16, Briedis '18, Gassiev '18)​

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(Lebedev '16)​

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I can't image the above is going to be popular with certain fan groups though. lol

 

Yeah he entered at #10 following the loss as you said. He wasn't ranked by Ring, and PBO has him I think at 33.

 

How about this:

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- Joshua

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- Empty

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- Empty

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- Fury, Wilder

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- Whyte, Pulev, Helenius

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- Ruiz Jr., Parker, Martin, Ortiz, Takam

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- Joshua

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- Empty

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- Fury, Whyte

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- Wilder, Pulev, Ruiz Jr.

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- Fury, Ruiz Jr.