TIER LIST: Heavyweight Champions by title fights (1990 to present)

Here is a tier list of for the Heavyweight champions since 1990 using the Heavyweight Wx10 Ranking System for Title Fights.

The premise is ranking all Heavyweights Champions based on how many top 10 opponents they have defeated during title fights. Just to be clear this is not a ranking of who is the best fighter.
Obviously this ranking system doesn't take into account the quality of the victory, but it does give us an idea of which fighters are actually fighting and beating other top fighters during their Championship reigns.

Rules:

1. For a win to qualify as

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, the opponent needed to be ranked by

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independent ranking bodies at the time of victory:

PBO IWBR: Heavyweight (premierboxingorganisation.com)
The Ring The Ring Magazine's Annual Ratings - BoxRec
TBRB Rankings Archive – Transnational Boxing Rankings Board (tbrb.org)​

2. No draws, only wins.
3. You can beat the same guy twice.
4. Title fights include the initial victory and any defences made.​

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(Morrison ’93),

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(W. Klitschko ’04),

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(Liakhovich ’06),

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(McCall ’95),

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(Valuev ’07),

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(Tyson ’90),

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(Joshua ’24),

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(Moorer ’94),

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(Valuev ’09),

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(Bent, ’94),

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(Briggs ’07),

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(Ruiz ’05),

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(Brewster ’06),

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(Glazkov ’16),

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(Rahman ’06),

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(Holyfield ’94),

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(Foreman ’93),

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(Maskaev ’08),

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(Lewis ’01),

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(Joshua ’19),

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(W. Klitschko ’03),

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(Holyfield ’92, Hide ’95),

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(Klitschko ’00, Holyfield ’02),

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(Lewis ’94, Holmes ’95),

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(Ruiz ’05, Barrett ’06)

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(Frazier '73, Norton '74, Moorer ’94),

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(Sanders ’04, Peter ’08, Adamek ’11),

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(Holyfield ’01, Johnson ’02, Rahman ’03),

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(Stiverne ’15, Ortiz ’18, Ortiz ’19)

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(Klitschko ’15, Wilder ’20, Wilder '21, Whyte '22)

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(Douglas ’90, Foreman ’91, Bowe ’93, Tyson ’96, Tyson ’97, Moorer ’97)

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

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(Berbick ’86, Smith ’87, Thomas ’87, Tucker ’87, Biggs ’87, Spinks ’88, Williams ’89, Bruno ’96, Seldon ’96)

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(Tucker '93, Bruno ’93, Akinwande ’97, Briggs ’98, Holyfield ’99, Grant ’00, Tua ’00, Rahman ’01, Tyson ’02, V. Klitschko ’03)

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(Byrd ’00, Byrd ’06, Brock ’06, Brewster ’07, Ibragimov ’08, Chagaev ’09, Chambers ’10, Peter ’10, Haye ’11, Thompson ’12, Povetkin ’13, Pulev ’14, Jennings ’15)

@sasto, @JunlongXiFan, & @Finkel

Note: TBRB rankings run from 2012. PBO rankings run from 1993. Any fights prior to 2012 are based on a rough average of The Ring and PBO. Any fights prior to 1993, are using The Ring and compared against Boxrec and my own recollections as a rough guide. Though this does give more weight to The Ring ratings on the whole.
p.s. I welcome suggestions, feedback, corrections and comments.

 

I'll leave this post as a place holder for an eventual Wx5, when I have some free time.

 

So what are you thoughts? Does this give some perspective on the relative strength of reign of the various heavyweight champions over the last 30 years or so?

Again, this is not a who is best list. Just a bit of fun. Cheers!

 

Thank you very much. I'll update it for Ruiz. Toney is a difficult case to assess I guess. He beats Ruiz, but fails the drug test. Also it was difficult to know whether or not to rank him as top 10. So removing him makes things cleaner.
But that was a mistake on my part, I caught a couple of NC and Draws. I'll go back and check the rest of them.
Cheers!

I used the PBO title fight records as a base point. Although, I am guessing their master database tracks the full resume of each fighter, they don't actually publish it once a fighter retires. But I do agree it would be interesting to look at total top 10 fights. It's certainly doable. Might take a fair bit of time though. I still feel this is a good reflection of what a Champion does though.

 

Hey sorry I missed two of your questions there. Golota was ranked 30 by PBO, but he was ranked #5 by The Ring, that is a pretty big discrepancy. I imagine it was because PBO is purely resume based, and Golota taking DQ's is going to have affected his resume, but I am guessing the Ring was willing to overlook that, as he had been giving Bowe such a beating. But there is an argument there whether or not to include him. I'm going with no, because he took 2 losses back to back getting DQ'd the exact same way.

But you are correct Tony Tucker should count. The PBO title rankings started in '93, so I guess it just missed that fight. I'll add him for Lewis.

Regarding Holmes, unfortunately The Ring doesn't make their archive available. So it is probably likely that Holmes did indeed crack the top 10 after beating Mercer. But because he won and lost in the same calendar year of 1992, he isn't in the Rings 1991 or 1992 annual rankings. So there is no way for me to make that call really. I suspect the same thing happened with Charles Martin after he "beat" Glazkov

As I say things got difficult to rank pre-1993. So I also suspect there will be some discussion about what should/shouldn't be included on Tyson's list.

 

I would love to. But to be honest, you would probably need a boxing historian to do that justice.
It wouldn't really be fair on the fighters themselves for me to even try something like that. haha
I was old enough to watch the 90s on TV, and with the lists going back to '93 it was easy enough to fill in the gaps, but I wouldn't trust myself with going earlier than that. To be honest, I'm not entirely confident on Tyson's list, as whilst I do recall his major fights and the buzz surrounding them in the late 80s I was still quite young. But I thought it was important to include close to his full list.

I welcome corrections on that

 

Good spot, I was adding the modern fighters in by hand, forgot to move him across.
Thank you. He was a Wx0 champion. Ruiz Jr. wasn't in the top 10s pre-fight, but was added to TBRB's rankings at #10 following the loss to Parker.

 

What are peoples thoughts on Valuev's resume?

Barrett (PBO 12, Ring 6)
Ruiz '08 (PBO 6, Ring unranked, though he was number 10 the previous year)

It's easy enough to say Barrett was a top 10 win, but Ruiz '08 is a little more tricky...
Ruiz loses to Valuev in '05, then Chagaev in '06. Is still ranked #10 by The Ring end of 2006. Then beats Tisdale '07, and drops out of their rankings for 2007. Then beats McCline '08 in a final eliminator before the fight with Valuev '08.

Thoughts?