Defending Vitali's resume is a lost fight at the beginning. To call it better than Liston's, you'd have to prove that 2000s is significantly better era than Sonny's (to the point that journeymen were better than top 5 fighters) and that's simply not possible. Even if you believe that Vitali fought better fighters, it's impossible to say that he faced higher ranked fighters who did better relative to their competition. We should always look at how you do against your competition. I like Vitali, but he didn't face good competition overall and he lost to two best boxers he ever faced.
Ali followed by Tyson, not to take anything away from their careers. They're the exceptions to transcending past boxing and you'll get discussions both inside and outside boxing circles about how "Prime Ali/Tyson is unbeatable", "Ali/Tyson vs Bruce Lee/Muay Thai/MMA", and tons of excuses for their losses to FOTC Frazier and Tokyo Douglas to this day.
There is literally no proof of his punching power in the form of videos and images while Foreman does. He is nowhere near the strongest man in boxing. Who did he outmuscle ? Light heavyweights ? Foreman was still developing physically while Liston was around his prime years. He isn't stronger than guys like 6'5 260lbs Lennox Lewis, 6'6 270lbs Primo Carnera or 7'1 310lbs Nikolai Valuev. He was avoided mainly by very low quality opposition.
No proof of his punching power? Is that a joke? This content is protected How often are legitimate world champions KOed in the first? Foreman probably hit harder IMO, but Liston was much better rounded, and I think there's a very strong case he was better overall.
I don't really think this counts to his power as Patterson was known to be chinny and had been dropped literally over 20 times throughout his whole career. Also he was literally a light heavyweight in this fight.
Heavyweights who outweighed him by 10-20 pounds (including Liston) and Johansson. Ali could've knocked him out but instead decided to punish him.
For me its always been Fitzsimmons and Jeffries. When I was a kid just starting to get into the sport I read James Durant's book on the heavyweight champions. And with what I already knew about the sport from excessively watching it I was amazed at reading about this middleweight sized fighter who was heavyweight champ and Jeffries - from his picture - thinking to myself, "Man, he looks like the Michellin Man." Even then, reading about his 'wondrous stance' of holding his left out in an extended fashion like a weaving pole, I thought to myself in my own very immature and sarcastic way, "Oh, that's going to work". Over the years when I managed to see as much video footage of them, rather than run them down I will just say they never passed the eye test for me and any fighter has to pass the eye test for me. The legend does not get a pass from me, nor should it from anyone.
louis is missing why he is still called the best tech boxer ever which he wasnt he was missing mutiple advances in movement and lost to people no big name 70s-90s boxer would lose or stuggle with then we have ali the man they think sense he beat names in 70s that he can fit in and any and beat the big names when he wouldnt he didnt have any real challenge on a skill level except joe its people who have been more skilled then joe that would beat ali
Sort of get your standing ( with no commas , a bit disjointed ) as to your assertion that Ali didn't fight any skilful fighters ( think that was your inference ) I mean the fighters who succumbed to Ali, such as : Patterson, Liston, Terrell, Folley, Moore, Williams, Quarry, Bonavena, Fraizer, Norton, Lyle, Foreman, Shavers, were not what you would call unskilled, were they ? keep well.