"Larry Holmes was the GOAT"

Me too Stevie, though I could see my #4 Lewis ahead of Holmes, those 2 are close, imo.

 

In the fact that greatest boxer can be defined, but best dinosaur can not.

At least when you compare the resumes of two fighters, you are working with things that actually happened.

When you use head to head, you are effectively bartering with something that doesn't exist.

 

The best dinosaur is Parasaurolophus.

Why is that even debated?

 

Top 5 ATG, but the GOAT? I don't see how he dethrones Ali or Louis, and I think Lewis has better H2H capabilities against certain opponents. Also, Wlad tends to get left out of these conversations, but he's got a solid resume as well. And Frazier, despite being a smaller guy, cleaned out a division and collected the biggest scalp of all.

Anyway, seems hard to say he's the GOAT. Top 5 though and would give Ali, Louis, or Lewis a difficult fight.

 

The way I look at it is this.

You can rank fighters head to head, in which case you are ranking them on your opinion of how they woudl do against X.

This of course could be completely wrong, and even if it was right, then many people would disagree.

Then if you have a biased mindset, you effectively become the God of your own little universe.

If you rank fighters based on resume, then at least you are dealing with a series of historical facts, that you have absolutely no control over.

This means that there are some checks and balances in the system.

 

Yep,I know where you're coming from.I just feel that there wasn't any weakness to Larry's game.He was
either very good or great at just about everything.I personally have Holmes joint 3rd with Joe Louis.
I just can't separate those 2 ATGs !
However Mr M,your rating of Holmes is reasonable.

 

I'm not sure that type of 'Shilstone' thing (whatever that thing is) works for everybody. I'd also reckon on there needing to be a certain kind of mindset to make any type of training regime work.

I think Holmes' issues by then were more on the mental attitude side of his game than they were on the plain physical.

 

Greatness has variables but it also has some hard and fast principles otherwise it simply wouldn't exist. It's not just made up as such.

Not too many would rate Tex Cobb over Ali in greatness, for example. In fact nobody who follows boxing would, excepting a brain injury. Why is everybody so sure? That would be obvious. You're not going to see Tommy Morrison or James Tillis over Joe Louis either, again, for obvious reasons.

Greatness = resume for almost everybody. Resume equals a reasonably measurable principle with some room to move opinion wise.

Beating x amount of #1 contenders is extremely significant and a huge plus. It's dominance over one's era. Beating multitudes of top 10 contenders is also a huge boost. We can compare fighters of different era's via this quite simple measure. From there most will form an assessment of the strength of the era's and factor it in. This is where you will see differences of opinion and varying lists. There will also be differences of opinion on certain values like longevity vs perceived quality of opposition and the like.

The base is resume.

 

It's one measure of their greatness, a significant one. Selling books isn't going head to head vs your best in the world peers physically. Apples and oranges.

Again apples and oranges.

Well if it's not about what they did in the ring we could go by biggest feet? Nicest haircut? Hagler might fall short. Actually no it would be too opinionated. Back to feet.

But people often explain their own list via what they value anyway. Joe Bloggs might say he values historical impact and hence "my" list will look a bit different. Someone might say i love cultural impact and this is why Billy Bob and Jack Johnson are above where you normally see them etc. People still argue about the greatest golfer ever but the immense majority of the time it's only two names that come up, just like Ali and Louis and ESB.

Well Nat, Bert and co get ridiculed in here all the time, and for obvious reasons. No i'm not going to spell them out

Yes catch is cool, absolutely. Very very nice list too. His top three mirror Matt's list from memory and he has the same players as Matt in the next three spots as well, with a tweak. Matt has Marciano at #3. Marciano never lost. With Wills IMO he believes he did not get his opportunity and also that his resume is strong regardless. I couldn't agree with Tunney as he didn't have enough work at heavyweight. I also don't know the exact criteria catch is using so perhaps he can expand on both Wills and Tunney if he feels like it. Wills is unconventional but Tunney does make the odd old timers list. He gets an awful lot of mileage out of the Dempsey wins. Too much for me but others might differ. I'd assume he would have Dempsey not far at all behind Tunney so as to justify Tunney's inclusion.

catch has already posted at length in this thread why he rates Holmes where he does. Personally i disagree and often have Holmes at #4 but it boils down to criteria and catch spelt his out on Larry. McGrain, whose lists i see as a great barometer and starting point has him #7. The forum consensus has always mixes between Lewis and Holmes for #3 and #4 and there's never much in it.

As McGrain always (basically) says you can have Holmes and Lewis anywhere from around #3 to #12 and justify it. There's absolutely room for sizeable fluctuations depends on personal criteria and preferences. It says it all that the forum have Louis and Ali as a lock in the top two places.

George may not be a potato but he's one weird guy and says the most outrageous things and is crazy quirky. I'd hardly be chasing after George's list on anything to be frank hahaha

I've seen many examples of boxers being asked who will win an upcoming fight between two guys they happen to have fought themselves, often recently. They get it right about as often as us couch "potatoes". Being great in a field need not make you the be all and end all. Jesus himself wouldn't be able to work out Foremans criteria on that lot given Floyd Patterson is not only in there but in there deep.

What i will say is this - i think this forum is the gold standard regarding Greatness based ratings, top of the tree. It has been since I've been here. There's a fair collectiveness with train of thought but with enough individuality to make for some top shelf efforts. Rummy and McGrain have done some polls and threads to gather some greatest boxers ever lists as well as our very own Hall of Fame. Tho i didn't participate in all of it the lists and efforts were brilliant and something to be truly proud of. It would actually be great to expand on it moving forward.

Oh, my list. I did this one at the start of 2008. I actually made some threads to get me past sticking points as well, gathering the good forums opinions and reasoning. If you note i just edited that was only changing the font of my ten names from a near invisible blue to green for your ease of clarity. My list would be different now but not greatly. Holyfield would lose spots and Foreman would sneak up stands out. I did say 6-10 is murky to place and that point stands.

Still extremely keen to see a CT special (top 10 list) too and some short reasoning.

Edit - Johnson and Jeffries weren't considered as i cut short of that far back.

https://www.boxingforum24.com/threads/my-top-10-heavyweight-list.40940/

 

Excellent list. I can't rank Tyson above Foreman though

Depending on the day, Foreman, Marciano and (somewhat less frequently than the former 2) Lewis make my top 5. Gun to my head I'll give Foreman it because he's also a consistent #3 H2H imo, with only Liston and Ali ahead of him. I wouldn't be the slightest bit surprised if he beat Liston either. He's never beating Ali though.