Top 10 '80s Heavyweights

The important thing here is the 80s are not the 70s. In another eras Tuckers resume would be more of a problem but the 80s is known for fighters piling up an undefeated record early and only fighting top guys a few times. This is why Tuckers padded resume shouldn't be held against him as much and why Weavers losses early in his career are so much harder to look past. Whatever he has its hard to put anyone except Tyson, Holmes and Spinks ahead of him and you can easily make an argument to put him ahead of Spinks. Witherspoon who I'd have next has the Pinklon and James Smith losses. Pinklons got the Berbick loss and the Coetzee draw and lost to Tyson though he did a somewhat decent job. You can go on and on. Tucker is ahead of them because his resume has fewer flaws.

The reason going the distance with Tyson and winning 4-5 rounds has value is no one else did that and because his big win Buster Douglas went on to beat Tyson. While Tucker went down to Lewis twice who besides Holyfield won a lot of rounds against Lewis? McCall and Rahman caught him.

Bugner is in a different era being compared to different fighters similar feats are going to get way less mileage. You've got Foreman, Ali, Frazier, Norton, Jimmy Young, Lyle and Shavers. Thats 7 if we don't count Holmes. He has losses to the worst 2 of that 7 not just Ali and Frazier. Having Bugner 8th instead of 4th isn't being inconsistant because its a different era. That ranking is still valuing Bugner going the distance with Ali and Frazier its just not yielding as much because everyone else just mentioned has done more. The 80s is a bottom heavy HW era thats strength is better represented at top 15-25 than its top 5-10.

 

How is Tucker ahead of them for fighting less notable opposition ? and having less notable wins ? that doesn't make one bit of sense. So basically you're saying you reward Tucker for having a cleaner record fighting against nobodies, and because statistically his record looks better without taking into account his level of opposition or notable victories you automatically rate Tucker ahead of them ? that make 0 sense to me.

The Buster Douglas win was not a big win why do you keep saying this ? it was for a vacated belt against a hot and cold fighter at the time. So basically any fighter who beat Buster Douglas prior his fight vs Tyson must be considered a big win for you then because Douglas peaked for one fight vs Tyson.

Also Tucker won 5 rounds vs Tyson ? now you're just being dishonest to make Tucker look better. Two of the judges only had Tucker winning 1 and 2 rounds one judge had Tucker winning 4 rounds which is very generous to Tucker. I think the most common scorecard i've seen is 9-3 to Tyson which is a very clear win in which Tyson never got out of 2nd career and Tucker mostly looked to survive after after a few good rounds early on.

Again Tucker lost a lopsided decision to Lewis i'm not sure we you are getting "Tucker won alot of rounds from" associated press scored it 117-110 for Lewis which is a very wide points win.

But i've already proved to you most of the 80s titlists and contenders have better resume's than Tucker in 80s, so why you do apply different logic for Bugner and Tucker ? what does it matter if the 70s era is stronger than the 80s ? the same logic applies regardless Tucker doesn't have a better resume in the 80s than the likes of Page, Weaver, Holmes, Tyson, Coetzee, Witherspoon, Dokes, Spinks. Berbick, Thomas, hence he's not rated in the top 10 it's that simple.

You're only argument is based on H2H ability which is practically guess work and wide points losses which is as i've repeated numerous times not a good argument.

 

Your idea of Bonecrusher over Tucker has plenty of merit, Tony was a very fine fighter.

To be honest, I actually had inner conflicts about putting both Spinks and Smith on the list, and struggled leaving Tucker off.

 

I do think Tucker has a better resume than Weaver. I conceded Weaver has more relevant wins than Tucker if we're counting. I'm not conceding the totality of the resume because a resume is made up of everything. Wins, losses, context. When I used the word relevant to describe Weavers wins I called them "relevant" because thats what they were relevant wins not wins against the best fighters of the era or anything.

Besides Cooney who is 9th all the guys on my list got wins over my top 8 which includes Buster Douglas. So does Tony Tubbs who I rated 11th. That is why I rated them in the top 10. I rated James Smith 8th over the Witherspoon KO despite having quite a few more losses than Berbick and Tubbs. I do value top wins we just disagree on what those are. There is level of arbitrary when deciding a top win and its circular logic if I rate someone high beating them is going to mean a lot and losing to them won't mean a lot. You know whats not arbitrary(most of the time) or "guess work" and what is factual? Losses.

I can't speak for everyone else but with me and you a core disagreement here is how we value those 4 WBA champs in Tate, Weaver, Dokes and Coetzee. I have them all outside my top 12 you proabably have them all in your top 10. I also have Carl Williams outside my top 12 when a lot of posters have him rated quite high. Tillis, Snipes same story. I have all Weavers wins top 12-20 just like Weaver himself. If we don't include Ali the 80s had 16 HW champs champs are going to be rated outside the top 10.


1 judge in both those fights had Tucker winning 5. Those were generous scorecards though I'll admit. He won 4. 1 of the judges agrees with you I don't know why you're citing the AP. I thought we cited the AP for old fights where we don't have official cards but thats just me.

 

Honestly i'm scratching my head everytime i read your posts because honestly your logic to me doesn't make sense, you've admitted Weaver has the better resume and more relevant wins and then in another sentence your say you rate Tucker higher than Weaver how is that possible ?

You keep bigging up Tucker's win over Douglas because Douglas peaked for one night 3 years later vs Tyson, and as i said that logic doesn't work because then based on that logic any fighter who beat Douglas prior to Tyson victory means it must be a huge win for them aswell then.

Tucker's victory over Douglas was not considered a big win at the time and as i keep saying it was for a vacant belt and it's the only top 10 opponent Tucker beat in the 80s.

Cooney never won a championship and never beat a top 10 ranked opponent he doesn't belong in the top 10 how does your rating system even work ? it's absolutely baffling. If you value top wins then how in the world is Cooney ranked 9th ? when he doesn't have a single win over a ranked opponent ? i'm literally getting a headache trying to understand how your mind works in regards to ratings.

I value Weaver beating 4 times as many ranked opponents than Tucker in the 80s and winning 3 times as many championship fights which is pretty simple logic why Weaver is rated above Tucker without all the other confusing mental gymnastics.

Where are you getting 5 rounds from ? the official scorecards for the Mike Tyson were as follows....119-111, 118-113, 116-112 so if my maths is correct that's 9 rounds to 1 with 2 even rounds, 7 rounds to 2 with 3 even rounds, and finally 8 rounds to 4.

The official scorecards for the Lewis fight were as follows........117-111, 118-111, 116-112, so again i'm not sure where you're getting 5 rounds from.

 

I used relevant wins as a way to say wins over people you've heard of but not top guys and this was lost in translation. Like Broad and McCall are relevant wins for Tucker. You took me saying Weaver has more relevant wins to mean all sorts of stuff it does not.

Explanation for Busters losses
a)Bey beat Buster early like Broad beat James Smith early. Someone green getting knocked out by a top fighter early is pretty excusable its not like they are starting their career 5-5. Both Bey and Broad are top 15-20 guys in the 80s.
b)Mike White was 6 ft 10 and apparently according to boxerrec Douglas had won virtually every round before the TKO. Mike White was a California state champion. He was not an awful fighter at all.
c)Ferguson narrowly won a 10 round decision and had too many losses. I tend to associate Ferguson with the 90s more cause this is when he got that title shot.

Anyway 2 of Busters 3 losses were to title contenders the third was a 6 ft 10 state champion. Given everyone had padded records it was reasonable to hold these losses against Buster. Later results proved that wrong and gave the win value just like it did to Tuckers padded resume. Are we supposed to ignore that Buster Douglas beat Tyson and Tucker wasn't finished until 1995? Someone in 1992 wouldn't consider Lennox Lewis the best HW and people wouldn't expect Ali to beat Liston he had a padded 20-0 record with a win over ancient Archie Moore and Henry Cooper. But people did this thing called being wrong.

I see the 70s as the best era stopping 3 of the 70s top 6 in their late 30s and only losing to lineal champs goes a long way with me. If you want a simple explanation for Cooneys ranking there it is. Cooney has one of the shortest careers of any contenders ever but in the 80s it goes a longer way than it otherwise would have. If its driving you mad I put Cooney 9th just pretend I put Berbick 9th and Tubbs 10th it was close enough the difference is trivial tbh.


Tucker scored 5 rounds on one of the cards and 4 on 2. Tucker got knocked down twice though and you lose a point for a knockdown so that doesn't show up on the scorecards. Strangely the card that gave Tucker 5 rounds is the only one that gave Lewis credit for the 2nd knockdown the other 2 judges scored that round 10-10. So if you're wondering why the numbers don't add up thats why they don't add up.

In terms of you getting a headache about how I interpret rankings its cause I don't care about them. They are a snapshot of what people thought at the time without knowing how these fighters careers panned out. They are only relevant in deciding who gets to fight for titles. Every single poster on these forums is more qualified to rank the fighters of a given period not because they know more about boxing but because they live in the future and have more information. Why would someone living in 2024 hold what people thought about 2 fighters in 1985 against them if they don't think its accurate?

 

McCall has nothing to do with Tucker's standing in the 80s that fight happened in the 90s and thread title clearly states "top 10 Heavyweights of the 80s" which you seem to be missing the point constantly by keep mentioning it and the Lewis fight which is also irrelevant to the 80s Heavyweight rankings.

None of them were ranked in the top 10 when Cooney beat them and they were all considerably past their best. So you rank Cooney as number 9 in the 80s for beating 0 ranked fighters and winning 0 championship fights ? because he beat washed up fighters from a previous era who were no longer ranked in the top 10 ? don't make sense to me.

119-111, 118-113, 116-112 9 rounds to 1 with 2 even rounds, 7 rounds to 2 with 3 even rounds, and finally 8 rounds to 4.

So basically you're counting even rounds as 5 rounds to Tucker ? that's a new one on me i'm just baffled.

No offence but i'm so over this debate it's just so frustrating trying to make sense of this conversation, i'm not getting any enjoyment out of this debate your takes to me are just bizarre and your logic for ranking fighters is all over the place.

So i'm going to bid you a farewell no hard feelings you haven't been disrespectful when making your points which i commend you for. But honestly i'm having a very frustrating experience trying to fathom your logic and reasoning which as i said makes the debate for me not an enjoyable one.

Hopefully we can discuss another subject in the future where the conversation is a more enjoyable experience for us both.

Regards DP.

 

I've discussed my feelings on fighters whole career counting for decade conversations because otherwise it randomly favors certain fighters.

I'm not considering their rank I'm considering how good I think they were. I'm a George Foreman for HW GOAT guy who has Jimmy Young rated as high as one could conceivably rate him. And Cooney fought for the lineal title twice.

It means there was a case for Tucker winning the round. But you thinking thats misleading is fair I guess.

You know what thats fair. We are very far apart evaluating this topic you don't have Tucker in your top 10 and I don't have those 4 WBA champs in my top 10. And yeah this disagreement stems from the argument about Holmes not unifying the WBA belt. And on other things it seems like we are more in agreement.

The one thing I regret is not being able to find a better way to communicate my argument. The relevant wins things in particular when I was looking for a way to express the sort of wins Weaver has more of than Tucker and why I don't think that matters. Socrates stumped me with his questions not in that I didn't have an answer but was unable to find the words to properly express what I was trying to say. I truly did not expect much pushback on Tucker being better than Weaver. While I think I'm right you are right I did a bad job making the argument.