Joe Louis's record vs ranked opposition

Do you get that on your Ring subscription or is that available to anybody? Thanks by the way.

 

The current top 10 ring rankings (along with the top 10 rankings of the 4 other major organizations) are available on the official The Ring website

the rankings of the end of the year usually get posted to BoxRec not long after, just search Ring Ratings XXXX year BoxRec

 

Thanks, i remember running across Ring rankings through the years, but forgot for the moment.

 

Now you're just implying an argument I never made.

Where did I say it doesn't matter for Holmes?

Holmes went undefeated in his prime, never got blown out by unrated opposition, and beat a higher caliber of contenders.

Wlad, by contrast, was stopped by three fighters who weren’t even rated contenders at the time, and his best wins - Byrd, Haye, Peter - don't stack up to Holmes' résumé.

That's a gulf in quality and consistency one cannot ignore.

 

I meant that if a guy has been boxing his whole life he isn’t getting better at 35 than early 30’s, unless maybe he was clean before, now he takes peds. It wasn’t targeted at Wlad. I believe they’re all on them at the highest level.

 

Don't know if that's true, but no one said that Wlad was better at 35 than his early 30's. He clearly improved in his late 20's, the years after the loss to Brewster, and held on at that level for a number of years, though. The results and performances show as much. And his results show that he's an ATG, despite most of his best wins coming in his 30's.

Glad you finally seem to understand that dominating is dominating, no matter at what age it happens.

 

You must admit that it isn’t great for a so called ATG to be knocked out multiple times by lower tier opponents while in his 20’s ? Surely that detracts from his greatness somewhat ?

There may be one or two but I can’t think of many, or any greats right now where that is the case

 

No? Norton ranks higher historically than anyone Wlad beat, yes, but he was ageing and the fight was very close. But I don't see that Weaver is better than the likes of Byrd, Povetkin etc and when Holmes beat him he had pretty much a journeyman record. His big wins came after that fight. And iy was a tough fight, whereas Wlad cruised through Byrd and Povetkin.

Shavers had brutal power but thin on the win resume. A green Young, Norton and a past it Bugner. Somewhat better resume than Peter maybe, but not much in it.

Cooney looked talented but never beat anyone that mattered at the time.

Mercer is probably Holmes's best win, even without taking his age into the equation. He had beaten Morrison and would go on to give Holy and Lewis tough, close fights and Holmes handled him with ease. Better than Chagaev, Povetkin and Byrd? Hard to say.

Byrd, Peter, Chagaev, Haye and Povetkin were probably Wlad's best wins. Not big players in the history of the sport, but solid top contenders and he beat them arounf the time they mattered the most, and he was only troubled in the first fight against Peter throughout those six fights.

For Holmes I guess it is Norton, Weaver, Mercer, Shavers and Cooney or maybe Snipes. Of those it was only the Shavers rematch and the Mercer fight he cruised through. Norton and Sahvers were getting on in years and Weaver had done nothing at that time to show that he was a world class fighter.

 

Yes. It was a romance novel that intertwined boxing and desire. The main female character was based on Barbara Stanwyck of The Big Valley fame.

 

Of course it would look better if he didn't have those losses, but I mainly look at a fighters best years, no matter when they came if there's a good number of them. Because if you get good wins, that's all that matters. And few HWs have a decade like Wlad had 2005-2014. For Holmes we mainly look at five years, for Liston and Tyson around three, Lewis seven. So there's no reason not to value Wlad's ten

It would be one thing if Wlad's results all of a sudden imrpoved because he met a lower level of opponents, but it's the other way around. His opp after Brewster was much better than it had been up to that point. So he clearly improved under Steward and showed his full potential over the coming decade. And that was a good one.

Not very different from Lewis under Steward. So either Steward had access to some mean PEDs or he just unlocked these guys potential.

 

He had an amazing career. I just read the Wikipedia of his career. Thats back when ranked fighters were constantly fighting and had lots of losses, compared to todays boxers.

 

Unbeaten Cooney, Unbeaten Witherspoon, prime mercer, Norton, Weaver, Shavers x 2
A lot stronger than Wlad’s best wins.
Combine with even better longevity
48-0
That he actually looked good as a boxer.
Wasn’t knocked out by low level guys in his prime.

Holmes is ahead of Wlad in any department.
And he still is quite often not mentioned in top 3 or even top 5.

 

We will have to agree to disagree about Wlad, he did manage to somewhat work around his questionable chin with a very ugly style of boxing that worked for him, against decent opponents.
I have him somewhere around 12-15. I think it’s fair for him but everyone has their own favourites and guys they rate a bit less

 

No.

Norton/Holmes ranks as one of the greatest heavyweight bouts of all time. Norton's age didn't seem to prevent him from putting in one of his career best performances.

Holmes too, fighting for the lineal championship in his first shot at a title - The magnitude of the occasion must have been immense and he came through.

It's a marquee win - something that eluded Wlad during his extended tenure.

I'd take Weaver's Tate and Coetzee wins over...

Byrd's Vitali and Tua wins
Peter's Maskaev and Toney wins
Chagaev's Ruiz and Valuev wins
Haye's Valuev and Chisora wins
Povetkin's Chagaev and Whyte wins

...any day of the week

And, Weaver isn't even in Holmes' top-5 wins, in my opinion. Neither is Berbick, but Berbick beat as many rated opponents as Byrd did and more than those each clocked up by Peter, Chagaev, Haye or even Povetkin.

You mention the thin résumés of Holmes' opposition and with Cooney that would be true, but I'd say Cooney's ledger still stacks up better than Haye's 8-3 record at heavyweight.

And, for mine, including Povetkin as one of Wlad's best wins exemplifies the power of bringing name-only value to discussions such as this one (and with Povetkin, as much as I had time for him as a competitor, really quite moderate name value).

The bout itself was a disgraceful farce.

For Holmes it's more likely:

1. Ken Norton
2. Earnie Shavers (II)
3. Gerry Cooney
4. Tim Witherspoon
5. Ray Mercer/Earnie Shavers (I)

And then people can take their pick from Trevor Berbick, Mike Weaver (I), Bonecrusher Smith, Leon Spinks, Carl Williams, Renaldo Snipes.

Re Weaver - Inside a year of losing to Holmes, he had lifted the WBA title from Tate, defended against Coetzee, then Tillis and then had been somewhat robbed of his chance to do the same against Dokes - both through a premature stoppage in their first encounter and then through a rather unfair Draw in their rematch.


Norton, Shavers, Cooney, Witherspoon, Mercer, Berbick, Weaver >>> Byrd, Peter, Chagaev, Haye and Povetkin.

 

You have him lower than guys without half the wins against ranked opp. I can't see that. And I never got an answer to why a decade of dominant wins against top opp don't count depending on when it comes. But sure, let's leave it there.