Pick The Darkhorse Heavyweight GOAT.

If Lennox is allowed to pull his opponents head down into a right uppercut (was he ever even warned for that?) he'd be tough to beat.

 

Ruddock's only accomplishment was landing a few good shots in the Tyson bout.

Riddick Bowe was a coward. We agree on that point.

Not insisting on any 'imaginary conditions' just pointing out the fact that Lewis faced a mentally impaired McCall (who was walking around, shaking his head, crying and refusing to engage) and it wasn't a competitive bout therefore it cannot be judged on the same terms as his other bouts. What's so difficult to understand about that?

When (in his prime) do you ever see Dempsey get tired?

You really believe those guys would have taken out Frazier? That's hilarious. Frazier wouldn't have taken six rounds to dispatch of HIV-riddled Tommy Morrison or seven rounds with Bruno. He definitely wouldn't have needed a second attempt to beat Hasim Rahman. Don't know what your smoking.

 

Probably either Holmes or Lewis or Wlad IMO.

 

Outside of Ali,Holmes?

 

Unlikely candidates? There would be a lot of "what-if" to consider. Lennox Lewis comes to mind. Most people will have Ali, Louis or Holmes at the top, but a case could be made for Lewis as well. Fought everyone, never ducked an opponent, won rematches by KO over opponents who beat him by KO, was ducked by Bowe.

 

Well said. He doesn't have a single victory as impressive as the biggest ones of Louis, Liston, Tyson, Ali, Holmes, Foreman, Norton, Frazier, or Holy. He has worse losses in his prime than any of them. And yet, for some reason, he's listed alongside them, or even above them, even though at the time he fought, no one even thought he'd be a top 10 fighter. And today, he's easily placed in the top three. Human memory is unreliable.

 

JJW.

 

Not as long as it took you to discredit him. Obsessed much.

 

John L. Sullivan was the axis, the first heavyweight champion, the man who shaped what we call boxing today. Without him, there would be endless speculation, and we couldn’t even be sure if pugilism would have properly taken root at all. For that, he gets my vote as the dark horse heavyweight GOAT and, for that matter, the dark horse GOAT.

 

Please. He's not top 100 in anything but historical context.

 

The greatest for me is Muhammad Ali, followed closely by Joe Louis and Larry Holmes.

But I think you can make a case that for a short time, at his very peak, Joe Frazier might have attained a height no one else quite reached — he beat the greatest, so there’s that.

I don’t buy it, but you can make a case that for a period Sonny Liston might be that guy.

But if you want to get way outside the box — and I mean WAY outside the box — I’ll say that there’s a period where Riddick Bowe could arguably (key word) be the toughest to beat H2H. At his very blink-and-you-missed-it best, Bowe is a tougher out than Lennox Lewis and some others mentioned here.

 

I mentioned another two but I’ll mention a dark horse for top ten that never gets mentioned. Ezzard Charles may be the greatest ever and I would give him a chance against any HW ever in his prime.

 

it's all speculative, subjective and/or objective if documented record, or in the thread's case possibles, maybe's or could have been.

as too Walcott, at his best, he was fit for anyone HW Great in real time and again at his best H2H as good as any HW in History, barring the Giants, them being a whole other division, lesser though it is, the BIG Guys 'usually' beats the smaller guys.

 

Nope. He just wasn't that good. No one who lost that much deserves to be in the conversation of holding his own against true HW greats. And the contemporary opinions of him by guys who had watched him and his competition back this up. His legacy is a great charade.