Top 10 heavyweights divided into two distinct timespan

It took until 13 years 49 fights and 20 world title fights for someone to have a win against Holmes.

The only fighter who ever really convincingly beat Holmes in 75 fights was a prime Tyson at his absolute peak who is considered one of the best H2H fighters of all time. And Holmes himself was coming up to his 40s whilst also coming off a lay off.

I think based on his longevity and the fact he never lost in his prime i think deserves alot of praise.

You can say what you want about his opposition but he was regularly fighting multiple top 10 ranked Heavyweights during his reign.

 

But who were the guys he was fighting? And who was he passing up?

 

He never really missed many names until the latter part of his reign.

 

Dokes, Coetzee, Page...

I mean, its not his fault that it turned out not to be a great ear, but a guy who never unified or fought his #1 has to answer when names are left on table.

 

Dokes burst onto the scene beating Weaver in a controversial stoppage.

The rematch Dokes didn't really look impressive and alot felt he lost that fight.

Dokes then got taken apart by Coetzee.

So there wasn't really a big window for that fight to happen which is the case for alot of the notable 80s Heavyweight belt holders or contenders.

Holmes was going to fight Coetzee but the fight fell through which wasn't anyone's fault.

Thomas I agree he should've fought.

As for number 1 contender if you look at who the number 1 ranked Heavyweights were during Holmes's reign....

Weaver who Holmes had already beaten.

Dokes who was only briefly ranked as number 1.

Coetzee who Holmes had signed to fight.

And Thomas.

Realistically the Thomas fight is the one glaring emission but I think at that time Holmes knew he was aging and just wanted to break Marciano's record and ride off into the sunset.

I mean this is a fighter who fought the likes of a prime Tyson, Holyfield, so I don't think he was scared of anyone.

 

First and foremost, the eye test... Holmes fought at a very high level. He made mistakes but was able to correct them during the fight. He was a close-to-perfect heavyweight. His fight with Norton is highly underrated. Ken was in very good shape, and his style didn't suit Holmes, who was probably not yet in his prime and was injured. Shavers and Cooney fought Holmes in perhaps the fight of their lives. Both were very dangerous and had their moments. These were victories worthy of ATG: Norton, Shavers, Cooney. Before the fight with Holmes, Cooney was absolutely excellent. Add to that his maintaining a high level of performance over many years. The 41-year-old Holmes defeated the arguably better Mercer in 1991, much more decisively than the prime Lewis in 1996, when Ray was already weakening. In my opinion, Holmes is okay at number two; he could be traded with Tyson, Foreman, or maybe Wladyslaw. His assessment is difficult, but we cannot look only through the prism of names.

 

He beat a still useful version of Norton, then defended against the following....

Alfredo Evangelista (23-2-1)
Ossie Ocasio (13-0)
Mike Weaver (19-8)
Earnie Shavers (59-7-1)
Lorenzo Zanon (25-4-2)
Leroy Jones (24-0-1)
Scott LeDoux (26-8-4)
Muhammad Ali (56-3)
Trevor Berbick (18-1-1)
Leon Spinks (10-2-2)
Renaldo Snipes (22-0)
Gerry Cooney (25-0)
Randall Cobb (20-2)
Lucien Rodriguez (35-7-1)
Tim Witherspoon (16-0)
Scott Frank (20-0-1)
Marvis Frazier (10-0)
Bonecrusher Smith (14-1)
David Bey (14-0)
Carl Williams (16-0)

Not a resume loaded with ATGs, no doubt, but there's some decent wins in there. Some were a tad green at the time, but Berbick, Snipes, Cooney, Witherspoon, Smith, & Williams weren't bad, and were all young and fresh at the time they faced Holmes. Weaver would go on to win a belt after Holmes beat him. So did Smith, Witherspoon, and Berbick. Frazier and Bey were a level down, but were both undefeated at the time and had some ok wins. The rest mostly, with maybe the exception of that version of Ali, were probably better than Louis' "Bum of the Month" club that he had the luxury of facing....and padding his resume with. Holmes also managed a win over 18-0 Ray Mercer in his 40s.

I haven't really put the other's resume side by side with Holmes' to compare, but Holmes' isn't all that bad IMO.

 

Actually, I need to correct myself here.

Floyd lost to Ingo by KO3 in June of 1959 (I was thinking that one happened the next year) so he doesn’t have a rematch win on his record because that didn’t take place until after our year split.

I cannot see Patterson as top 10 from 1800s-1959 given his record was 35-2 with only nine true heavyweight fights at this time (one of them against an amateur, Pete Rademacher, btw). So eight fights against professional heavyweights..

He lost to an aging light heavyweight and beat an aging light heavyweight for a vacant title. So about the best you can give him is beating Archie Moore (nice but that doesn’t get you in the top 10 all-time up to this point in his career) and twice defeating Tommy Jackson.

Ingo deserves the 10th spot more than Floyd as he had 22 heavyweight fights with KO wins over Henry Cooper, Eddie Machen and Floyd Patterson at this point in time. But I feel sure we can do better than Johansson for that last spot in an all-time top 10 through 1959 if we try just a little.

Floyd with his loss to Ingo is definitely on the outside looking in. And he of course doesn’t do enough in the rest of his career after the 1960 divide being used for this exercise to crack that top 10 either.

 

Tunney is not an ATG HW

 

Yes, decent. Agreed. Decent doesn't make you #2 or #3 of all time. It just doesn't.

Louis beat Baer, Schmeling, Walcott, Conn, and Lewis. His record is as legit as they come.

 

But there were still better men to fight than the Zanons, the Occosio's etc.

Look, if you disagree, you disagree. I don not think you can declare someone #2 with that thin a resume. Stat is my story and I will argue it all day. As noted above, I woulds aw wins over Baer, Schmeling, Walcott, Conn and Lewis are manifestly better than Norton, Witherspoon, Cooney, Shavers and Mercer. In our top-ten head to head polls, most felt even George Foreman had a better top ten wins.

 

Due to the criteria of the thread I don't see how Holmes isn't atleast top 4 how many Heavyweights would you definitely rank above Holmes after 1958 ?

Yes Foreman has better top wins than Holmes but his lack of depth to his overall resume and only having 5 world title wins compared to 20 for Holmes means for me he rates lower than Holmes.

 

No problems here, then brother. I think after Ali and Louis, it gets very subjective very quickly. I wouldn't have him at 2 or 3, but I would say in the top ten.