Rank these HW fighters: Fury, Joshua, Bowe, Schmeling, Norton, Witherspoon

Witherspoon won 3 World title fights not 1.

He beat Page, Tubbs, Bruno, in World title fights.

And Witherspoon and Page fought a rematch 15 years later when they both 41 years old and totally shot and you're trying to say that fight is relevant ?

You have no context in your post at all and didn't even get the facts straight about Witherspoon's World title achievements.

 

Schmeling is hard to rate too high for me.

He has one great win over an ATG heavy where he apparently saw a weakness and exploited it brilliantly.

the rest of his career is middling at best, his two best wins were against former welterweights, he lost to a number of nobodies, won his title on a foul in a match he was losing, and turned his back on Louis in the rematch where he got destroyed in one round.

Without the Louis win he’s completely forgotten about, with it he’s rated high and always somewhat of a legend

Bizarre

Saying all that , I might be ranking him too low

 

how is Witherspoon, Holmes 2 best win? Witherspoon was a 9 fight novice when he fought holmes
His wins against shavers, Cooney, Norton, Williams an even Spinks an weaver were better if you are going by Holmes performances

 

13 fights not 9.

Also Witherspoon's performance vs Holmes despite losing is considered one of the best performances of his career.

And with hindsight of what Witherspoon achieved then Holmes's win over Witherspoon aged well.

 

Riddick Bowe certainly top of that list.

He was one of the best fighters ever on a prime for prime/H2H sense.

 

He also beat Stribling, Risko, sort of beat Sharkey, Uscuden, Hamas, Nuesal, and Walker (your welterweight) as well as Joe Louis. Outstanding career.

 

It is an informal observation on my part that people believe this, but in polling the ten best fights of the heavyweight champions, he is defiantly on of the top six.

https://www.boxingforum24.com/threads/name-holmes-ten-best-wins.719448/

With vote tally...

Norton-5
Witherspoon-5
Shavers 2-5
Cooney -5
Berbick-5
Leon Spinks-5
Bonecrusher-4
Mercer-4
Shavers 1-4
Weaver-4
Ali-1
Williams-1
Bey-1
Cobb-1

Who is better in that list of top votes...Berbick?

 

Stribling and Walker are the welterweights, sharkey he won on a foul.
Outside of Louis 1 he was the definition of mediocre heavyweight

 

Stribling is actually ranked as one of the top heaviest ever and had a highly debatable claim to being a heavweight champ. He won the Sharky fight on foul, but his loss is generally considered a fight where he wuz robbed. So it works out.

 

Great but started off from featherweight, any of this list should ko him really

 

Fighters are judged by what they accomplish in their own era only. Ray Austin would probably beat Max Schmeling head to head, bu that is all hypothetical. A fighter can only be judged by who they beat and lost to in their own era.

 

That’s true i just find it hard to rank a guy that has one big win and relatively little else, what about Buster Douglas ? He has Tyson and some other good wins, probably better then Schmeling but would you rate him over Schmeling ?

 

But as we have establish, he does have other good wins IN THE CONTEXT OF HIS TIME. Sorry, not shouting, just emphasis.

The fighters that you are dismissing are some of the top contenders of the era that he fought, which is by Boxrec, which is not perfect but at least is objective in that it uses a mathematical algorithm, has Schmeling at #22 of all time at heavy. Stribling, by the way, is ranked higher. Again, I am not saying it is right, but it is an algorithm that weighs wins, losses, wins against contenders, title vitories, etc.

Schmeling fought the best of his era and has a series of very good victories.

 

1 Fury
2 Bowe
3 Norton
4 Schmeling
5 Witherspoon
6 Joshua

 

Fury
Joshua
Schmeling
Bowe
Norton
Witherspoon