Top Ten Greatest HWs of All-Time - The Ring Magazine (March 1975)

It’s always interesting to go back.
Things that I note -
1) Probably half the people on the list then don’t often appear now. Granted, there have been other greats since then.
2)The jury was still out on Ali at the time. This has happened with other champions too like Lennox, but it’s especially notable with Ali given that the common wisdom is that they’d already seen his peak years in the 1960s.
3) Some champions from that era or prior have been reassessed. Liston springs to mind, but also Foreman, who definitely had a career revision later on because of his comeback.

 

In my opinion it's a good ranking. I'd change a few positions (Johnson and Marciano before Dempsey) and include Liston, but then again, these are legitimately differing opinions. It's 1975, and Tunney's presence makes me wonder how Usyk will be considered in an all time ranking of the best heavyweights (despite the fact that his career isn't over yet). Will he be in the top 10? I think this will be a topic of discussion in the future.

 

Joe, Jack, Jim, Jack, Jim, Joe

 

I think Ali should be higher.

 

Ranking are bit like paintings. What one person will see another might not. Some people see a masterpiece while other's don't. There's no accounting for personal taste. At the very least it's enterprising to at least be thinking outside the box. It's kinda pointless to argue someone's taste as not everyone will see thing's the same.
true story here:
I remember an artist friend of mine who painted polka dots of different colors on canvas and i literally thought it was the worst art i ever seen (i didn't tell him that i was supportive). He put some in gallery & cleared 10k and he told me and i almost had a heart attack. What i was seeing certainly wasn't what others were seeing. This lesson i kept with me forever particularly with music. Just because you don't like it does not mean it doesn't have appeal.

With that said. At least the first five guy's
1) Joe Louis
2) Jack Dempsey
3) Jim Jeffries
4) Jack Johnson
5) Rocky Marciano

had very little to almost no losses in their prime. I know a few lost but they have a almost blemish free ring records in their prime.
I certainly always felt that Joe Louis was better than anything before him. So i don't think it's super outrageous. Each of these guy's advanced in the computer boxing tournament of the 60's.

 

Fantastic post.
I think also with boxing rankings, there’s no standardized criteria either. And good point about their records…we often see folks compare fighter A at their best, and fighter B at their worst.

 

Was Jim Corbett ever more than a part time pro? Dude was closer to an box-aerobics instructor.

Horrible list, or course.

 

Jim Corbett over Ali

 

I thought Larry Merchant did a pretty good List:

10: Joe Frazier 9: George Foreman 8: Mike Tyson 7: Evander Holyfield 6: Jack Dempsey 5: Rocky Marciano 4: Lennox Lewis 3: Joe Louis 2: Larry Holmes 1: Muhammad Ali

Source: Larry Merchant Lists His Top 10 Greatest Heavyweights: “I Probably Won't Be Around For Much Longer, So Here It Is” (https://www.boxing247.com/boxing-ne...e-around-for-much-longer-so-here-it-is/278774)

 

I would have thought Ali would be higher, after defeating Foreman.

 

That's my opinion too. Muhammad's victory over George was the fight that sealed his place as number one heavyweight of all time on many lists including my own.

 

To make any such list, you have to start with your criteria. I wonder if The Ring gave us an idea how they came up with it — even if you enlist a ‘panel of experts,’ if you don’t start with ‘this is the lens through which we want everyone to view it’ … you just can’t get a satisfying result.

It’s like in other sports — sometimes you have a tournament (or league or season) Most Valuable Player and sometimes it’s Most Outstanding Player. For me, I’d view those as different things (although in some instances they’d be the same player).

To me, an MVP is weighted by value — the best player on the worst team isn’t adding a lot of value since he’s making no difference in outcomes (look up Pistol Pete Maravich’s college stats but then look at LSU’s record with him … although one could argue his value came at the box office filling arenas) but he could be the most outstanding.

So Greatest heavyweight would not to me bring to mind necessarily Best heavyweight. Greatest could for me include Jack Johnson, Rocky Marciano and Jack Dempsey, but they’d rate very low in my top 10 if they even cracked it if I were ranking Best heavyweights (which to me would be more H2H thinking along with dominance in their eras playing at least a part).

Marciano is arguably a greater heavyweight than Lennox Lewis, but he was certainly not a better one.

So I think The Ring leaned into Greatest quite a bit here, or so it appears.

The other thing is recency bias can cut a lot of ways. No telling what the views of those picking this list might have had about Ali being a ‘draft dodger’ (which should have no bearing but might be a hidden bias) and Liston being a ‘shady character/quitter’ … but history with boxing seems to treat guys who threw fights (or were perceived to have done so) much more kindly than they are considered more contemprarily.

Two curious absences for me are Floyd Patterson and Ezzard Charles … both of whom I think are considered more highly now (not top 10 but we’ve had a ton of other heavyweights to come along in the last 50 years and there’s also the modern goliaths to consider when comparing). If doing a list of top 10 up to 1975, I think more of our posters would consider them in or at least borderline.

 

I honestly think Ali ranking that low a lot to do with the controversy around him at the time. Ali didn't truly get the respect he deserved until years after he retired. By March 1975, damn near all of Ali's biggest wins had already happened. Nothing drastically changed with his resume from 75 until he retired to rank that low.