Ezzard Charles HW Resume - wins against The Ring's Top 10

I get your point. And that's fine in a H2H sense. But let's say bridgerweight becomes a real weight class and not a novelty circus act (people thought cruiserweight would be a novelty circus act). If that happens, you'd have to scrap all of the 1970s guys. If bridgerweight is 200-230, then Ali, Norton, Frazier, Foreman, Liston, Chuvalo, Holmes are no longer real heavyweights. Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield are no longer real heavyweights.

Bowe and Lewis will make the cut, but Holyfield is a signature win for both. He no longer counts as a heavyweight. In fact, he's a cruiserweight that moved up to bridgerweight.

You see why your standard gets dicey?

 

Cruiserweight didn't exist. Every campaigning for the heavyweight title above 175 at that time was an actual heavyweight. Why on earth would you only include fighters heavier than the arbitrary weight class which wasn't created until decades after Charles died, then changed decades after that?

That's a stupid and terrible way of looking at fighters. Using modern standards in an era where they didn't exist is ridiculous, and just a plain size fetish.

No 220 isn't where real heavyweights begin, only in your mind. That isn't even what an actual heavyweight is today - let alone in the 50s. Charles beat the best heavyweights in the world. Remind me when Vitali did that. Or even the second best? Or third? ,

Byrd was a light heavyweight who got fat and made Vitali quit. Also, Byrd would not be Charles' second biggest opponent, your knowledge of the era is clearly lacking. Joe Baksi, Johnny Haynes, Joe Louis, Dave Ashley and Bob Albright are all bigger. Half of those guys suck, but they're bigger than Byrd.

This is ridiculous and nothing but pointless conjecture.

Firstly, the war ended years before Charles was at heavyweight - he wasn't even at Light Heavyweight until his own time in the service.

The US army taught soldiers boxing. Any man who wanted to be a fighter and was drafted for world war two, would've been able to become a fighter should they come back. And 97.5% of American soldiers survived the war.

The war had barely any effect on Charles' HW era, and on boxing as a whole. America was scarcely damaged by the war and prospered from it. Every other division in boxing was littered with all-time great after all-time great. Why didn't the war effect them?

All you've done is name two fighters who are better wins than any Vitali ever had.

"One proved himself as a dominant HW champion against good but not great fighters." is code for Vitali feasted on fighters who were absolute dogwater.

Charles beat heavyweights bro. You're obsessing over the light heavyweights. 6 of the 16 ranked men who Charles beat were former light heavyweights. The other ten were career heavyweights and that's more ranked heavyweights than Vitali beat.

Not to mention, Charles was the actual champion, with more defences, better wins and came a lot closer to winning in his close losses than Vitali did in his.

 

That's a fair point and I see the problem with taking the size argument too far. But I think there's still a meaningful distinction between a division where the average heavyweight was 185-195 and a division where the average heavyweight was 220+. What it comes down to is the actual physical reality of what each fighter faced. Charles, who was a natural LHW moving up, ruled a division where most of his opponents were around his size and there were practically no HWs above 200.Charles, who was a natural LHW moving up, ruled a division where most of his opponents were around his size and there were practically no HWs above 200. Vitali dominated a division where his opponents were 220 and up. I think there's a real difference between the two because of that while people treat them as exactly the same and just look only at the names they beat.

Like let's say we swapped roles and give Vitali Charles's run and Charles Vitali's run. I think one is definitely more impressive than the other despite on paper Vitali beating the "better" fighters. And the reason is obvious, size. I'm not trying to erase past fighters from heavyweight history. I'm saying when you compare HW resumes across eras, size is one factor we should consider more than many people here do. Not the only factor. But not zero either. It also adds to the achievements of men like Louis, Usyk, and Holyfield if we just take that factor away.

 

Sure but fighters can only fight and beat the fighters of their time. Ezzard Charles couldn't fight fighters from the 2000s when he fought in the 1940s and 50s. Now if we mean Vitali vs Charles H2H, then yeah, size becomes more germaine to the situation.

Also, if we do this at heavyweight, you can go down the line. A middleweight who weighed 160 with same day weigh ins in 1966, with day before weigh ins could be welterweights today. Light heavyweights from 1966 could be middleweights, etc. Should we throw out every middleweight Sugar Ray Robinson beat because they could make welterweight or Jr welterweight today?

 

Let's look at what those career heavyweights actually weighed. Walcott was 194. Layne was 195. Valentino was 188. Oma was 193. Ray was 192. Beshore was 184. Six out of ten of your "career heavyweights" weighed under 200 pounds. The only ones who weighed what a modern heavyweight typically weighs are Louis at 218, Haynes at 214, Baksi at 210, and Wallace at 201. And Louis was retired for two years and came back because of tax debt. These are the career heavyweights you're bragging about? Vitali's opponents averaged 220+.

I was wrong forgot about Haynes fair enough. But it still serves my point. Someone who's considered small by modern standards would be the third biggest opponent Charles would have fought during his title reign with only Joe Louis and Haynes bigger. Joe Baksi was around the same size. And the difference is that Byrd proved himself against modern HWs and SHWs despite being a "light heavyweight." The men Charles fought and Charles himself never had to overcome that kind of size disadvantage because there were barely any actual big men in the division. That counts for something even if you have to pretend it doesn't.

This honestly might be the most ignorant thing you've ever said lol. The war depleted the talent pool significantly. Boxing historians universally acknowledge this. Saying "97.5% survived" ignores the ones who were injured, traumatized, or came back and chose different careers. And "the army taught soldiers boxing" doesn't mean those men came back and became professional fighters. That's absurd. It didn't affect the other divisions as much because the talent pool for those divisions was much larger. Obviously an event that takes people out of the talent pool is going to affect a division with an already small talent pool even more. The heavyweight division has always had the smallest talent pool because you need naturally large men. Losing even a small percentage of that already tiny pool has an outsized effect. This is basic boxing history.

Ignoring the context behind those wins. Funny how you and Ioakeim give context for any and all of Vitali's wins but when someone tries to do the same to your sacred cow you recoil in horror lol.

No it's saying Vitali beat good fighters who didn't get a chance to be great because they were in an era with two dominant champs. Charles might have beaten "better" fighters on paper but the physical challenge each man faced at heavyweight was completely different. Let's do a thought experiment to illustrate this point. Let's swap Charles's career with Vitali's. Say Vitali fought in the 50s and beat all the men Charles did with the same losses but retained his physical characteristics. Same with Charles in Vitali's era. Who would you say had a more impressive career? Be honest.

 

I don't think it's the same thing. Those weight classes have fixed limits. Middleweight has always been 160. Welterweight has always been 147. You're comparing fighters who all competed at the same defined weight. Heavyweight has no upper limit. Fighters compete at whatever weight they naturally are. So comparing heavyweights across eras is comparing different physical challenges because there's no fixed standard. A 185-pound heavyweight in 1950 and a 220-pound heavyweight in 2005 are fighting at the same division name but facing completely different physical realities. If we can't take that into account then what's the point of comparing across eras at all? You'd just be treating each era as an isolated vacuum ignoring the factors that actually make the comparison meaningful.

 

They have fixed limits but with day before weigh ins, that can change things. As for Charles resume, I'm not saying he beat the more H2H difficult opponents than Vitali, but he beat more top heavies in his era than Vitali beat in his era

 

Who gives a **** what they weighed? They were the top heavyweights in the world - your standards from the comfort of 2026 are absolutely irrelevant. They can't be held to same standards as Vitali because they existsed before steroids and before the new weight classes. What aren't you getting?

Why does Charles need to beat a "Modern Heavyweight"? He's not a modern heavyweight

Are you clinging to the number which Vitali's opponents weighed because their ranking is embarrassing?

It counts for a lot, for Byrd. Byrd, who fought in a heavyweight division full of big, slow fighters with too much fat on too much gear. If he wanted to fight the best heavyweight in the world, he'd have to fight someone 6'5+. That's why it matters - not because they were 6'5+, but because they were the best in the world at the time. For Charles, him not fighting 6'4+ 220+ HWs is absolutely irrelevant. It's also not true, he did face a 6'6 260lbs HW - he absolutely sucked tho.


Alright, including those incapacitated, missing, injured and killed in the American forces from 1941 to 1945, you have 16 million who served with 1.1 million casualties. That's 6.875% of soldiers. I didn't ignore them, I just didn't mention them because A) the war was 5/6 years before Charles was at heavyweight and B) the effect was so obviously minimal that boxing was at its most just a coincidence they happened within 10 years of eachother.

Your entire point about the war was "people were drafted so couldn't get into pro boxing". Those people didn't show any interest when their COs gave them the option to box? Didn't want the extra money? When world champions were topping cards in exhibitions to keep morale up? Those wanted to box, boxed.

And you've just literally just spent about 15 paragraphs saying that the heavyweights in the 50s We're small - now all of a sudden the division is big enough to be uniquely effected by the war well after it ended?

Sure bro, we're scared of context. I know I am! Vitali's wins are worse in context than they are on paper. This was the entire point of the other thread; we can get into the context of Charles' wins - either way, they're more impressive than Vitali's. Both in terms of where they were relative to their divisions, and in ability. The only way you could argue Vitali's are better is because A) they were bigger so they would win, ergo better and B) working as if that is objective truth.

If Vitali went back to the 50s and did what Charles did - at 6'6 250? - he would rank above Charles if he had Vitali's achievements, no doubt. You'd be using him as an example of why heavyweights in the past were sloppy and relied on chin and size.

 

You make a compelling case that he is.

 

You'd be correct actually. I don't think a helluva lot of heavies would surpass 4 tho.

 

Fighting guys who are 220+ is a completely different challenge than fighting guys who wouldn't even be HWs today. Weight classes exist for a reason. Every smaller HW has tried to bulk up to compete with bigger HWs because size matters. You even proved it yourself Byrd struggled against many of his opponents despite being more skilled because of the size difference. That's the physical reality of the HW division that you keep denying exists.

I'm saying beating harder opponents is more impressive than beating "better" opponents. You can justify the latter by rankings all you want but physics doesn't change because of rankings.

And you're saying Vitali at 6'6 250 beating guys who give up 50-60 pounds to him is more impressive than Charles at 181 fighting guys who have 40+ pounds on him? You're saying the guy with a massive physical advantage has the harder task because his opponents are "better" on paper? That's the problem with your framework. You value opponent names so much that you ignore the actual physical reality of the fight. Charles fighting bigger men at 181 pounds is a harder physical challenge than Vitali towering over 175-195 pound opponents at 250. You admitted size matters when you said Vitali would dominate because of it. But then you refuse to apply that same logic backwards — that a smaller man beating bigger men is impressive even if those bigger men aren't highly ranked.

Boxing's golden age happening within 10 years of the war is a "coincidence"? Boxing historians universally disagree. The war depleted the talent pool and HW was hit hardest because the HW talent pool was already the smallest of the original 8 divisions. Something that decreases an already small talent pool has an outsized effect. The army offering boxing as recreation during service doesn't create professional fighters. Most soldiers who boxed did it for fun not career preparation. And losing 5 years of prime athletic development time to military service is devastating regardless of survival rate.

We've both made our cases. You think Charles's HW career was better because of the names. I think Vitali's was better because the physical challenge was greater. We're not changing each other's minds. I'm comfortable leaving it here.

 

some of you guys got a fetish with men who are 6'2+ and weigh 230lbs+

 

As a boxer Ezzard Charles is considered along with Henry Armstrong pound for pound one of the best boxers in the annals of boxing. from 1949-1951 he was Lineal Heavyweight Champion and made 8 defenses (debately 4) within 2 years. One of his former opponents at Middleweight Sam Baroudi died after fighting him. Charles along with Primo Carnera and Max Baer all had opponents pass away after they fought them which understandably would have affected them in and out of the ring. Charles died of Motor Neuron Diesease (MND) which in Tris Dixon's book damage claims it likley would have been induced by boxing.

 

Charles is top-15, for mine, and I rate him higher than Wlad.