Who was the greatest heavyweight wrecking machine of all time?, an analysis.

Good analysis Janitor.

The top 3 were always going to be Louis, Dempsey & Tyson IMO - and probably in that order - so the mathematics has 'proved' what some would have logically suspected.

Louis' record in my view is too often tarnished with the 'bum of the month' stuff. This analysis puts some balance back for the pro Louis platform.

 

I don't see why you didn't mention Bruce Seldon among Tyson's victims. Otherwise, interesting list.

 

I thought that he did not make enough of an effort to merit being listed non thei roll of roadkill.

Sine you say it however I probably should have included him in order to be technicaly consistant.

It was also a hard choice whether to include Marciano Walcott II but I chose to give Marciano the benefit of the doubt.

 

Interesting thread.
Maybe I've been living under a rock or something but I've never heard it said that Louis was a slow starter.

An interesting idea would be to do the same for fighters who KO'd opponents in the last four rounds...

 

Liston, in my opinion. Especailly given the calibre of some of the opponents he demolished early on in fights.

 

So, according to this, Joe Louis is the "Greatest Wrecking Machine" of all time? I can live with that! Great post, janitor! :good

 

Good idea :good

My feeling is that The Tuaman would be near the top of the list.

 

Sullivan:

I would have thought that Captain James Dalton KO 4 ; Frank Herald KO2 should ahve both been added to Sullivans records. If even one third of his opponents that we know nothing about, due to the record keeping of the times, were to qualify for this list, then John L Sullivan would shoot right up the list.

It might be interesting to see how these lists were to pan out, if there was no qualification as to opponent. I think that John L would be right up there, particularly on percentages.

 

Well sure, but that would be a bit unfair to the others, since they had to fight other pro fighters.

But Sully does suffer a little because the 2nd Mitchell fight was under London prize ring rules where they called it a draw after 39 rounds. With the gloves on, Mitchell lasted only 3 rounds, and I doubt he would have improved on that performance the second time around, had it been fought under Queensbury rules.

I also strongly wonder whether Kilrain would have lasted more than 4 rounds under Queensbury rules.

 

It's efficiency, not 'wrecking' that comes to mind when Louis is concerned, but his punching ability is worthy of any rank.

 

peak tyson and foreman are my picks for wrecking machines.

 

Look at some of the early oponents of say a George Foreman. TEchnically professional, but not that high a standard. A wrecking machine puts these types of guys away early. Foreman did, Sullivan did, and others did. Many good fighters did so only on some occassions.

 

To be honest with you Sullivan was going through the best fighters around prety much as easily as the second raters in his prime.

Jimmy Elliot had a fairly credible claim on the American heavyweight title (esentialy the world title) and was seen as a key player in the heavyweight division. Sullivan offered him $500 (about three years wages for a bank clerk back then) if he could last four rounds and stopped him in the third.

Sullivans oponents were certainly a weak crop compared to the previous era and the subsequent era but they were the best around and frankly he could probably have beaten any two of them in the same night.