Yes. Wills was washed up and got caught with a huge punch, but he looked fairly good previous to that. There are rumours of other fights of his existing but so far I haven't seen any. Training footage: http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=21124 Notice that the film says Wills has earned his shot and is to fight Jack Dempsey. Not quite.
Your Tier 3 is arguably better than Tier 2. I'm just being a ball-buster, that is all. Liston 2 Tiers ahead of Foreman? You've gone bat-**** McGrain!
I really just can't fathom how Foreman could be 2 sections below Liston but that's just me. Unless you account for 50% H2H qualities in your criteria. Otherwise, it's mind-boggling.
Well, you have to put them somewhere. Foreman right now is 10. You could swap him and Holmes and the next guy that comes along would label Holmes's position as "mind-boggling".
Well, I don't really see Holmes as a top 3 top guy. He's in the 3-8 range. He didn't clean the place out, and didn't have the greatest reign. He's right up there with Johnson for me. I think I put him 1 spot ahead. Liston on the other hand is just so loved for his game, and not his achievements.
I just looked at boxrec all time HWs and it has Harry Wills as no2. Now we know the flaws in boxrec but I thought it was interesting and if we think about the highest Wills can be ranked, you have to consider him up there If we want to put a large focus on longevity and number of top wins then only a few were up there with him, he was at the top from 1914 to 1926 fighting nealy every month
Yeah, I know you don't see him as a top 3 guy, but there are guys on the board who do. In fact every guy on the board has two favourites...with you it's Foreman and Marciano. JT would be Holmes and Ali. McVey would be picking out Johnson and Dempsey. It's possible to pick apart literally any HW list based upon your own prejudices. I could make a case for Holyfield being ranked above Marciano without to much difficulty...the reverse wouldn't be difficult...you can see guys working in support of a top 5 ranking for Jack Dempsey here almost daily.
Yeah, if you're allowing multiple wins and putting the onus on win resume, Wills could be ranked very highly indeed. Longevity wise, as you say, he was beating top, very top men, 13 years apart.
One thing must be said in suport of Wills case. He probably fought more elite level opponents than any other heavyweight in history including Joe Louis and Muhamad Ali. When you look at Wills career in detail, a forgotten colossus apears to emerge.
How are we defining elite? McVey, Jeanette, Langford, Sharkey are the givens, who else would you include? Are you including LHW's?