Worst Greatest ever.

Probably badly worded. Although, if you pick a non heavyweight, then (almost certainly) they are not the best fighter in the world, because they have never been recognised as such. Even a light heavy champion is always ranked below the Heavyweight champion, so he cant be the greatest ever. Maybe we should do a pound for pound option after the heavyweight scene is finished.

Ad for Brian Nielson, i think that is a very clever and interesting choice. In fact the case that you have put forward is his best case possible. The problem is that his title was not considered by anyone (not even his home country or himself!) as the World championship. There is nobody, not a single person, at any point in time whoever considered Brian Nielson the best fighter in the world. Before you get over this hurdle, you cant be the greatest ever.

I am sorry, but i dont think that Brian Nielson can qualify as a legitimate (no matter how weak) Greatest ever.

 

I think that Dempsey is a definite qualifier for the reasons you stated. Let us not forget that Dempsey's destruction of a Modern sized Superheavy who was at the time considered invincible was possibly the greatest performance of all time. Dempsey absolutely ripped through his early challengers and it wasnt till he won the title his fame and fortune and he basically relaxed his training and focus that Tunney beat him. Let us not forget also that when totally past it, he still beat the 3rd best heavy on the planet and an arguble top 10 atg of the time by KO! And with no speed strength stamina or anything else against another ATG in Tunney, he still produced the big one and knocked Tunney down for 14 seconds. Dempsey is a definite legitimate claimer. Most who saw him fight definitely agree.

 

A debut post, but i think an excellent nomination. For mine, Foreman is a great candidate. Ali is the consensus number one, and the a lot of this has to do with his win over Foreman. It is very arguable that this was a fluke! Ali had all the conditions in his favour and Foreman underestimated him. Ali would not rematch because he knew he could not repeat the feat. In fact, Ali admitted he was out cold on his feet a number of times. One Fluke loss (and a very close one at that) should not harm his ATG ranking. Joe Louis was KOd by Schmelling.

Foreman destroyed ATG joe Frazier twice. He didnt beat, but destroyed atg Ken Norton. He was untouchable in his prime ie Up until winning the title. And only a combination of unfavourable factors, bad luck, underestimation etc even finished this. He did have the other fluke loss to Jimmy Young but it was a very close affair and Foreman was mentally done by this time with boxing. Jimmy young is kod in 1 by a prime foreman.

Then to prove and solidify his greatness, not only did he come back after a 10 year retirement at the oldest age ever, not only did he recapture the lineal title by knock out, but he did all this while he was more out of shape than James Toney. IN fact he was clearly the slowest fighter that i have seen compete at world class level. Imagine what he would have done if he was close to a prime version of himself. He got by purely on heart, brains and i guess some power that common sense says was not the same as in his prime. Even more impressive, was the fact that in the era of teh Super heavy, strongest fighters of all time, Every single fighter he ever faced, literally changed their usual fighting pattern and decided to box and move, because they were afraid of George's power!

George Foreman definitely has a legitimate claim.

 

I see Tyson and Lennox have been nominated. Both clearly need to be added to the list. They do have a case. Tyson was invincible when in his prime, and in fact many even saw him as invincible, long after his Prime, up until the Holyfield losses even though he had lost plenty. Prime Tyson never lost a fight, and i think that the comment look at the footage is as good as any!

Lennox also had his case well stated. Dont forget that he beat his predecessors (Tyson and Holy) and he also beat his successors (Klitchsko). He also beat every single fighter he ever faced nobody has ever done that. And physically he dwarfs 90% of other greats. His claims for this list are indisputable, i think.

 

Gene Tunney is one that i think has an argument. He beat every fighter he faced. The only blip, Greb was an ATG, whom he bettered in the series. His handling was of a dominant champion in Jack Dempsey was probably the most dominant win over any dominant all time great that anyone has ever had. Some say that Dempsey was past it, but in between Tunney fights, he knocked out Jack Sharkey, another ATG and the next best fighter in the world. He was ducked by Harry Wills of all people, at one stage pre title, and he was easily the best fighter in the world when he retired. In fact, he still holds the Real World Lineal Heavyweight Championship and will do so forever! I think that Tunney has a bit of a claim as greatest Ever. In my opinion, he qualifies though i suppose due to his short span at heavyweight, it is not that strong a case. Maybe he would be in line for the title of Worst Greatest Ever?

 

Any one want a crack at making a case for Liston, Sullivan, Wlad, or anyone else, before i give my selection?

 

Okay, it looks like we have slowed up, so here is my contribution as Worst Greatest ever. We will see if anyone think it is too far fetched or not.

Throughout history, for as long as anyone can remember (or at least since 3000BC if you believe the internet), the idea of prize fight has been that one fighter has to knock the other fight down. Rules can change. Sometimes there was London Prize ring rules which allowed 30 second recoveries although more recently we have seen the 10 second countouts.
For the true purists any World championship fight is and should be a fight to the finish. No judges decisions, which only create controversy. Great heroes can and have lost their lives trying to be the greatest. You don’t lose a world title unless you are counted out.
In the past we have seen the Legendary John L Sullivan fight for hours upon hours against Jake Kilrain, the equally legendary Jack Johnson only ever had his crown taken from him when a younger champion managed to catch his slowing legs. It was far more than 15 rounds and neither fighter would have deserved to lose their crown just because 3 men in suits thought they might not be winning the fight. NO Sir, the name of the game is to KO the other fighter and if a fighter cannot do this, he is not the better prize fighter, end of story. Those who win aided by corruption and judges decisions really should simply have NDs next to their name. It means nothing who people think were winning if they don’t win.
That being said, the fact is that sports do evolve. 15 and later 12 round fights are a fact of life. Lets be honest though, all sports evolve, as does the human race. Physically, looking at running swimming and any other measurable sport, older athletes simply are not in the same ball game. This means that the greatest fighter ever will almost certainly come from say 1980s on. Rocky Marciano was a great fighter but he is simply to small to compete against todays fighters. Ali was dominant but he never fought the giants like Lewis and others. And lets be honest, he primed in the late 60s. Name me one athlete from the late 60s who could actually compete with todays athletes on measurable times. I am sorry but the sport has progressed. It is a fact of life.
But saying that, there is one great who is the undiputed greatest heavyweight ever (well worst greatest anyway). Like the old Gladiators, he has never been Kod, ever not before during or after his boxing career. Like the legendary old stars, he has fought literally thousands of unrecorded fights, sometimes against all time greats in the prime of their life and he has never been down. I talk of course of the legendary Oliver McCall.

He fought hundreds of exhibitions (sparring) against the biggest KO artist ever, in his prime, Mike Tyson. One of these guys was knocked down. But it certainly wasn’t McCall. He became the Undisputed Greatest prizefighter in the world with an absolutely comprehensive thumping of another prototype fro the modern Superheavyweight and theoretically the second best fighter ever, in Lennox Lewis. As to be expected, the big hitting Lewis had to be saved by the referee and was comprehensively beaten.
McCalls record is nothing short of astonishing. To this day, he has still never been beaten or knocked down. Sure he got some bad judging decisions, but has never looked like being stopped. If the fights had been true 60 round fights like Sullivan, Jeffries and others had, McCall would have won all fights by KO. His jaw (similar to Jeffries) was simply too good to allow him to be beaten.

The closest he ever came was the Lewis rematch. This is a fight where he showed a great chin by allowing Lennox to tee off at will and still was not hurt in the slightest by the big hitting Lennox. The referee stopped the fight (in reality it was the equivalent of an old time DQ) but Oliver was never down, and never looked like getting hurt. He was arguably still the best heavyweight in the world.
And as the rest of mankind started to evolve into a modern super species, McCall even to this day, as McCall aged , not even the modern superheavys could even look like beating him in a prize fight. Noone ever has and no one ever will.
Oliver is likely holidaying for a long time. If he were to ever launch a successful surely it would remove all doubt that he is the greatest ever. Either way, I think that Oliver McCall is the fighter who lays claim to being the Worst Greatest ever.

What do you guys think does he have a claim, weak as it is?