My stab at a top 20 HW List

Just curious,

What big punchers did Frazier ever beat? A title defense against Mac Foster was a fight Yank Durham steered clear of.


I rate Tyson over both Holyfield and Frazier. I can see cases being made for the other way around. I prefer Tyson's title reign dominance and h2h ability in his prime over Holyfield's inconsistency.

 

Foreman accomplishments and resume are more superior. Only if you have a high value for examining H2H & skills/ability should Liston rate above Foreman.

Liston beating Foreman is subjective.

 

Frazier has arguably the greatest victory/defense against Ali. That's huge. His title defenses after that are quite poor and unextraordinary. But his win in the FOTC and wins against Ellis, Bonavena, Chuvalo, and Quarry and the fact that he was one of the few HWs to win an Olympic Gold Medal is why he's #5 on my list.

H2H Tyson is superior. I have Tyson above Holyfield due to consistent and more dominating performances too. I think that Tyson would beat Frazier quite easily in a fantasy matchup. But I don't rate on that, which is why Frazier is ahead. I need to make a separate H2H list one of these days.

 

You beat around the bush, but did not answer the question....

What big punchers did Frazier ever beat?



I have no problem with your rating of Frazier. He beat a lot of highly rated contenders during his era, and cleaned out most of the top heavyweights in the late 1960s. However if you look at his resume carefully...he missed out on fighting some highly rated punchers. I personally feel Foreman might have exposed a flaw in Frazier's game. His weakness against big punchers. Frazier really never took on any. Manuel Ramos was big and could hit, but he was not world class. I have read reports about Yank Durham afraid to put Joe Frazier in the ring with Punchers. The one he did face, blew him away.

It would have been real interesting to see Frazier take on old Sonny Liston, Mac Foster, Ron Lyle, and Earnie Shavers...to see if Foreman is as good as we think he is, or if he simply exposed a flaw in frazier's style others would have capitalized on.

I cannot rate Frazier in my top 5, because I do not know how he would do against the better punchers. We know he can beat the great boxers, but what about the punchers?

 

Sonny Liston beat the man who won the olympic gold medal. Quite easily too. Does that count for just as much?

This man right here

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A21Mh46RURU[/ame]

 

That is an interesting point and thought. Particularly since Frazier's style seemed to be tailor made for a big slugger like Foreman, Shavers etc. If this is the case though, wouldnt the same reasoning put the same question marks over Rocky Marciano?

 

I havent seen that fight in ages.

It might quite possibly be the worst stoppage i have ever seen.

From that footage, under todays rules, the fight would have been about pretty even on points, maybe even in Ingemar's favour!

 

Not quite

1. We have never ever seen Marciano badly hurt on film, let alone bounced around the ring like a yo yo 6 times for a devastating TKO loss.

2. Marciano beat the # 1, # 4, # 66 rated punchers on ring magazines top 100 punchers of all time list. Who did Frazier beat who was on that list? The one man he did fight that was on the list, knocked him out.

 

Huh? Johansson was scared to death. He was running away from sanders afraid of what the big man might do to him. Sanders hit him with a hard 1-2 that round and a nice left hook, and that sent johansson on his bicycle for the rest of the fight. Good Stoppage. Ingo didn't want to be there. The ref simply complied with Ingo's silent demands.

 

That is 3 pts to Nil (assuming the judges clicked at the same time, which is unlikely). Probably Ingemar may have got a click or two in there as well. Ingemar was not presenting a standing target, and was certainly moving but it was nowhere near bad enough to be stopped. If that was a legitimate stoppage, then imagine round 1 of teh Brewster Meehan fight, that would have been a double stoppage! And no way Ali would have ever survived Foreman. I know that it is amateurs and all the rest, but for a gold medal fight to be stopped there, was pretty ordinary, imo.

 

wooo!

Ali, Johnson and Louis in your top three. You good in my book!

The only drastic thing I would change in you list would be to move Liston into the 2nd tier.

And personally if I made a list with the tiers, my first tier would look like
1. Ali
2. Johnson
3. Louis

but your list is great!

 

"Johansson was scared to death. He was running away from Sanders afraid of what the big man might do"

1. "scared to death"--Really? I am always happy to see someone read minds.

2. "afraid of what the big man might do"

Must be, because there certainly isn't any reason to be afraid of what the big man really is doing.

Frankly, I agree that it was a terrible stoppage off this footage and it is hard to tell who is actually winning the fight. Johansson is moving side to side--when did that get to be illegal.

 

Sanders was pursuing and johansson was running. he wasnt throwing punches, he was running. You could see after sanders hit johansson with that one two on the ropes, johansson took off on his bicycle. Notice how Ingo did not make a scene when the ref stopped the fight. Surely in an Olympic fight, where you worked so hard to achieve the incredible dream of a gold medal, would be important enough for ingo to wage a protest on that "controversial" call. Perhaps Ingo did not think it was controversial. Perhaps he was satisfied it was over.

He got hit with a 1-2 on the ropes, then took off. Later Ingo gets knocked into the ropes by a left hook, then takes off again. I have never seen Ingo fight like this, he was running and not throwing any punches! The referee warned him sternly to 'STOP RUNNING AND THROW PUNCHES'. Johansson continued to run, and the referee was fed up with it.

He wasn't throwing punches. Sanders was making the fight, and ingo clearly did not want to engage him at all.


Johansson would have **** himself if he ever fought Liston or Williams

 

"Johansson would have **** himself"

Whatever. He was 19 here even if we take your version of it. My own take would be that Johansson got back into the ring with Patterson after suffering one of the worst ko's ever and immediately decked him twice in the first round. Hardly the mark of a coward.

 

1)Muhammad Ali
2)Joe Louis
3)Larry Holmes
4)George Foreman
5)Jack Johnson
6)Rocky Marciano
7)Lennox Lewis
8)Joe Frazier
9)Sonny Liston
10)Evander Holyfield
11)Mike Tyson
12)Jack Dempsey
13)James J Jeffries
14)Harry Wills
15)Ezzard Charles
16)Jersey Joe Walcott
17)Gene Tunney
18)Max Schmeling
19)John L Sullivan
20)Ken Norton

Like you I get less and less sure about the placing the further I go down. I suppose it's like that with any list though.