Who ranks the highest at Heavyweight - Charles, Tunney or Patterson?

I have a hard time seeing Patterson over Charles' Charles face the best as champion, Patterson didnt.

You dont get high rankings by faceing a guy in his first pro fight, and going life and death if you are the champion of the world. Also ducking Liston for almost 5 years should put a damper in the rankings department. Machen and Folley never did get there EARN title shots either.

 

patterson is overlooked. Im a huge charles fan, his resume is much deeper but patterson won key fights for the title by KO where as charles did not, this has to count for something when you are being picky. charles has the edge in oposition by a mile but floyd knocked out fighters in key fights.

Tunney is a great fighter no question about it but he must be measured against champions who did more at heavyweight and this is where he falls short.

 

Is tyson the youngest to actually beat a lineal champ? Or did ali beat him to it?

 

:rofl

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Charles for me. At 10. with Tunney at 11. and Patterson anywhere between 13-16.

 

BTM? I have no idea at all lol

 

:rofl

 

:scaredas:

 

:happy

 

Charles
Patterson
Tunney

Charles and Patterson are very close, this one was a tough call for me and that's not a slight against Tunney who I also feel is very good and insanely underrated.. Charles was great at two weights and he holds wins over Louis (#1 on my all time list) though a faded Louis still a good fighter here. Multiple wins over Walcott (who I have huge respect for) I know he lost to him twice as well but still the wins are impressive, he gave a Prime Marciano as tough a fight as Rocky would have in his entire career, wins over Moore and many many other of the best Heavyweights of that era seal the deal for me on Charles..

Patterson has the youngest champion attached to his name (pre Tyson) and the first heavy to regain the title which are both impressive feats.. But Patterson's title defenses outside of Ingo do not include the most impressive list of opponents in my eyes. That and the fact that Liston beat him twice with such relative ease hurts his over all ranking in my eyes..I will say this about Floyd though after the Liston fights he did go on to have many more big wins over the second half of his career which helped repair his legacy to a degree I believe..

Tunney... I only wish Tunney would have maybe been in a different era or had
more then just the Dempsey fights at Heavyweight so that I could really rate him in a fair way, who knows he may have come out looking better or worse and that's the mystery for me. But based off that he is the clear #3 here for me..

 

Funny. Got to give SQ the benefit of the doubt however suspicious the immediate response turned up ...

 

Who hit the hardest of the three?

 

I'd say Patterson.

 

Patterson without a doubt hit the hardest of the three. He was also the best finisher and combination puncher.

 

I hear a lot about charles being a lightheavyweight. Charles only ever featured in the lightheavyweight rankings for two years 1946-1947, before that he was absent during the war and always less than 169lb. so he was a LH for a very short time.
Even 1947 is stretching it, of the 12 times he fought in 1947 only 4 of the opponents Ezzard faced scaled within the lightheavyweight limit when he fought them - the rest all being heavyweights. By 1953 charles had fought and beat more heavyweight contenders than most ATG's.