This is a list I recently came across of the top ten heavyweights. 1. Rocky Marciano 2. Muhammad Ali 3. Joe Louis 4. Joe Frazier 5. George Foreman 6. Jack Dempsey 7. Larry Holmes 8. Jack Johnson 9. Mike Tyson 10. Sonny Liston What do you think of this list? Respectable or awful? If you had to grade it from A to F, what grade would you give it? Why? This is not my list by the way. Would you have any guess who made this list?
It can never be totally wrong to rank a guy with 49-0 as nr. 1, even if I wouldn't myself. What I'm more concerned with is the low ranking of Holmes and Johnson, and that Lewis is absent all together. These are guys who were dominant in their own time after all.
There are some respectable people who rank Marciano higher than Ali / Louis. I don't see it, though, in my opinion they are a lock for #1 and #2. But it's all subjective; i would give it a B. Especially after the top3, all his rankings are defendable. I would've put Lewis or Holyfield (Tyson's daddy) in there instead of Tyson maybe. I would have Johnson a few spots lower as well.
why holyfield over tyson? tysons title reign was far in every way better than holyfields, tyson was far less inconsistent and far more dominating in his prime than holyfield, tyson fairs better vs the rest of the field h2h than holy. Tysons 1980s title reign alone gets him in the top 10.
Ultimately "ranking" a list consists of grading it based on how similar it is to yours, I feel. However, I like this list. It ranks Tyson highest in the modern era which is good. It has Ali, Louis, and Marciano top3, despite the arrangment. Frazier ahead of Foreman is iffy, but all in all I like the list - 9 of the ten names appear in my top10, so I can't complain. B+
I'd give it a B. More or less, all of the selections are reasonable, though I'd have the order somewhat different and a couple of different names at the end (but Liston and Tyson are my #11 and 12). The biggest "stand-out" unusual points are Marciano at #1 (not my opinion and goes against the consensus, but given that Marciano won the championship, defeated the best competition of his era and retired without ever losing a professional fight, this is a defensible position) and Frazier above Foreman (somewhat harder to justify, given Foreman's destructions over Joe, but Frazier did ultimately defeat more contenders and dangerous opponents than Foreman did, holds the best single win between the two of them, and did much better against their main common opponent in Ali, so I see this also as defensible, though I once again disagree with it). I believe that there is a reasonable argument in favor of each of the rankings on this list.
First, you didn't read my sentence correctly. The wording indicates that Frazier beat a GREATER NUMBER of dangerous fighters than Foreman did, not necessarily that the dangerous fighters he defeated were MORE DANGEROUS than the ones Foreman did. Second, though "dangerous" may be interpreted by some as meaning more of a threat to knock you out, eg. harder hitting, Ali was certainly much more dangerous, meaning likely to beat you, than Lyle was, and so was Quarry. Maybe Ellis, as well. But again, defeating "more contenders and dangerous fighters" is, qualified by the first subject in the phrase, a reference to quantity and not quality.
1.Ali 2.Joe Louis 3.Larry Holmes 4.Marciano 5.George Foreman 6.Jack Johnson 7.Mike Tyson 8.Holyfield 9.Lewis 10.Gene Tunney
Since Frazier beat Ali once and had two close fights with him, I like him higher than 11 but that is a personal choice. Huge fan of Dempsey and think that he would have a good chance of beating a few on the list, but again personal choice.