Among the lineals there is a clear standout in Leon Spinks. What he did in beating Ali was amazing, but it is his only good win. In all of the other dishonorable mentions, you can point to some other quality wins.
Marvin Hart probably doesn't belong in the argument. He is inarguably a great champion, but the devil is in the detail here. He beat a few men who are largely forgotten today, but who were seen as contenders in the division at the time. There is actually a bit of meat in his resume. He should certainly be ranked higher than Tommy burns for example.
Martin is terrible, but Patterson actually avoided every deserving contender during his reign (not his fault though), until he decided to make the brave decision of firing cus d'amato to fight the mandatory challenger Sonny Liston.
If Paddy Ryan was included, he would "win" this, in my opinion, meaning he would lose to all of the World Champions. Of the World Champions listed, I'd have to go with Leon Spinks.
Why? He had lost some fights only via decision when was over the hill. He really was slow and quickly become very slow specimen but he wasn't unskilled or bad. His curse was to quickly become from slow to very slow specimen, not to be bad boxer.
I half agree with you, but that is a risky assertion. Paddy Ryan was obviously a man who was in the right place at the right time. He won the lineal title from a 37 year old fighter, who had not been seen as the best or brightest around, back when he had been in his prime. Some newspapers were still describing him as a marvel. Before he fought Sullivan, a lot of people wee prepared to favor him, based on his LPR experience. After he fought Sullivan, it was seen as a mismatch. So he might well be the worst, but I am not confident of it.
Not completely accurate. Floyd fought Liston and Ingo, his two best contenders. The other two chief contenders Machen and Folley got caught up in their own situation, Floyd had the Ingo trilogy, he also beat Moore and Jackson...compared to Dempsey, Johnson, Willard, Corbett, and a slew of the ABC champs, his reign was ok, not great but not the great dodge that it is portrayed as.
It's interesting to me that you mentioned Hart as a pretty good fighter. When I was younger and touring the country, I visited his grave once in Fern Creek, and the owners allowed me in the barn where he sometimes trained. They had an area roped off, with some of his training stuff still there. I wrote an article in the Bardstown, Kentucky Newspaper about Hart and I understand it was picked up and printed in the Louisville Newspaper later. I called it "Kentucky's Forgotten Champion, Marvin Hart." I found many people, living a few miles down the road from where he was buried (some who claimed to follow boxing) who had never even heard of him. He was The World Heavyweight Lineal Champion! While I don't view him as anything like all-time top 10 Heavyweight material, I do think he is sorely underrated, or completely forgotten, by many.
Marvin Hart is a difficult case. He was one of the most virulently racist champions of all time, if not the worst, so you don't want to set yourself up as his impassioned defender. He also got his title shot due to a very controversial win over Jack Johnson, which is very divisive to this day. For all of that, his resume is a lot better than most people realize, and you have to make that argument, if only to be historically accurate!
Statistically if you going strictly by the numbers alone, Valuev has one of the best boxing records amongst heavyweight title holders and Larry Holmes aside, came the closest to matching Rocky Marciano’s 49-0 winning streak at 46-0 before losing his first fight.
