How come the strong consensus is Ali and Louis are the top 2 heavyweights of all time?

That's true, a lot of people here don’t seem to understand that most old-school ‘heavyweights’ wouldn’t even be heavyweights today. They were basically cruiserweights by modern standards, yet people rank them like they’d be thriving against today’s actual heavyweights, men 40 to 50 pounds bigger, stronger, and just as skilled

 

Holmes is my number three too.

 

Some might say Marciano is close because of the unbeaten record and the fact he actually beat Louis. These discussions get
looked at in different ways.

 

Wlad gets ripped for holding but Ali held a lot as well.

Ali doing it seems to fly under the radar.

 

The traditional ranking criteria among boxing fans, especially on this forum, highly values the stuff that Louis and Ali were particularly good at doing.

 

Wladimir did it to hide his weak chin that's the difference.

Ali didn't hold anywhere near as much Wladimir and he never held in his peak.

Wladimir should've of been disqualified vs Povetkin its the worst case of clinching I've ever seen in a big Heavyweight fight yes much worse than Ali vs Frazier 2.

 

Holmes coming 3 , certainly no problem with that.

 

I think many understand that angle just fine, but speaking only for myself, I rank heavyweights relative to their time, not how they might match up in H2H confrontations (which is mostly imagined anyway, rather than anything concrete).

We can only imagine what some fighter will do against certain others, so all of that is shaky ground to stand on. Resume and longevity is where it’s at. That’s all we really have.

 

By ignoring Muhammad Ali ever lived? With all the cards against him he not only beat George, he stopped him. He beat George in his prime while his athleticism was waning. George held all the cards and he lost.

 

There are other people that can be argued up as #1 depending on your criteria. Lewis and Holmes and Marciano all have good arguments that can be made for them.

 

When you look at clinching in Ali vs Frazier II it was damn close. And Ali was the only one clinching in that fight. In the Wlad vs Povetkin fight, Sasha clinched a lot too.

 

I agree Holmes and Wlad were pretty much as dominant as Ali and Louis in quite a few ways and Lennox beat himself everyone he faced in the ring and had quite a long run as champion himself.

 

Yeah, that difference really is staggering. I think Ali has almost double the amount of wins over top 5 (around 25) that Lewis has over top 10. And Lewis is top 3 in the eyes of many.

 

I think this is unique for any weight class in boxing history and I don't think it will repeated in this century at least.

 

Yes that top 10 difference is quite large in all honesty.