All-time great fighters without a top 100 prime P4P fighter on their resume?

The highest fighter on my p4p list who does not have a victory over a top 100 p4p fighter may be my #6, Bob Fitzsimmons, depending on whether you consider NP Jack Dempsey and/or Philadelphia Jack'O Brien top 100 p4p all time.

After that, assuming you don't consider Memphis Pal Moore a top 100 p4p fighter, then the next fighter on my list would be my #16, Jimmy Wilde.

Fitzsimmons aside, all my top 15 beat top 100 p4p fighters, albeit not necessarily at their best weight divison and during their prime.

 

Joe Louis. Regularly included in plenty of P4P top 10s yet not one of his victims were P4P top 100 material, let alone in their primes.

 

Billy Conn is a lock for the top 50 p4p, let alone top 100, and was prime for their first contest. He was a natural LHW, but definitely in his prime.

Jimmy Bivins is another vanquished Louis opponent who is a lock for the top 50 p4p, but was past prime.

John Henry Lewis has a shout for top 100 p4p and was only 24, iirc, but retired due to an eye injury after the fight that I believe pre dated the fight, so probably was no longer prime either.

 

I'd forgotten about Conn tbf.

 

No worries, I very nearly did the same when I ran down my own p4p rankings mentally checking off those who had beaten top 100 p4p ATGs.

I even got as far as citing Willie Pep, until I remembered he beat ATG BW Manuel Ortiz in a non title fight and deleted what I'd begun to type.

It appears it is easy to forget victories over ATGs who made their names in lower weight divisions.

 

Not trying to derail the thread of course but looking forward to see were people will rate Uysk P4P when he is done and the discussion surrounding it.

 

Conn and Bivins are top 100 for sure.

 

There's also speculation that Louis gave John the fight for the money, knowing he was gonna retire and he wouldn't hurt John too much. Don't know how much there is to that, but it's definitely something I've come across before.

 

Yes me too, and have even heard/read that Louis despatched him in 1 to avoid prolonged punishment (if only it was always that easy). Like you, I've no idea about the detailed truth, beyond they were friends, Louis stopped Lewis in the first and Lewis never fought again, due to being blind in one eye.

 

This may be a slightly tenuous comparison, but his achievements most closely resemble Holyfield's, who is perhaps roughly around #50.

They're generally considered to be the top 2 of all time and pretty close at CW. Holyfield has a deeper HW resume and fought greater HWs, but didn't establish himself as the #1 HW as clearly or for as long as the unbeaten Usyk.

Usyk isn't retired yet and I'll leave it a good 3-5 years after he is before analysing his career for my all time rankings, but my guess is that if he retired today, he'd end up around, and possibly ever so slightly ahead of, Holyfield on my list.

 

Ratings for these kinds of things stretch back well more than 100 years which means top 100 is less than one guy a year. Mathematically, there is a very good chance that an ATG may not have fought a top 100 fighter. The answers are also likely to be heavyweight-oriented overall because they only have one weight class to go up against.

As an example, Ruben Olivares beat a slew of quality fighters but I don't think one of them would be ranked in the top 100.

 

I suck at P4P but I would probably put Uysk over Holyfield because I think he was more consistent. I think you could say Holyfield had the better competition at heavyweight but I think the same could also be said in reverse at cruiserweight. Granted Holyfield did fight a long way past his best which doesn't help and Uysk won't fight that long past his best to rank up more losses. Uysk won all his fights legit were as Holyfield lost to Lewis 2nd time. Granted Holyfield beat Valuev and should be 5 time heavyweight champion.

I suppose if Uysk somehow loses his last fights which seems pretty unlikely that could change things. But same if he wins them especially if he can become undisputed again and beat Parker that would also just mean he has added.

 

Carlos Zárate, Julio Cesar Chavez, and Ruben Olivares spring immediately to mind as being clearly all-time greats who didn’t defeat a top 100 guy (prime or not).

 

If that's true.
That's insane, because head to head, prime vs prime Tyson would be an absolute horror for all but about five heavyweights champs in history.

 

Manny Pacquiao never did this imo.