Who is the most underrated heavyweight in history and why

@OldSchoolBoxing I've accepted you and others opinion on usyk, I don't agree, but opinions vary. It's all good

He's your goat and that's your opinion

 

I think it's probably important to define terms...

By underrated, I would understand it to mean someone who is underappreciated relative to their resume - and that means both relative to who they beat AND relative to the strength of their era in a historic sense.

@AdamT has a point with Frazier...


In general, two things stand out as common factors in fighters getting overrated:
1. Being a huge puncher
2. Being unbeaten

So there's a real possibility that the most underrated might be the opposite - a points fighter with several losses, but still an excellent operator overall?

Will have to have a think about who I'd put up, here...

 

Dereck Chisora

 

Overall it's a fair point - it's not a good enough era to put him up there with any kind of confidence.

Having said that... I don't think there's a need to exaggerate to make that point...
- Fury's inconsistency counts heavily against his own ATG claims (especially as it's clearly the result of a flawed character), but Usyk clearly beat him at the best he was capable of in his second career which is respectable even if it's unclear exactly how good that was, (and whether that's anywhere near his first career peak or not is debatable) whereas he was clearly very poorly prepared for Ngannou.
- Joshua is a solid win, he's nothing special in an all-time sense but he's generally underrated at this point, IMHO

 

I rate Fury, but not highly, similar to Joshua
Usyk beat who he could not his fault, but I suspect others beat Fury and joshua

Fury still lost to Ngannou and I don't care how under prepared he was, that's a disgrace. He also lost to mcdermott while looking awful against many others

He beat Wilder who has one punch and a 39 year old wlad. Chisora and whyte are hardly killers either

Joshua has beaten more, but he too has looked poor on occasion.

To make Usyk goat, I have to rate these 2 among the best to ever do it and I don't think they are close imo

But I accept if others think his 23 fights as a pro are enough. Opinions vary and makes discussion interesting

 

Ezzard Charles

Underrated and arguably the GOAT

 

Tunney.

 

Charles now

 

AJ vs Lewis would look about like AJ vs Dubois did. Not trying to be harsh on AJ or anything, but Lewis was a good bit more skilled. Maybe he doesn't hit quite as hard as Dubois, but he's up there.

 

Let's be real here...

Declined Lewis Vs prime AJ would be like declined AJ Vs prime Dubois was... But Lewis is very arguably the GOAT head to head, where Joshua was only ever a solid number one in a poor era.

Lewis was levels beyond AJ (or Fury, for that matter).

 

When did Lewis actually decline? He looked fantastic against Tyson -- absolute masterclass -- then literally stopped the next champ before retiring.

Another factor in Lewis's favor here is chin. Hold up. Could AJ knock him out? Absolutely, McCall and Rahman absolutely are not hitters on the level of AJ. But both times, Lewis was caught with something he didn't see coming. As long as could see punches coming, his chin held up fine. He out-scrapped Holyfield. That's like beating a pig at a mud wrestling contest where you get extra points for oinking. AJ? Wlad cracked his chin. He ground it out there but lost the ability to stand up to punishment.

Anyway -- yeah, Lewis would ice AJ. Badly. He might well even ice Usyk -- those uppercuts Fury was nailing Usyk with? If thrown by Lewis?

 

He was clearly significantly below his best against Vitali... Even that version of Lewis would beat any version of Joshua IMHO.

I agree...
In short, what you're saying is "Would Joshua have a punchers chance?" and the answer is obviously "yes".

More times than not he'd get iced first time around, and the rest he'd lose badly in the rematch.

I don't think Lewis's chin was even that bad - he just got hit hard, and that can happen at heavy.

I suspect he would beat Usyk - he was better proven, which is partly due to the better era he had available to do it in.

 

Riddick Bowe especially on a head to head sense.

Unbelievable fighter.

Larry Holmes also quite underrated even if he may be a bitter character.

 

how is Holmes underrated? He generally gets his due. Prime, he was about equivalent to Ali’s post-exile best.

 

Great call, Charles seems to really get the short end of the stick these days, I think it's because of his size.

Some other great shouts in this thread, like Frazier Etc.