Pick The Darkhorse Heavyweight GOAT.

Imagine thinking Ali’s best win is against Frazier…. In their second fight nonetheless, their least eventful fight with no title on the line when both were perceived as has-beens.

 

Hi Buddy.
Of course, what's the matter with us, there he is hiding in plain sight all these years, a colossus amongst heavyweights, ptf, to your, Ali,s
Foremans,s and the rest, little Noah Brusso is the main man, stand tall my man, and big up respect to your goodself, for seeing what 1,000s didn't.
stay safe Fogger, chat soon.
Mike.

 

Here he is
The dark horse
The tiger
He’s Tony the Tiger
He’s Tony Thompson !

took up boxing in his mid 20’s, with a pro debut at 28.
At this late age he equals Roberto Durans record of 31-1 before he gets the big one v Wlad, at the age of 36 he comes up short after a very good effort against the bang in prime Ukrainian.
Doesn’t let that stop him, goes on another winning run before Wlad has no choice but to meet him again, this time it’s Wlad who’s 36, Tony is over 40 but puts in another good effort against the champ.

He isn’t done yet, he shows his GOAT credentials by derailing the last great white hope of boxing, murderous punching David price, just for good measure, he does it twice.
This is the last time the GOAT showed flashes of his youthful brilliance, he went on to win a few and lose a few against good opposition before finally hanging up his gloves.
He was big, strong, could box, a quality chin, an awkward southpaw, apart from an early career DeJesus esque blip, he only lost to the best.
He broke his wife’s hip, and shook up the world.

 

All well and good, your dog can agree. The sheep can say what they like.
But the Lion doesn’t beat the Tiger

 

Lennox Lewis wouldn’t be a dark horse. To many he was and to most he’s one of the very top … believe it or not Tyson is a dark horse as some may discredit his title reign and post reign was poorer …

 

Not at all.

 

Would've been great if he could have defected from Cuba after the Munich Olympics, and turned pro. He was 20 years old at that time, and would have been a great addition to the 70s scene.

Would love to see footage of Teofilo's stoppage loss to Igor Vysotsky, just to see what that looked like exactly. Vysotsky managed to beat Teofilo twice. Not sure how good he was outside of that. I did come across this video of him and Ali in an exhibition...

This content is protected

 

He beat three other linear champions of the period too in Douglas, Foreman and Moorer

 

Maybe my definition of dark horse is different than many of your's are. I don't think it means anyone but Louis and Ali. Guys like Marciano, Lewis, Usyk, Tyson and others have often been mentioned in these conversations if, perhaps, by a minority voice.

One of the primary definitions of dark horse is "a candidate or competitor about whom little is known but who unexpectedly wins or succeeds" You are all smart guys and I am not trying to teach you anything. I'm just saying that I thought this was a really interesting topic but so far we have the basic who's the third best heavyweight conversations.

 

I agree, I basically just wrote why I think LL MIGHT be better then Ali… I’ll have to look at the HW’s for a second to even have an idea, I wanted to pick a true dark horse but I’m just not that smart lol - someone do one for Johnson… @janitor please buddy?

 

Jim Jeffries.
Amazing athlete, but also the first of the Heavyweight champs to retire, as champ, without a loss.
He only lost years later when he made an ill-fated comeback against Jack Johnson.
He also did remarkably well in one of the first computerized tournaments back in the day.

 

You’d be surprised;

https://www.boxingforum24.com/threads/should-john-l-sullivan-rank-number-one.549789/

https://www.boxingforum24.com/threa...or-leave-him-off-your-list-altogether.474910/

https://www.boxingforum24.com/threa...e-john-l-sullivan-in-their-top-ten-hw.425436/

It depends on what you value for a scoring system honestly. Say what you want about his competition, but Sullivan beat pretty much every meaningful contender outside of the Australian sphere until an arm injury in 1887 rendered him more inactive. He arguably had the most title defenses in the division’s, maybe the sport’s, history. He wouldn’t be the first to have his dominance and defense count be more valued than the quality of his opponents.

 

After Tony we have, at number two in the GOAT rankings, Elmer Ray, but to his friends, he’s
‘kid violent’

Ray started off his career in 1933, by 1940, you could be forgiven for thinking he was an unremarkable boxer, having compiled a 19-16-9 record.

We now have to take in to account that kid violents early career coincided with that of another violent kid, Obie Walker.
A boxer avoided by many of the ‘paper champions’ of the day, it’s said the ‘Bearcat’ could have knocked out Louis and Schmeling in the same evening.
Ray and Walker fought no fewer than 14 times, including a couple of news paper decisions, Ray winning 7, Walker winning 4, with 2 draws and 1 no contest.
Considering these titanic battles, where kid violent and the bearcat made Ali and Frazier look like a pair of pussycats, we begin to reappraise Rays GOAT credentials.

After this meagre ten years of FOTC’s and with the retirement of Walker, you might think, Ray, past 30, was ready for a rest himself, with the prime beaten out of him.
Instead, he’s just getting started. In 1943, kid violent goes on a 50 fight unbeaten run, with 44 stoppages.
Marciano can dream of such dominance.
His run is ended by Jersey Joe Walcott, (who he had just beaten ), and he goes 1-1 also with a prime Ezzard Charles before deciding he’s no longer a kid, and has dished out enough violence.

 

Tony Galento

 

Tire Iron Jones!