10 most complete offensive heavyweights ever

How on earth could you associate Usyk with Lewis, of all people, offensively, at heavyweight.

Surely one needs a bit of a punch to be complete.

Nine people went the distance with Lewis in 41 wins. In 22 wins 8 have gone the distance with Uysk and half of them were at cruiserweight where his power and offense would have been accentuated.

At heavyweight he's had 6 fights and 4 of those guys have gone the distance. He's batting around 33%.

Even over and above all that - who were all these guys he let off the hook?

 

Is it anyone who fought at heavyweight or only “true” heavyweights who are acknowledged as such? for example Conn makes Foreman and Tyson look VERY bad in terms of boxing ability by itself, Moore and Toney too. It doesn’t mention H2H is that a criteria?

 

An old unprepared Liston and a dumb Foreman who was tricked.

 

He probably confuses Lewis being too cautious sometimes to him letting guys off the hook when he hurt them. But in reality Lewis, while really was too cautious in some of his fights, had incredible killer instinct when he had his opponents hurt. The only real example of him letting his opponent off the hook was Phil Jackson fight where he knocked him down very early but somehow let him recover and last until round 8. Tucker? No. Yes, he couldn't finish him after knocking him down twice, but not because he lacked killer instinct. Tucker just responded to well, especially in the ninth round.

Yes, Lewis was super cautious against shot Tyson, but once he had him hurt, he finished fight quickly, in the same round.

He didn't take many risks against Tua or Holyfield but I'm pretty shure if he had them hurt, he would have tried to finish them right there and then.

As for Usyk, his offensive arsenal is excellent, of course - jab, hooks and uppercuts, straight left hand, body punches, beautiful combos. But his power, while is respectable, isn't on the level of big punching heavyweights.

 

One that hasn't been mentioned yet is Ibeabuchi he seemed to have a good variety to his offence.

Obviously we didn't see enough of him but I'd definitely put him in the top 20 for the best offensive Heavyweights I've personally seen.

 

Can't argue at all with your list, might swap Liston and Foreman though.

 

I was about to say “Hello?” about this guy …

 

Never went for the kill against the likes of Tua, Holyfield, McCall 2, Mavrovic, and Mercer. Admittedly, all those guys had very good chins but he has had times where he chose to cruise to decisions and a lot of his KOs came by way of well-timed shots rather than aggressive flurries. If power is such a big criteria, why isn't chin, focus, engine, or athleticism also needed? Lewis could be chinny and lost his focus pretty regularly in fights. No fighter is ever perfect but Usyk is deceptively powerful and works with this as best he can.

 

Youd be surprised.

 

You've spent an inordinate amount of time being a one-trick pony. Try raising your standard. If you can.

 

In no particular order:

Lewis
Louis
Bowe
Tyson
Holmes
Holyfield
Morrison
Liston
Foreman
Charles

There are guys that I left out that are better and I rank higher than some of the guys on the list because despite being better; if you look at it only from an offensive standpoint they aren't better offensively. Overall, yes. Defensively yes. Solely offense? No.

 

That's a ridiculous level to hold Lewis too. You first claimed he was letting people off the hook like Usyk but don't have a single example where he let hurt guys off the hook.

You're criticism is that he didn't go for the kill with guys like Tua, Holyfield, McCall 2, Mavrovic, and Mercer.

If Tua had two things it was a granite chin and immense one punch power. Lewis was dominating him via boxing, why would he give Tua a chance to turn the fight around by getting overly aggressive? Against a guy that was never stopped in a 59 fight career? Did you see ATG puncher go balls to the wall against Qawi? Both fighters were simply too smart for that and put on clinics.

Holyfield was still an extremely dangerous fighter and tagged Lewis damn hard at times. Holyfield was stopped once in his first 18 years as a pro despite fighting some seriously tough opposition. It would have been tactical stupidity to go flat out against such a consumate performer and risk gassing out or getting tagged. Bowe loved infighting and was well suited stylistically to meet Holyfield head on and put him under big pressure.

McCall? Some believe he has the best chin in history or thereabouts. He'd already KO'd Lewis previously. The situation was probably unique in history, no-one knew what the hell was going on and Lewis thought he might be playing cat and mouse. At any rate Lewis tagged him with some bombs and he didn't wobble. If he did wobble Lewis, being a great finisher, would have let loose.

Mavrovic was an outlier. He soaked up a ridiculous amount of bombs from Lewis and went nowhere. It would have been great to see him fight again and find his level. Some nights are like that, some just aren't going anywhere on a given night even when you throw everything but the kitchen sink at them.

Mercer is another iron chinned warrior and if you actually watch the fight Lewis finished the stronger and won the last four rounds on many cards. What more would you expect?

Via that crazy level of scrutiny one could bash just about every fighter in history.

In his last 14 fights Usyk doesn't have a stoppage inside 7 rounds. In his entire career he doesn't have one inside 3 rounds despite most of his fights being at Cruiser, and we are actually rating him as a heavyweight. Lewis has 14 stoppages in the first 2 rounds, some over world class heavyweights.

Usyk has a very well rounded kit of punches but being in the top 10 most complete offensive heavyweights ever one certainly needs more than that. The most complete offenses surely need a hefty dose of stoppages. Benitez, Young and Howard Davis Jr had a fine kit of punches as well but i struggle to rate them as complete offensively as they didn't hit hard enough. Usyk is batting 33% at heavyweight.

 

No-one had more punches and angles at heavyweight (and his punching was damn effective, accuracy wise) than Michael Spinks and he even had a couple of stoppages. Do i expect to see him? Heavens no.