Are top ten rated Ring Magazine heavyweights with 10 or more losses...history?

I think the main reason for that is that they simply have very little fights against each other.

 

The 1982 year end guys yielded up 11.
Holmes(5)
Dokes(2)
Weaver(1)
Coetzee(1)
Snipes(1)
Berbick(1)
Page
Cooney
Thomas
Cobb
The bottom four of course fought other top 10 opponents but these are included in a higher rated fighter eg Cobb v Holmes is included in Larry's 5.

 

1929 14.
sharkey
schmeling
godfrey
griffiths
scott
von porat
stribling
risko
carnera
campolo

 

Not neccessarily.

If an upcoming fighter loses 10 of his first thirty fights due to poor management/poor motivation, then gets his act together when he fights a top ranked contender, beats them (e.g., Povetkin) and consequently beats two more (Say Ibragimov and Chagaev), he'll be in the top ten despite his previous losses surely.

 

An interesting post. I was about to respond with a put down but then realized the accuracy of it. If a fighter pulls off an upset and follows it up with a renewed attitude he of course will get rated. However we feel (know?) that this is unlikely to happen. Why is the question. Are the rated guys now far superior to the rabble or are they so protected as never to give a chance to an underperfprmer? You pick.

 

Yes, contenders these days generally have better win-loss averages, but you should know it is ridiculous to try and take that as indicating they are therefore better than their predecessors.