Based Soley On Resume Who Ranks Higher Holyfield Or Corbett?

Not at all. I just think the case is strong enough by limiting Holyfield's heavyweight resume to the wins he gained over heavyweights when they were still relevant.

 

I don't think that we can rate a fighter too highly based on near misses.

Corbett's resume could have been ranked highly before the Second World War, but it just kept getting bumped down the list, with every great fighter that has emerged since.

Jeffries resume has held its currency pretty well, and so has Fitzsimmons's in my opinion.

I do think that Corbett was one of the more remarkable men to hold the heavyweight title, and I also think that some of his early wins might have been better than we give him credit for.

 

I agree, Corbett shouldn't be ranked particularly high.
I think the draw with Jackson is his best result.

I'm not sold on Jeffries much either. He struggled badly with an old Corbett, so I can't rank him much higher.

 

Jeffries has a get out of jail free card, because he did about as much as you can ask with the available opposition.

Any case against him, would have to hang on the assumption that the era was weak, which you could never really prove.

Fitzsimmons basically snotted everybody worth snotting, apart from Jeffries.

Fitz has to be regarded as one of the most dominant heavyweight contenders of all time, outside of winning the title!

 

If the Jeffries era wasn't weak, then Corbett's can't have even been a contender in it.
I'm not saying he was a contender.
Maybe he was just some old washed-up 'name', which doesn't bode well for Jeffries either.

 

Kudos to Mac for a fresh topic .. that in its own right is a huge accomplishment ..

Corbett's win was only over a very badly faded Sullivan .. the man that fought Corbett proved more by going over 20 rounds against a prime Corbett than he did in any of his victories .. a prime John L Sullivan, say an 1881 or so version may be one of the most physically gifted fighters that ever lived .. hand speed, chin, strength, stamina, killer instinct and rare one punch KO power .. imagine if this physical specimen ever was proper trained as a professional boxer ? In reality he really trained more like a professional toughman contestant than anything else ..

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Can somebody decipher that please?

 

I think it is a close run thing between him and Marciano fanatics as to who posts the most nonsense

 

An interesting idea.

I think that Corbett was a contender, if only because he did much better against Jeffries than the unequivocal contenders.

Even is we assume that he was a washed up name, we would still be left with Fitzsimmons, Sharkey, Ruhlin, and perhaps McCoy as the contenders of the era.

You could probably throw in Denver Ed Martin to be thorough.

That still leaves Jeffries as the dominant force of the era, and hence it is hard to argue against him, without assuming that the era was weak.

 

I think that it would be a gross overstatment to call it "as thin as it gets".

He rounded up a lot of the key contenders before he fougth Sullivan, and even if they were not very good, they were still what was around at the time.

If the McCoy win was legitimate, then it would definitely have put him back in the mix.

I actualy think that the case for him being an inovator, and pioneer of boxing techniques, is somewhat overstated.