Best five wins thread. Lineal / Ring Magazine heavyweight champions.

For what it's worth, Carnera's manager listed a bunch of Carnera's fights, stating whether they were or weren't fixes. He said the Godfrey fight was legit.

Godfrey was also a pretty dirty fighter who was DQ'd a few times. Were they all fixes too?

 

It was speculated at the time that Godfrey did wear cuffs

 

Jack Sharkey top wins:

1. Harry Wills - he was past his best at that point but nobody did that to him until Sharkey.
2. Primo Carnera - he dominated very solid contender who was much bigger than him.
3. Tommy Loughran - could be over Carnera, outstanding win and the only HW who knocked out prime Tommy.
4. George Godfrey - I'm not sure what to think about Godfrey, but he certainly was very dangerous and Sharkey beat him cleanly.
5. Young Stribling - solid win over very good contender.

HMs:

Max Schmeling - can't pick it because I don't believe he won this fight.
Johnny Risko - good win but Risko wasn't in his prime yet.
Jim Maloney - he looked excellent in this fight.
Jack Delaney - another solid win over strong contender.
Phill Scott - not as good fighter as the rest, but he looked dominant against bigger man.

Not as good top wins as Schmeling's, but very deep resume. Important to note that Sharkey beat a lot of big contenders - Wills, Godfrey, Carnera, Scott... It's fascinating that Sharkey could outbox all these big guys and it's not like they were stiff

With less losses Sharkey could be a real all-timer, but instead I have him around the end of top 20.

 

I think that I will go with this list:

1. Max Schmeling (remember we all gave Hart the Johnson win, so the same should go here)
2. Harry Wills (Wills was ready to be taken, but he had been the outstanding contender for a long time)
3. Tommy Loughran I (This was a very important fight at the time, and nobody else did that to Loughran)
4. George Godfrey (A win over a dangerous contender, who nobody wanted any part of)
5. Primo Carnera (Would have been higher, but I think that Carnera improved somewhat after this)

 

Godfrey fouled out to Gains in their last fight.

 

Carnera is a big name too. The rational in fouling out was that even though you lost, thus boosting the victors record, it wasn't as damning to the loser. Boxrec can be a bit deceptive, in their own time, Godfrey and to a lesser extent Gains were highly rated while for some Carnera was jusy a stooge.

 

Was this just a biased narrative the press may have held against Carnera though? Watching Carnera on film he doesn't seem that awful. He boxes more than a big man was expected to during that time to me, even recently their is an uploaded colorized version of his first bout with Sharkey (sepia tones) and Carnera looks pretty good although after Sharkey drops him it kind of goes down hill and Sharkey has a huge final round. Carnera early on though is competitive and throwing some hard shots at Sharkey.
Godfrey got Dq'd an awful lot for a big time fighter, often with low blows, he may have had some Golota to him.

 

It may well be, I'm just relaying how it was at the time. Len See's claims were damning but of course he could have had aa agenda. I like to think that while he had a load of set-up and outright fixes, that he eventually became quite competent.

 

Either Godfrey was a Golotaesque headcase, or he threw a lot of fights!

 

He may have not trained hard and When things for too exhausting it was check out time. Who knows but he has something like 8DQ losses

 

I'm not that impressed with Godfrey. His record is so-so and he doesn't look that great in the limited footage we have of him. At lot of his mythos relies on the idea that he was supposedly avoided by certain fighters and a load of his losses were fixed. According to Larry Gains, Godfrey was frustrated because he was losing their fight, and simply fouled out, Golota-style. 15 of his losses were either by DQ or KO, mostly in low-level bouts against journeymen that I doubt anyone would care enough to fix. He was KO'd twice by an old, half-blind Sam Langford, at a time when plenty of fighters were going the distance with Sam. Were they fixes?

 

Jack Sharkey:

1) Tommy Loughran - Smashing KO of a good heavyweight contender
2) Primo Carnera - Drops and dominates the big man
3) Max Schmeling II*
4) Harry Wills - Inactive and old, sure, but still a whooping of the Black Panther
5) Young Stribling - Good win over a consistent performer

*I'm doing Jack a favour here. Scheming was robbed in the second fight but Sharkey was on top in fight one. I feel that deserves some spotlight. He had opened up in round three and, prior to the foul, was landing the right hand. He seemed to have Max's measure, was getting into his groove.

 

"His one big name foul out loss was to Carnera".

 

I agree with Loughran at number one before i switched it with Schmeling based on the magnitude of the win. I'm surprised so many people are putting Wills over Loughran. Loughran previous 3 wins were over Mickey Walker, Ernie Schaaf, and James Braddock, and his two wins post the Ko by Sharkey were over Pierre Charles and Jack Renault, far better competion than what Wills was facing and he was 10 years younger.