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

Top 5s so far:

1. Muhammad Ali
2. Joe Louis
3. Joe Frazier
4. Sonny Liston
5. Max Schmeling
6. James Jeffries

Sounds fair?

 

Yup, good list. I would try to find room for Rocky though

 

Rocky would be 7th, fighting with Charles.

 

He was undefeated at HW and had beaten the other top guys, albeit the one over Floyd was close.

 

maybe too soon! there's a whole thread right there.

 

I placed him there because of his recent wins ledger going into the fight. But I don’t believe overall he was that good

 

Well, your comment implies a premise I don't agree with. Ellis deserves the number two spot only if he is really good.

Does he deserve the #2 spot. He decisively defeated Bonavena and Quarry, and also Martin, who KO'd Liston in 1969. He won the tournament and so comes out as the best other than Ali and Frazier.

But the question of how good he is boils down to the competition. I think folks tend to conflate the 1960's heavyweight scene with the 1970's. The 1960's were not a competitive decade. Liston, Ali, and Frazier were totally dominant except for Liston against Ali and when old and obviously fading against Martin.

Patterson, Ellis, and Quarry? These three went 0-11 against Liston, Ali, and Frazier with 11 KO defeats and none of the fights being particularly competitive. They fought in the same era but there is such a huge gap between them and the top men that it is very hard to compare them to earlier champions or contenders who were competitive with the best of their time.

 

Hard to see Jeffries over Marciano for me.

Much will depend on the criteria used to evaluate a top five for Frazier and Schmeling. They have great #1 wins, better than anyone I guess because in a sense they weren't the best of their time and so could upset the best of their time. Sort of like Rahman. Their 2 to 5 wins are not really that outstanding in my judgment.

Liston? I don't see his list being that great. He really dominated his opposition but everyone was losing to others except Williams who wasn't fighting the top men. Only Patterson was ever actually a champion.

But these resumes could be tricky. How many heavyweight champions really have a better list than this one--Ezzard Charles, Eddie Machen, Jimmy Bivins, Nino Valdes, Clarence Henry, Arturo Godoy, plus Archie Moore, Doug Jones, and Bob Satterfield at light-heavy. But Harold Johnson was never champion or even a rated heavyweight.

 

Marciano has great names, but three of them were past their best (Louis, Charles and Moore). Jeffries only have one past-prime figher on his top 5 (Corbett). For me it is:

1. Fitz>Walcott
2. Corbett<Charles
3. Sharkey=Moore (Moore was better, but he was past prime)
4. Ruhlin>Layne
5. Griffin=Louis (Louis was washed up at this point).

I don't agree, I view their top 5s as excellent from top to bottom.

I may actually agree with you, I probably overrated Liston in this post. I can see Fitzsimmons, Rocky, Charles or Walcott having better top 5s.

 

Interesting way of looking at it. Question is are the 60s and 70s as good of eras as people hype them up to be or were they just overblown because of the larger then life figures fighting in them?

 

Joe Frazier:

1. Ali
2. Ellis
3. Quarry
4. Bonavena
5. Machen

 

70's was an outstanding era.