Better Resume Building up to winning the title..

Johnson: pre title he'd already established a top 15 resume and once he'd beaten burns and jeffries between 08 and 10 it was more icing on the cake than establishing his greatness.

Liston again he'd almost entirely secured his legacy prior to defeating floyd. Probably a top 20 resume until that point with the victories over floyd making his h2h ranking fly into the top 5 or so.

Rocky comes last because his legacy is pretty much entirely based on his title capture and defences.

Essentially if I remove the career of these guys from the title victory onwards I think i'd rank them in this order based on resume.

 

Rocky's opponents were abysmal while building his record. Most had lots of losses and many had more losses than wins. Quite a few .500 fighters too.

 

Johnson
Liston
Marciano

Luf explained why pretty good.

 

Jersey Joe Walcott has to be right up there among the best resumes pre title.

By the time he won the title, his resume was about as good as it was ever going to get.

Not wishing to get off topic.

 

I don't think the wins over Patterson should add an awful lot to his h2h rating, but that's just my personal perception. Floyd, a terrified, somewhat chinny, short-reach, blown-up light-heavy who utilized quite a come-forward attacking style.
With hindsight maybe, but he's almost the perfect foil for Liston.

I think Liston's wins over Cleveland Williams and Eddie Machen, (and probably Folley), and the manner of the victories are more insightful to Liston's h2h ability.

 

Probably Johnson has the best resume pre-title. I'm not too familiar with the details though.


Marciano and Liston .... it's close.
I guess I'd say Marciano 'cos he beat Joe Louis. A washed-up Louis, 137 years old etc., but it's still kind of Joe Louis, isn't it.

 

Perhaps but i'm a huge believer in significance.

Liston's destruction of patterson underlined how supreme he was in relation to that 60-64 era.

 

Yeah, despite his victory over bivins being quite controversial and dubious, I think he actually beat every man in the top ten consecutively before fighting louis.

It's a shame the full footage isn't available of that first title fight because reports are split on who deserved it. Jersey's reputation could significantly improve if the full fight was there and he deserved even just a draw.

 

Well I think the ringside reports are actually fairly split upon the deserved victor.

The rematch just shows that louis came from behind to stop him, it doesn't show anything about the first fight.

When reports are split and sufficient footage isn't available, I have no choice but to take the result at face value.

 

Johnson

Liston

Rocky