Champions who quit

Using that type of metric, every fighter quits if they survive the sport to live long enough.
Hopefully, they all live long enough to quit in good health. That's the ultimate goal, isn't it? Some are luckier than others in that regard. Marciano should have quit squeezing nickels by flying on the cheap on private planes operated by less than fully qualified pilots.

 

AJ vs. Ruiz

 

Best win seems to logically call in victory over the best quality opponent(s).

You could perhaps vary the terms - weighting both the quality of the win against the quality of the opponent for the calculation of net credit.

After all, many (not me personally), rate Ali’s performance against post gun shot Williams as his greatest performance - though Williams was clearly not Ali’s best quality opponent.

Applying that same line of thinking to Liston, as an equivalent example and it can be rejected, - - even when measuring the complexion/outcome relative to the quality of the opponent - Liston’s first round stoppage of Bethea and the reported damage was more than impressive - and to promote that win further in terms of statistics, Wayne B. was never KD’d/stopped before or since.

Then there was Liston’s 3 round stoppage of Zora Folley - no film but impressive enough as per result and the complexion described.

Patto, Machen, Williams, Folley etc. are all up there in the upper quality mix but for mine, it’s the winning mosaic that tells the best story.

Vs Williams, Liston destroys the power punching slugger, Vs the boxer Machen, Liston outboxes the “boxer” who ran more than he fought, etc.

By virtue of those two fights we can reasonably extrapolate and argue for Sonny defeating/stopping a prime Foreman and, at the other end of the scale, outboxing a prime Jimmy Young. Liston needed those two separate fights and varied opposition to prove his potential in the aforementioned regards. How’s that for broad application of a fighter?

Hell, even Sonny’s late 60s outboxing and stoppage of a young, durable Henry Clark was something to shout about in absolute terms - even though it was a notably deteriorated version of the Bear.

 

Patto flew planes. Ali feared flying. Floyd said nice things re Ali. Ali called Floyd The Rabbit, among other derogatory labels.

Quick calc: Patto was greater and much nicer than Ali. Floyd was the real Superman who actually flew fearlessly through the air.

I wonder if Floyd ever took Ali for a “joy” flight? A brief, controlled “nosedive” would’ve been in order methinks.

 

Kosta Tsyu vs Ricky Hatton.