I love data and facts. All too often when people talk about great champs, they base it entirely on anecdotes and subjective feelings. There's a place for that, sure, but a more factual analysis should be used more often. Two of the most important things for a champ to do to show their dominance are to beat their opponents handily, and to beat top opponents. Let's measure this in as objective a way as possible. Here's thread one, out of two, to do this. I'm taking every HW champ who has had at least 5 successful title fights since Ali(both for ease of reference and for being a more modern era). I'm going to divide the number of fights they won without danger of losing, by the total number of successful title fights they had. A fighter is in danger of losing if they suffered a heavy KD, or if the scorecards were close at the time of the decision or ko, unless the ko happened in the first few rounds of the fight. I should also say, that while I haven't run the numbers yet, im quite sure this isn't the order I'd rank them as ATGs. It's not meant to fully encapsulate their careers. But I think it does mean something, and it's something different than another thread about how so and so is so terrible because of some anecdote. So, these are the fighters who have won at least 5 title fights, and their rate: Ali: 16 of 22 73% rate of dominant wins Frazier 8 of 10 easy victories 80% Foreman: 4 of 7 were dominant wins 57% Holmes: 14 of 21 2/3rds were easy wins Tyson: 12 of 12 100% were easy wins Holyfield: 6 of 9 were easy wins 2/3rds Lewis: 12 of 15 80% dominant wins Vitali: 12 of 12 (or 15 for 15, but not counting WBO) for 100% ratio Wlad: 18 of 19 Wilder: 4 of 5 for 80% The next thread I'll average out their ring ranked opponents and cross reference both numbers.
