10 men from each 15 year period (I centered it around the best years of Ali to capture the "golden era" of HW boxing) now if you think my list doesn't best represent the 15 year pieces feel free to add / retract certain fighters you feel more suitable - I wanted to have a nice mix from the 60s / best of the 70s and good overlap for the 2000s. Your job as a match maker is to give your "side" the best shot of coming away with more wins. So say as a small scale example Patterson vs Lewis Frazier vs Sanders Liston vs Byrd You could count this as 2-1 etc whatever its just IYO or just vote on which era is H2H stronger in the polls. "Golden era" team Muhammad Ali Joe Frazier Sonny Liston George Foreman Ken Norton Ron Lyle Gerry Quarry Clevland Williams ( Or Patterson?) Oscar Bonavena "The Dark Ages" Lennox Lewis Vitali Klitschko Wladmir Klitschko Alexander Povetkin Chris Byrd Corrie Sanders Tyson Fury David Haye David Tua John Ruiz (Or should it be "Big" James?)
Can my men fight more than once, spaced out by 4-5 months or so? If so, I take the 60's group, have '66 Ali fight everyone while the others focus on carrying his jock strap.
Lewis honestly shouldn't be on that list, he left in the early 2000s and what filled the vacuum was billed as the dark ages
Me picks for the 2000s era Wlad vs Ali Lennox vs Liston Sanders vs Frazier Tua vs Norton Toney vs Foreman Byrd vs Lyle Fury vs Quarry Ruiz vs Ellis Haye vs Williams Povetkin vs Bonavena 8-2 or 9-1 with good odds for 10-0 (Ellis and Williams could score the W)
2000 wasn't the start of the dark ages. Lewis retired before the Klitschkos and the new talent pool swept through the rankings
I don't care it's my thread, 1960 wasn't the start of the Ali era either it's good overlap to include more fighters Prime Liston, Lewis etc.
I just wouldn't have Lewis and Tua as apart of the "dark ages" The decline of popularity and broadcast sales for the heavyweight division during early 2000s happened because the 1990s stars retired and Klitschko was boring at times