How do you rate Tim Wiherspoon in an all-time rankings

One of, if not the top contender of his era, but I'd have him marginally outside of the top 30. Just for a bit of fun, here's a list of heavyweights I'd have a above him

Johnson
Langford
Wills
Dempsey
Schmelling
Patterson
Charles
Walcott
Louis
Marciano
Liston
Ali
Frazier
Foreman
Holmes
Tyson
Holyfield
Bowe
Lewis
Wladimir
Vitali

Then you have champs like Fitz, Corbett, Tunney, Sharkey, Baer and Sullivan (if we're including him). Top contenders like Jeanette, Mcvey, Young, Norton and Jackson (if we're including him) that get all go in a above Terrible Tim. So yer 33 at best, maybe 40 at the very worst as I am running out of fighters that I could make a case for

H2H is a different story, but there is a lot more guess work involved and if people want to argue fighters like Baer, Walcott, Charles, Marciano etc couldn't hang with the fighters from the 70s, then I can't help but make that same assumption about a fighter far less greater from 30 years ago should not be able to hang with the heavies of today's era

 

He was never hwt champion so I generally do not rate him.

 

to be fair, if you give cadence to the fact Witherspoon is a tricky match up for almost any heavyweight minus a few, top 25 is more than feasible

 

Top 30. Definitley third best heavy of the eighties.

 

A motivated (no Don King around) comes in somewhere between 10 and 12.I've also thought he's vastly underrated.

 

Same here. Top 25-30 for me. You could argue a little higher in a head to head sense.

WItherpsoon is an underrated guy with some accomplishments. He just had a major issue with Don King when King was at the peak of his powers.

 

H2H? Top 25.

 

I don't know.

He might be the third-best of the 80s. But there is Larry Holmes and Mike Tyson WAY WAY WAY up here ... and there are five or six guys way down in the middle who make up three, four, five, etc.

Everyone beat Tillis. Everyone beat Broad. (Marvis Frazier beat them both, too.) Witherspoon was also stopped in rematches with Page and Smith. (Marvis beat Smith, too.)

And Witherspoon didn't win against Holmes.

Which leaves a razor thin win over Tubbs and a knockout of Bruno as his big wins.

Trevor Berbick beat John Tate, Greg Page, Pinklon Thomas and Muhammad Ali. Berbick defeated Mitch "Blood" Green and David Bey. Berbick was the first guy to go the distance with Holmes.

Pinklon Thomas beat Witherspoon. He knocked out Weaver. He fought to a draw with Coetzee. He knocked out Tillis.

Greg Page won and lost against Spoon. He beat Coetzee. He beat Bonecrusher. He beat Snipes. He beat Broad. He beat Jimmy Young.

Mike Weaver knocked out Tate. Weaver knocked out Coetzee. Weaver gave Holmes hell. Weaver beat Tillis. Knocked out Williams. Beat Bert Cooper.

Michael Dokes beat Weaver. Michael Dokes beat Cobb.

Tubbs beat Bonecrusher, Page, Jimmy Young, Orlin Norris (but Tubbs smoked weed), Seldon, and he appeared to outpoint Bowe. And the Witherspoon fight was a toss-up.

Carl Williams seemed to beat Holmes more convincingly than Spoon, and Williams beat Berbick. He beat Bert Cooper and Tillis. His fight with Spoon was a toss-up.

And on and on.

I mean you can really throw them all in a hat after Holmes and Tyson.

You could make an argument Michael Spinks and Evander Holyfield should be rated ahead of Witherspoon, as far as 80s heavyweights go.

Spinks beat Holmes twice and stopped C00ney.

Holyfield beat Tillis, Thomas, Stewart, Rodriquez, and he knocked out Dokes in what was voted by RING as the heavyweight fight of the 1980s.

And Holyfield would go on to a far more successful heavyweight career than Spoon ever did, and may have even surpassed him in the 1980s. (Since a few of the fights you've listed there for Spoon didn't even take place in the 80s.)

I was around in the 1980s. Witherspoon never stood out for me among all the other heavyweights. He and Thomas and the rest were all pretty interchangeable.

Holmes wasn't expecting much when he faced Witherspoon. Holmes was surprised, as was everyone else. That Holmes fight had more to do with Witherspoon's rep than any win he ever had. Because Tim didn't really stand out from the crowd in other fights.

 

As a contender.

With so much history you can only include those who proved beyond dispute to be the best heavyweight in the world at one particular time. Witherspoon never did.

 

I think somewhere around top 30 is fair. He was ranked by ring for a combined 11 years. Took on an ATG in only his 16th pro bout and quite possibly could have been awarded the decision.. He captured two world title fragments. He beat somewhere between 10-13 opponents with some sort of name recognition or ranking. That's enough to warrant being top 30 or close to top 30.

 

He had a much better resume than the grossly overrated Vitali

 

I tend to agree.

Witherspoon should've fought Tyson in the heayweight tournament, but Bonecrusher knocked out Tim's front tooth and stopped him in one.

Had Tim faced Tyson, I think Witherspoon would have lasted about as long as Spinks, Williams, Tubbs and Berbick did.

Tim didn't have the heart that Holmes and Thomas had. He wouldn't have taken the shots they did. He'd have bowed out when the going got tough and blamed everyone but himself for his loss - King, his weight, women, drugs, not feeling motivated, etc.

He lacked a lot in the heart department.

 

I don't rate him tbh.