How good a Heavyweight was Ezzard Charles?

But they were poor heavyweights, whether they were ranked or not. Are Scott Ledoux and Duane Bobick suddenly awesome heavyweights because they got a ranking in a down period?

And, again, you're using the cheesy year-end ratings of one publication. Not the monthly ratings of the publication or the actual ratings of the boxing organization that rated fighters at the time.

 

No way does Spinks 4-1 record at heavy trump Ezzard Charles' accomplishments in the division. Michael's acheivments at that weight include barely beating an old Holmes, getting gifted in the rematch and blasted out in 91 seconds by Tyson... Oh and C00ney and Tangstad..I've seen Tangstad in action.. Watch his fight with journeyman Anders Ecklund on youtube. He got demolished. He was okay as grade C fighters go but at no point should he ever have gotten a title shot. And neither should C00ney in 1987 either. You wanna argue that they were better than some of the guys Charles defended against? fine, but at least they were ranked, active and kept Charles busy rather than sitting on the title.. calling these men light heavyweights is a blanket statement as many of them were fighting at heavyweight and were ranked there. That's what would have set Charles and Spinks apart if Michael had decided to fight Marvin johnson or Qawi as those men never did anything at heavyweight...As it turned out he cherry picked pay days and was mostly inactive until he lost to Tyson.. Then was finished by age 31, just in case you wanna go on about how Charles lost most of his remaining fights... The man was well into his mid to late 30's and had over 100 fights of mileage behind him. Do you think that explains some of those red marks on boxrec?

 

No.. But neither were Tangstad or C00ney. And Spinks only retained the title he got from Holmes through a gift from the judges, only to be stripped later for avoiding a mandatory.

Who in your opinion should he have faced that you can prove beyond reasonable doubt was more deserving and not just based on your opinion? I can think of about 15 fighters who were more deserving in 1986 than Stephan Tangstad and about 10 in 1987 who were more deserving than C00ney.

 

Michael Spinks didn't need the money. Charles did. Charles made like $50,000 to defend against Pat Valentino, that's how highly those Ezzard Charles defenses were regarded at the time.

And I must've missed the significant accomplishments of Joey Maxim at heavyweight to qualify for a heavyweight title shot and a top 10 ranking. Oh, right, he was the light heavyweight champion. That's what qualified him.

Qawi was the cruiserweight champion. Johnson was a light heavyweight champion. They deserved a title shot as much as Michael Spinks did, frankly.

 

Irrelevant. The reasoning behind why a man takes certain fights shouldn't have any bearing on how he's appraised later. Maybe if Charles had been offered 4 million to fight a guy who had spent the last 3 years sitting on his duff drinking he could have taken it easy a bit.

What are you talking about? Yes he was currently holding the light heavyweight title, but you are aware that about 75% of his fights to that point were fought at heavyweight right?

In a generic sort of sense maybe, but neither of them dominated their weight class the way that Spinks did.

 

If you look at Charles after the Sam Baroudi fight, his knock out percentage when way down. This was also the time he moved up to heavyweight. The Baroudi fight took a lot out of Charles I'm sure but I won't entertain that idea for the sake of argument.

The Baroudi fight took place near the end of Charles's prime as we can see and during the rest of his prime and a little bit after, Charles was undefeated against both Heavyweights and Great Light Heavies who moved up. I think the thing that makes people constantly use the Marciano fight against Charles is the fact that he did so well in the first fight despite being just about 34 years of age so they assume he was best in his older years. Also, people associate Charles with his wars with Walcott who was another fighter who did well in his older age some say that was when his prime took place.

For the longest time I had thought that Charles was one of those fighters like Walcott who was great in his old age. I was wrong.

 

Sure. You can entertain it. I'm just pointing out that when you're rating Charles among all the heavyweights who ever lived, he certainly isn't among the best ever.

He outpointed Joe Louis - who was like 15 years removed from his stellar wins over guys like Baer and Sharkey and Carnera -- in 1950. That was a major accomplishment, like Spinks' win over Holmes, because Louis hadn't lost forever.

But Charles wasn't a great heavyweight. People always rely on stats when talking about Charles (he had 90 something wins) or his number of defenses, but most of those wins didn't come at heavy, his defenses came against light heavys or bad heavys ... and he wasn't a dominant heavyweight at all. He'd win as much as he'd lose.

If he held back after the Baroudi fight, fine. But I'm not going to judge him on what actually happened in the ring, not what I think might have happened if some tragedy hadn't occurred.

 

I agree. I never said they "TRUMP" what Ezzard Charles did. I said they belong in the same category by each other.

:roll:

 

I didn't entertain it because there's now way of proving what he would have been like. We just know that boxing is more mental than physical and something tragic like that can derail a fighter. I put him in my top 10 Heavyweight because of what he did in his prime and the weight disadvantage (35lbs at times). I have no illusions about what he did overall at Heavyweight which was less than great. But he was beating good Heavyweights as a light heavyweight.

Also, if we really look at it we can say that most heavyweight eras can be considered down. The Dempsey era was down, the Louis era was down, the Marciano era was down, the Patterson/Liston era was down, Ali era was really good actually, 80's and 90's wasn't the best save for a few fighters, 2000's and today's heavyweight eras are definitley not the best just look at the champs. So this really makes us think are our expectations too high or do we remember certain eras as better than they really were?

 

His accomplishments at heavyweight aren't just limited to his title reign though.. Drawing one name out of the hat, he stopped Elmer Ray who was a top 3 contender who had beaten 57 of his last 58 opponents and was by all standards a natural heavyweight. Care to size this win up to Spink's wins over C00ney and Tangstad?

 

What am I talking about? Joey Maxim got a heavyweight title shot because he was the light heavyweight champion ... not because he beat a bunch of heavyweights. Joey Maxim wasn't a stellar heavyweight, either.

 

Yes. Spinks defeated Larry Holmes when Larry Holmes was the #2 RING contender and had beaten 48 of his previous 49 opponents. (His only loss having come to MICHAEL SPINKS.)

:roll:atsch

 

They pretty much are.

 

Great post! Thanks!

 

Except Charles didn't fight most of those guys in those years, didn't defend against some of them, and several of the same names are highlighted multiple times.

In 1985, Larry Holmes was the reigning world champion. Michael Spinks fought him and won.

In 1986, Larry Holmes was the #2 RING contender (behind Pinklon Thomas who was preparing to fight Berbick - a fight Thomas would lose). Spinks fought Holmes and won.

in 1988, Mike Tyson was the #1 RING contender. Michael Spinks fought him and lost. And retired.

The only odd year in there was 1987, when he fought Gerry C00ney. Who was rated #16 by RING before their fight after beating the RING's 16th rated Eddie Gregg. And for all the cr@p people spew about him ...

Start a thread asking who'd win a fight:
Gerry C00ney vs. Lee Oma
Gerry C00ney vs. Pat Valentino
Gerry C00ney vs. Freddie Beshore
Gerry C00ney vs. Joey Maxim

And you'll see how respected Charles' heavyweight challengers were.

Or:

Gerry C00ney vs. Joe Baksi
Gerry C00ney vs. Cesar Brion

As for the IBF and Tony Tucker, Tucker was only rated highly by the IBF because EVERYONE was losing ahead of him. Not because Tucker was beating anyone of note.

Tucker was rated three spots (#13) above Eddie Gregg (#16) by RING when Spinks won the title in late '85.