How long before Ali recedes to being a #2 or #3 heavyweight, except for boxing hipsters?

if ah.

 

I pretty much view every era after the 70s at heavyweight as being better than the 70s. The falloff has been in match-making and soemtimes the consistency of the fighters.

 

I'm saying looking at the bigger pictures. If you pull up a top ten heavyweight list for a year after 1979, most fare well compared to an individual year at random in the 70s with exception to a couple abysmal years when Vitali was out with injuries and Lewis retired. Then again, the Leon Spinks era in the 70s wasn't too special either.

 

suddenly its "will" now, ah

 

ah ok so neithers a certainty ok.

 

ah it just what you think now ok.

 

Boxing historian and statistician Henric Hascup, @hhascup , has posted those numbers several times in threads here. And for wins over guys that were currently top 10 ranked at the time of the meet, Ali has a slight edge according to those numbers.

I don't know the exact numbers when it comes to currently top 5 ranked opponents (including champions), but off the top of my head Ali has wins over Besmanoff, Moore, Jones, Liston x 2, Patterson x 2, Terrell, Folley, Quarry x 2, Bonavena, Ellis, Norton x 2, Frazier x 2, Foreman, Young and Spinks. So that's 20, and I think that also Cooper (first fight), Chuvalo (first fight), Mildenberger, Bugner (both meets), Lyle and Shavers all were in or close to the top 5 as well. Actually, Williams might well have been in there, even though one could question that particular ranking.

So probably we're talking about 25 wins over fighters that were ranked top 5 at the time of the meet. That's an insane number. Don't know if it's bettered by anyone in boxing history. For comparison, Wilder has two wins over currently top 5 ranked fighters and AJ three or four.

So for us that like to crunch the numbers, Ali and Louis should stay more or less untouchable in the top 2 for the rest of our lives. For more casual fans who think more in strictly h2h terms and that just can't see a 210 lbs fighter with no real KO power best 240+ beasts like Lewis, Wlad etc it might be a different story, though. Usyk might put even that line of reasoning on it's head, but I'm far from certain of that.

 

ah thats good they arent a fact