How many heavyweights could have beat Caracas Foreman?

Krasniqi was Euro-level and not even a fringe contender on the world stage. Thompson just happened to be a little better.

That's just how shallow the Klitschko era was.

I remember when Thompson edged back into the lower top-10 of the Ring Ratings. When Kevin Johnson (another 'not even fringe' guy) had to be summarily dropped from the ratings because he was so poor against Vitali, the Ring had a hard time coming up with a heavyweight, who could fill his briefly held '10' spot.


THE RING 14/12/2009

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"Finding a replacement for Kevin Johnson was difficult," said Collins. “Nobody jumped out, but Tony Thompson’s recent TKO of Chazz Witherspoon, as well as earlier wins over Timur Ibragimov and Luan Krasniqi, was enough to beat out the rest of a mediocre group for the No. 10 position."

***

They had to go back as far as 2007 to help justify Thompson's late 2009 placement.

THAT'S HOW BAD the division was.

 

...and, when it comes to you defending Wlad, you're the gift that just keeps on giving!

 

Ah, the old classic: blending in accomplishments of Foreman in his comeback as needed with Foreman in the 70s in order to create your h2h monster...while also omitting everything in the 70s after Caracas.

 

It was a wise placement considering that Thompson would be called in lose to a popular undefeated prospect and a guy who was thought to be one of the best in the division h2h and end up going 4-0.

 

Also, if Thompson at 10 proves that era is bad, what does it mean for Randy Neumann to be at number 10? (The boxer not well known CPA.)

 

Ali still took loads of bombs, particularly to the body, in that fight. Enough in fact to put paid to man many a man. Those body shots were next level.

 

That's a more a nod towards Ali resilience that Foreman's quality work- and it'd be pretty difficult not to land some body shots when your opponent is lying on the ropes round after round. Even then his shots landed % is very low, considering.

 

Lol poor Spinks. To his credit he was an overachiever at Hvy imho. He was lucky to fight an older Holmes in contested bouts but his bread n butter was lt hvy.

 

Well Ali had to lay on the ropes as Foreman kept cutting him off early. This is evident on film as i pointed out weeks ago somewhere. I can't see Foreman not cutting others off in the same scenario. Watch the first round and concentrate on nothing except his subtle cutting off and boxing in of Ali.

 

Goofi Whitaker?

 

So wise that he dropped out of the rankings the following year, after beating Maurice Harris, Paul Marinaccio and Owen Beck (Who? You might well ask!) and Thompson still managed to get a second shot at Wlad, two years after that, when he was 40 years old.

 

Odlanier Solis. A lot of people thought he’d have a good comeback given what he looked like for three minutes against Vitali, but Thompson ended it. Granted, it’s because Solis was a fat piece of **** whose conditioning went from bad to pathetic after Vitali and not because he was actually worse than Thompson.

 

Harris was the first rung of an elimination tournament. Chambers was the final eliminator but he got hurt so Thompson got to go straight to Wlad.