My man I often agree with you. But you are incorrect here. Patterson did bulk up to HW. He did not have a very big bone structure, & Charles & he fought at ~ the same top weights. Look at their resumes, # of defenses...Charles seems better. I usually think you have it right that all other things being equal, bigger does tend to = better. But you are splitting hairs to qualify or disqualify guys from consideration based on "natural" size. Holyfield fit fine at CW when it was only up to 190 lbs.-though taller than the above men. Only great efforts in weighlifting *and* steroids gave him that Adonis upper body. On fairly undersized legs. And steroid users often have the disproportionate traps & adjacent areas, which can account for his out of proportion 19" neck at a quite low body fat %... Look if a guy does very well at HW, especially as a champion, unless you specify you are ranking head to head, then even if the division's weight moved up, they are by definition great. I agree Charles would never rank so high when directly fighting guys of all size throughout history. But he has enough success at HW that he should rank no lower than the teens in the historic standings.
I never said that patterson was a natural +200pounder, i said that he was a natural 180s and Charles a natural 175 guy, Charles was a natural lhw and Patterson a small cruiser. Not a big difference of size between them and of course the size is not the motive because i pick Patterson to beat Charles.
I did not indicate you said Charles was naturally over 200-at his heaviest prime weights he was not much over 190. You indicated larger differences previously, & what was said above is true-at their heaviest, & wit Charles looking lean, there was less than 5 lbs. difference between them. Patterson vs. Charles would be quite a fight! I am unsure who I would favor.
There have been at least 32,000 professional Heavyweight boxers. I haveCharles somewhere between 15 and 20 all time in the heavyweight division. If he were no worse than 20th, that would make him greater the 99.94% of all pro Heavyweights ever. So, unless one has extraordinary stringent criteria, he is, almost by definition, a great Heavyweight. To put this in perspective, an American male would have to be approximately 6 ft 8 in tall to be taller than 99.94 % of American men. And most would agree that a 6' 8" man is tall.
I said that charles was a lhw in his prime and Patterson weighed 185-190 in his prime in his early 20s and it is absolutely truth, where is the biggest difference that i indicated?
You picked various measures that described them as more separated in size. Such as: "Patterson at 21 weighed 180s and Charles 161. 20 pounds of difference". And listed some of Charles lowest weights. Patterson peaked early, both in terms of size & accomplishments. At their HW bests they were very similar. Difference is Charles took longer to move up. In terms of height & bone structure, they were very similar. Patterson is the one likely shorter than his listed 6'. Patterson both matured earlier, & did not make an effort to stay leaner & weight drain to make weight. When you Google Charles, you get weights such as 201, & 160-204. Again, the main thing is we gotta analyze how good they both are when fighting legally at what HW was at that time. In terms of defenses & his record against god competition-before all the past prime losses-Charles was remarkable.
Well, two stand out to me. First, his KO of a dangerous Max Baer. Then his comeback victory over Max Schmeling which to me is really and truly the one Fight of the Century that lived up to its name.
Charles? Favourably, but it's a very close fight and Spinks winning wouldn't surprise me. These are two of the three best LHWs ever (Moore being the other). Charles' biggest weakness here was his lack of a jab on Spinks' level IMO, Spinks almost was on a level of his own when it came to jabbing at 175. I think that Spinks would eventually start to keep Ezzard from doing much with his lanky, awkward style and longer limbs. A past-it Charles had issues with Johnson's jab and Spinks' was better and quicker and longer than Johnson's. However, Spinks was a pretty slow starter. Charles took a good lead pretty often, but could squander it. I have a feeling Spinks's combined assets of trickiness and devastating power would cause Charles to switch to a spoiler style and resort to shutting Spinks down, instead of mounting his own tools for winning. Obviously Charles had issues with Walcott's trickiness, and Spinks was bith better and trickier than Walcott IMO. Spinks also managed to keep Qawi off him on the inside (for the most part), but Qawi was much better than Charles, at forcing the fight. That said, Spinks wasn't against an infight, which would play into Ezz's hands. The power that Spinks brought isn't a something to be played with, though. No, I think Charles's counters are what give Spinks the bigger problems here. Spinks could throw himself off balance when he missed a left hook or a supercharged Jinx. Mike did have a few issues with Eddie, who was a counter-puncher, similarly to Charles but not as good. This is why I think all of the late rounds would be very closely fought with Spinks's awesome jab giving Charles issues but also opportunities. So basically, I think it goes with Charles taking the early rounds, with the middle rounds becoming increasingly competitive, with Spinks's power slowly taking effect and his jab taking the close ones. Spinks could maybe get a KD here, which would tick it in his favour, but ultimately I think Charles nicks it based on his better start. Charles SD15(8-7)
Both weights the exact same outcome. Charles wins a close but clear decision. Spinks has an ATG jab but Charles has the movement, activity nd ambush tactics to offset that. I actually think it will be Spinks who will have trouble getting going here, and his power won't be enough to save him. Charles has been in with and fought against much bigger punchers. Charles beat Burley at MW, Moore at LHW and Louis at HW. That's top ten ATGs in 3 different divisions. And even considering that Louis was old, Charles did the next best thing which is beat the best HW in the world (Walcott). Charles has fought at and succeeded at a much higher level. I mean yeah, you could say Qawi and Holmes are great victories and I certainly wouldn't argue against that, but what Charles did was greater, imo.
He did also lose to a number of lesser fighters at all three weights, so beating XYZ doesn't necessarily mean he beats Spinks. I do favour Charles as Spinks had more trouble against boxers. Eddie Davis pushed him very close and Eddie Mustafa was winning early on before fading in the second half. That said, Charles was up and down like a yo-yo in his career, so maybe one or two Spinks KDs turn the tide (especially if the fight is using the 10-point must system). It would be close.
