Is Ezzard Charles a great heavyweight?

I push Ez back to the top 25-30 and lump him in with the Floyd Patterson's and Jim Corbett's of heavyweight boxing. Very skilled, but small and not quite durable to make up for it.

As a pound for pound guy, he's way up there.

 

That's fair as long as you are consistent. Saying that Charles is not a HW while calling Patterson legit HW is not consistent. I don't have any problems with your criteria

 

Charles is better than Corbett without much doubts.
Could you name me 25 HWs with better resume than Charles?

 

Oh absolutely, I agree, Charles proved he had been a better lightheavyweight when he beat Lesnavich (at heavyweight) and would have dominated that division had he spent his whole career there, that’s why pound for pound Charles is my #3 ATG. It’s just that from 1946 Charles was not an exclusive LHW, because he was already beating heavyweights.

He never got his shot there but he never was going to settle for the LHW title anyway.

If a light middleweight is beating all the middleweights and winning that title without ever winning the Light middle title nobody is calling him a lightmiddle any more even if he is still technically light middleweight sized. For me, that’s the same as Charles.

 

Better resumes? Probably not as he had 7 title defenses.

25 Better pound for pound? No way!

Better head to head, I could say there are 20+ better.

With each passing decade, fighters like Charles move down 2-3 slots for me," head to head " , as he's just too small and did not hit hard enough for the punchers chance he needs. Even in this very medicore heavyweight division in 2020, full of older fighters, and limited depth, I would say Joshua and Fury have passed Charles in a head to head sense.

Boxing back then was a better sport for the fans by far. Not only did the best fighters usually fight each in the 1950's, fans saw multiple re-matches. These days, we might see just one or two matches a year where the top ten fighters meet at heavyweight, and very few if any non title fights between highly ranked opponents. The fragmentation of then championship... WBC, WBA, IBF, WBO has given champions the option of " belt milking ", some of whom have taken it to a new level by giving top 15-50 ranked guys title shots, while hardly ever fighting top ten talent, and if they do the opponent is way pst it. Back in Charles day, there was only one belt, and the champion fought ranked opponents by the standard of Ring Magazine's Rankings.

 

For me, Charles was so great he never needed that title. Once he was a heavyweight champion it didn’t matter.

It’s like Floyd Patterson. Probably always was really a blown up LHW too. But nobody calls him the best LHW ever because he was so good he bypassed his natural weight class to hunt the heavyweight title.

 

I said that peak patterson weighed 190 pounds, peak Charles weighed 175. Like always you are a manipulator.
Patterson was better because he was naturally bigger and was a top guy in a much harder era

 

Lmao

 

This is why I think heavyweights stop at 230. And super heavyweight starts at 231. Those big guys are not heavyweights anymore.

If you have to start including super heavyweights to beat ATG real heavyweights then it’s time to call them something different.

180-230 is heavyweight. Always was.

Modern Training advances created super heavyweight. Well, without those advances they can’t exist.

If you can imagine these guys without these advances they probably wouldn’t be as big or functional.

 

Actually, he did settle there. He was there from 1946, till 1949. In those 3 years he decimated EVERYTHING. When it was obvious Lesenvich wouldn't face him, he moved onto bigger things. But throughout that 3 year period he beat Archie Moore thrice, Jimmy Bivins thrice, Lloyd Marshall twice, Elmer Ray, Sam Baroudi, Joey Maxim twice, Oakland Billy Smith twice ect; ect. He had no-one else left, so he fought Walcott.

In total, Charles beat the main LHW champs of his day (Freddie Mills not withstanding) a total of 9 times, and he beat Maxim whilst he was sitting champion.

 

Disagree, they need to fight each other more often in fights that matter. There is no reason why 220 can't beat 240. We have enough belts, and don't need another heavyweight division.

 

The real heavyweights are languishing at cruiserweight. Change that name to heavyweight.

 

Heavyweight has no weight limit, meaning anyone can be a heavyweight. Any Cruiserweight is welcome to move up. Usyk, who was a heavyweight draining weight to fight at Cruiser has done that. We'll see if he can win a belt.