Is Wlad the best all-time-heavyweight? NO OPINION, just PURE RECORD ANALYSIS

Marciano Frazier, first of all I want to thank you that you replied without insults and with facts and figures. Very appreciated.

I don't.

The only thing I change is to convert a TKO13+ to a UD.

Theoretically if I would be fair, I would check the scorecards after round 12.

I don't do that and that FAVOURS Ali & co because theoretically Ali could have been behind after 12 rounds but then won per KO13+.

So expect Ali & co to be even worse than in my calculation.

Yes, it's a somewhat valid argument, but again, Wladimir Klitschko had no chance to upvalue a UD12 to a TKO15 win. I am sure Wladimir would have KOed Samuel Peter if it went to rounds 13-15. I also doubt that anyone PLANS to go 15 rounds to TKO someone. The truth is: Ali couldn't KO Frazier within 12 (though he obviously TRIED) so his win is a UD12 by nowadays standards.

As I wrote above I don't take the scorecards into consideration. I don't think I ever will, since they are mostly unknown. So, no, Puritty's TKO win in that case would also be converted to a UD for Puritty.

But I think this is the only way how you can make fighters' records comparable.

If a medieval 150+ heavyweight KOs 20 opponents (150-160 lbs) then it's a fair statement that "He was the medieval heavyweight champ but he would have no chance against Valuev". But exactly this erratic statement is what people are constantly stating: "Dempsey beats Klitschko easily", "Joe Louis walks through Wladimir" or "Muhammad Ali is #1 on the all-time heavyweight list". They don't say "Dempsey was good for his times but it was a different era". No, they constantly claim how competitive Joe Louis would be nowadays.
Example:

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is an original quote from eastsideboxing forum here.

My god, Langford (5'6.5''!) started his career 140+ lbs fighting opponents 130+ lbs and such a guy is compared to Klitschko?

I tell you what I think is actually the greatest flaw in my calculation. It's not the deletion of bums, nor the deletion of below-200 fights.

I think the training methods is the greatest flaw in my calculation as soon as you want to actually compare two fighters of different eras with my stats.

We simply don't know what Ali could achieve nowadays with MODERN trainers and MODERN techniques.

When we compare Louis vs Klitschko, do we actually compare Louis as he was then with Wladimir as he is now? Or should we compare Louis as he could have been with modern training?

But who tells you then by this logic that they didn't already increase their weight from 180 to 190 to meet the standard?

I am not penalizing them, I make their records comparable.

Moreover, it's not penalizing in another sense: Because now you can add them to the all-time-CRUISERWEIGHTS. Maybe Dempsey cannot make it to #1 in the heavyweights, maybe he could be #1 at cruiserweight. That's not penalizing.

Look it from this point of view:
If I make a highschool tournament with heavyweight defined as 180+ then we will get a heavyweight champ, but to actually see where he belongs in a VALID ACTUAL ranking we have to make it comparable.

1) That's why I define a bum by ratio and not by total number.
2) I didn't take anyone from the 20ies, so this is merely an academic counter-argument so far.

I disagree. I glanced over Sam Langford and my formulas apply LIKE A CHARM:
(I did it very fast by assuming that all fights prior to 1913-10-03 were below-200 and all fight thereafter were 200+):
This is Sam Langfords COMPARABLE record:
14 non-bum heavyweight wins, 5 by non-KO, 19 losses.
(Mind you, his record is WORSE, since I mercifully counted all fights since 1913-10-03 as heavyweight)
Of 31 non-bum fights (this includes draws) he KOed only 9 times. A featherfist.
This puts Langford where he objectively belongs: A KOer of bums and loser to non-bums.

Sam Langford fought 314 fights in his life. This shows how weak the division was if one could withstand 314 fights.
Sam Langford fought most of his non-bum fights against the same 4 people: Sam McVea, Bearcat Wright, Joe Jeannette and Harry Wills. This also shows you how weak the division was.

Now combine these facts: Weak division, featherfist, loser to non-bums, can KO bums only ... AND YOU GET ... (wow a miracle) ... the statement "Seriousely I think langford would flatten a guy like wladimir Klitschko". As I said, it's an original quote from eastsideboxing forum here.

People are obviously deluded by the term "heavyweight" and by the term "win".

You HAVE TO MAKE RECORDS COMPARABLE (= say what is heavyweight as we understand it today and by deleting all questionable wins). Langford had no chance nowadays.

(Aah, thank you again, for actually reading and checking what I posted.)

Top 5 based on what? On OPINION.

Jimmy Young lost against Ali.
Jimmy Young lost against Shavers.
Jimmy Young lost against Norton.
Jimmy Young won against Foreman. But this doesn't make you a non-bum, otherwise Ross Puritty would be a non-bum, too.
Jimmy Young won against Ron Lyle. Ron Lyle was an OK fighter (lost to Quarry, Ali, Foreman, Cooney), but again, winning against an OK fighter doesn't make you a non-bum.
Jimmy Young KO ratio is 20% (abysmal), even lower than featherfist Ali.
Overall Young's career is bum'ish.
Sorry, he is bum'ish.

And since you mention mismanagement in the beginning of the career. Had you deleted the sub-200 fights his early losses would have been deleted and made him less bum'ish.

This is an opinion, I take only facts (= official scores) into calculation. Briggs vs Foreman may have been a robbery, as was Holyfield vs Lewis I. This would make Foreman a it better and Holyfield a bit worse.

But I CANNOT CHANGE THE OFFICIAL JUDGEMENT. In the "overall end" fighters are sometimes punished by misjudgement (Foreman-Briggs), sometimes favoured (Foreman-Schulz). If I would take misjudgement into calculation then Ali may have been even worse, since he maybe was beaten by Jimmy Young as you say.

 

Aah, in the good ole day of Ali, all opponents were twice as much worthy as any opponent nowadays. I disagree.

moreover Frazier didn't impress me a bit and Foreman put Frazier where he objectively belongs. That Frazier-Ali was such a long slugfest is due to Ali being such a featherfist yet having a good chin.

 

No, the boxrec ranking is the reason why I started to make my own calculations. The boxrec ranking gives completely unusable results. And why? Because they include bum wins AND they upvalue one's cruiser record to heavyweight record.

Moreover Boxrec makes the mistake that they take one's record at the day of the fight. So a win against Vitali klitschko in Vitali's 1st fight would be a win against a 0-0-0 guy. Ridiculous.

 

Examples?

My calculation shows that it is. I didn't calculate a lot of other all-time-greats but so far the Wlad's record (and he is in the middle of his career) is better than Ali's, Foreman', Holyfield's or Lennox'.

 

Yes, I already mentioned it, it's a flaw because my formula goes only 1 level deep, so to state it even worse: "A win over Eric Esch Butterbean is as much worth as a win over Lennox Lewis".

But this is merely an academic counter-argument, because Wlad DOES NOT fight butterbeans. Wlads fights the best there is. Ali fought the best there was. Lennox fought the best there was. So my calculated records CONTAINS already wins/losses against the best and not against butterbeans.

I wanted to share my calculations with you before I write a software that would calculate it 2-level deep. I wanted to get new ideas what else to consider in my calculations.

 

This is the general bias nowadays which I find completely unjustified.

When you consider

• that a featherfist like Ali (KO ratio of approx 30%) is considered a top heavyweight (sorry a heavyweight is supposed to KO his opponents)
• that 20 of Ali's fights were against the same 9 guys
• that Ali was never exposed to eastern-european fighters

how weak must have Ali's division been?

Ali: "I figured that if I said it enough, I would convince the world that I really was the greatest."

Now, people are obviously blinded by some out-of-the-ring performances: "Ali is the greatest coz he invented rap". Uff.

My god, ALI WAS JUST A BOXER.

I don't see ANY of Ali's achievements being so much greater than nowadays. If you think that beating Frazier is a bigger achievement than beating Brewster then it's YOUR opinion. It's not a measurable fact.

 

What a biased view that beating a gassed Foreman makes your career record so much superior no matter what.

Remember Klitschko vs small Ibragimov (219 lbs)?

Foreman vs Ali was 220 lbs vs 216: In other words: One light Iggy gassing the other light Iggy. That's just to show you the dimensions.

 

Is this an American wish? I don't think it will come true.

If you consider 3 losses as weakness then other all-time-greats have more losses.

if you consider 3 TKO losses as weakness then you are right except for the fact that Ali & Co never faced such a strong powerpunching opposition.

The only thing that makes Wlad weak (as I wrote before) is that you might think that he doesn't fall like a man when he falls.

 

See it this way:
Your statement to add 190-200 to the HEAVYWEIGHT RECORD is the analog statement to add 200-210 to the cruiserweight record.

No way. YOU HAVE TO DRAW A LINE somewhere. I chose to draw the line where people nowadays consider what a heavyweight is and what not.

It's the official definition. (I added actually a grace pound since heavyweight starts at 201)

Actually nowadays WOMEN's heavyweight is heavier than MEN's heavyweight in Ali's times.

 

But then the win-loss RATIO stays the same. So no change.

And Ali's non-bums may have been bums nowadays.

I exclude it from the heavyweight record. You are free to add it to Ali's cruiserweight record.