Well ali has moved above louis. Liston is still outside the top ten though. Has your silly placement changed?
I'm sure I've seen Liston as number 2 in your list. That is what I meant by silly, because it was (is)
Agreed. The idea that Ali had to be at his peak to beat Dempsey is absurd. Ali was simply a higher quality fighter, and I figure any time from Liston to Frazier III he would've handled Dempsey. Only after that (Or before) does it get tricky.
No my list has been pretty consistent over the last few month and it's something like Ali Louis Johnson Holmes Foreman Frazier Lewis Tyson Holyfield Rocky The only recent change has been ali over louis. H2h I think liston is top 5 but in greatness he's nowhere near.
I think johnson has one of the most comprehensive resume's within an era going. If you drew up a top ten list from his prime years (probably 03-11) he's pretty much beaten everyone on it. I used to have rocky as number 3 when I first started following the sport but the more I find out about other guys the lower he drops. The guy was great, but I think he gets overrated in general.
Ali TKO6 afer a domination Wow, Willard, Fulton and Firpo were actually big? Vitali being 10 times better than them is ofcourse is irrelevant then.
Firpo kept his fist planted on Dempsey's face then extended his elbow to shove him out of the ring. (This is the only time in the entire footage that either man's fist is in contact with his opponent for more than a single frame. In fact, Firpo's hand remains in contact with the left side of Dempsey's jaw for at least four or five frames on the movie film as he shoves down with it.) A competent referee would not have ruled it a knockdown, and may even have disqualified Luis for what he did. Jack did not fall out of the ring because of a punch, but due to a shove. Fortunately, things evened out, as he was also shoved back in by startled ringsiders trying to protect themselves. Referee Johnny Gallagher completely lost control of Dempsey-Firpo, and never refereed another title match. (Interestingly, it was Jack who chose to retreat to the farthest corner after the final knockdown.) Now, Jack would have preferred no referee at all, and sometimes officiated like that himself. (Cobb and Wepner would have loved squaring off with Dempsey as referee.) As a competitor, he never bitched about anything. Muhammad, on the other hand, could be something of a crybaby, bitching about Wepner's rabbit punching after dethroning Foreman by yanking on the back of George's neck (then complaining immediately after to David Frost about Foreman's attempt to thumb him, conveniently ignoring his own thumbing of Terrell). Ali also admonished Jerry Quarry to keep them above the belt early in their rematch, while backhanding on the second half of his double jabs. Interestingly Dempsey later apologized to Firpo for hitting him while he was getting up, but Luis reminded him that there were three of them in the ring. Tunney himself reported after his first match with Jack that Dempsey did repeatedly apologize for hitting Gene low during the action.
But once again, did you see Matt D's work on the problem? Matt created top a top 10 for every year. Johnson hardly ever met a fighter at the top of this list. I think he was 1-1 against top 3 types and 2-1 versus top 5 types. So he may have beaten everyone on this list but he didn't tend to beat them when he was at their best - he beat a washed up Jeffries, a MW Langford, a pre-prime Jeanette, a pre-prime McVey but never met the #1 contender for his title (unless you want to count Jeffries, which I think you do), in fact if memory serves he never met a top 5 fighter for his title.
The classic Dempsey analogy .. Question: How do you compare a 37 year old , highly inactive Jess WIllard, a china chinned Fulton or a highly inexperienced brawler like Firpo with Vitali ? The answer is you don't ..
I always considered jack more skilled but thought he was unproven against shw's. I was wrong. If byrd had power he'd have stopped vitali. I don't think vitali is anything special skillwise and his size isn't as big a deal as I thought considering jack's success against big guys.
I have his rankings saved on my computer. Why would I class jeffries as number 1 contender? His title run after beating james is poor but he'd achieved greatness by then imo. I don't really consider him to have improved his legacy in the last 4 years of his reign. There might be questions here and there but as I say, the top ten of 03-11 have one thing in common: defeat to johnson.
Yeah, that's why it's important to look at each victory and the circumstances surrounding it. You give credit to Johnson for beating Langford and Jeffries and they were indeed two of the greatest HW's ever up until that point. But at the time Jack Johnson beat tGhem, they were nothing special at all. Jeanette and McVey were better, but based upon what Boxrec has, nothing special yet either. And those are all facts too.