leaving Ali and Louis out of top 10 ATG list is it justifiable?

Did Louis fight at a weight disadvantage often? Or were his opponents about the same size? How much weight did Louis give away to Carnera & Bear? Either one. I'm not sure if any of these lower weight fighters could give away 10 or 20 Lbs. and still knock out thier opponents.

 

HIGH, small successful heavies should be high imo. Patterson imo has a strong P4P ranking as does Charles, Dempsey, Holyfield and even Tyson. Imagine a 6'6 250lb Tyson :dead

 

it has become fashionable especially on the main forum for people to say "yes sure ali probably was the greatest heavyweight of all time,but he was no where near the greatest fighter of all time". i don't buy that,for me looking at all he achieved and his extraordinary talent he has a big shot at being the number 1.

 

Well in your case they maybe the same, but to someone else, perhaps not. I certainly think Langford for example, had accomplishments Ali never even dreamed of, (nor had the chance to do, in all fairness to Ali), similarly I think someone like Robinson, and Duran, accomplished things that few if any duplicated. So I can see a top 10 list that excludes Ali, and Louis, if one simply focuses on achievements instead of weight classes, although I must admit if I ever took the time to create such a list, at least one of them would likely be on it, but neither would make my top 5.

 

i respect your view and see where you and others are coming from.however when you look what ali achieved from fighting and and beating all the top contenders from the early sixties to '80 some of them twice ducking absolutely no one,and with a near 4 year lay off in between it really is quite remarkable.put it this way if a young heavyweight contender emerged now, started beating other contenders stopped wlad,beat him in a return, then up to the year say 2026 had beaten every top heavyweight around in that time some twice,and along the way have a 3 or 4 year lay off.then i would suggest whoever that fighter was would for some be the number 1 pfp of all time, or at the very least have a big shot at it.

 

I think this argument can be refuted by the fact that guys like Foreman and Holmes were pensioners and still kicking arse in another strong era.

 

Did they? Foreman fought mostly bums, some lower contenders like Schulz, who he lost too, and got lucky against Moorer. Holmes fought bums, fighters of the 80s like Smith and Weaver and had two fights against elites of the 90s. One he won against Mercer, well he isn´t truly elite, and the other he lost against Holy whose cw days weren´t gone for long.

 

If you rate accomplishments at HW as high as at other weightclasses, then I think it becomes hard to keep Louis and Ali out. Because very few were as dominant in their own division(s) as Ali and Louis.

This thing about fighting in several weightclasses also get a bit overrated. Of course, you have guys like Armstrong, but for guys like SRR it was probably just that they became a bit bigger as they grew older. Ali was between 200-225 during his era of dominance after all. I don't see why Robinson should get more cudos for dominating at 145-160.