Looking for a consensus HW top100!

Top 5 while Vitlai was active from 1996-2008? Lewis, His brother, and Byrd are three. The other two are hard to peg. Pick from the mix of Tyson, Peter, Sanders, Moorer, or Holyfeild.

Once again, Vitlai never made his legacy on washed up big names, such as Tyson or Holyfield in the 00's, but he could have. For example, I happen to think Sanders had more left in the 00's than either Tyson or Holyfield, and you could argue the same for Peter. If Tyson defeated Danny Williams, Vitlai was going to fight him next, and surely Vitlai wins...IMO faster than Lewis did vs Tyson.

While Lewis and Byrd did win, come on we know Byrd was lucky, and Lewis did not intend to give Vitlai a re-match, not even for $18,000,000.00 on the table for him. IMO, Vitlai proved himself on his two technical losses, and creamed everyone else.

I think Vitlai should fight either Valuev next, or Chagaev. I would prefer Valuev, and if that fight happens, I expect Vitlai to win via wide UD or TKO. Valuev might be lucky to win more than 2 rounds. If neither of these matches can be made, then Gomez, then a big name after that.

On this ranking business, I think Vitlai should be top 20 for sure, either legacy or head to head, and to be frank, I'm not sure how many old timers pre-Liston would have much of a chance to defeat him.

 

:admin you wanted correct that. :|

 

Yeah Lewis was afraid of Vitali ... sure ... that guy was old then and on the slide. Accept it, he retired because he was old and didn´t want to become a washed up former great landing on the record of some bums like so many other old time champs.

I also think Ruiz should be top5. He´s definitly above guys like Sanders, Peter, Tyson for that time frame.

 

Chris--I hate to bug you at this point, but looking at your list, I would have one major criticism. Jack Sharkey shouldn't be in the forties. He should be in the twenties. I posted on him in the fantasy thread with Baer. He had one of the most impressive resumes of any heavyweight champion. Of his 55 fights, 41 were against men who appeared in the Ring's yearly rankings, and a couple of others, such as Floyd Johnson and Homer Smith, probably would have if the ranking began prior to 1924. He defeated a slew of top and very dangerous men, and certainly fought the very best men, black as well as white--beating Wills, Schmeling, Carnera, Loughran, Godfrey, Stribling, Delaney, etc.

Your four highest rated heavyweights who were in their primes between the mid-teens and the late forties are Wills, Dempsey, Schmeling, and Louis. Sharkey fought them all and split even. And he was beating Dempsey until he was fouled. Not bad.

I would move him into the twenties and drop Tua or Jeannette into the thirties and drop Ruiz into the forties.

 

Please help. I've scanned the list but can't seem to find Jim Corbett.

I know Tua is an internet legend but no way should he be above Quarry, Witherspoon, Jeanette.

I'd put Liston in the top 10 and drop Tyson. Close though... Possibly Dempsey for Marciano...

 

Chris--You put Jack Sharkey where I wanted him. I guess I didn't write clearly enough. I meant to say he should be in the twenties group (21-30). I think that top 20 would be too high also.

 

What interests me is that we have a solid enough knowledge of the top men... I mean the top 30 are pretty set... But then we have a clutch of guys from 70s,80s and 90s... Mostly good contenders... Makes me realise how hard it is to gauge the abilities of contenders from the past.

 

Chris, I think Moorer must be ranked a bit higher - he was HW champion twice.

 

Understand the Corbett omission...

Tua was 1 dimensional, often enough in the HWs... Witherspoon and Quarry were fine boxers. I enjoyed Tua's fights but how quick or not he beat someone is not necesarily that important. He was a KO artist, that's how he won his fights, Tim and Jerry were not.

On one hand you downgrade Quarry taking on all-comers and losing too many times and then on the other you disregard Jeanette for taking on all-comers and so having better wins.

I appreciate where you're coming from on Jeanette but it does seem a bit harsh to talk about opportunity when he never even got a shot at the title or the top white fighters. Also, in today's era where the best fighters rarely face one another I think we should be more genrous with those who actually did face one another.

 

I think you should start again, Frazier shouldn't be in the top 50 !