Most dominant heavyweight champion ever?

It is pretty much Louis with Holmes and Wlad as said before. Ali had way too many breaks in his 3 reins. And that is assuming he lost the title to Fraizer in 71.

 

If we are talking about how good they were compared to their opposition, it has to be Joe Louis. But there were few skilled HWs back then.

 

We're both thinking of Jersey Joe, aren't we?

 

I'm with you. IMO Louis title reign is overrated. Since he fought mostly nobodies, and fought many defences because he had to to make a decent living. A direct comparison of Louis and Tyson is apples and oranges, just like a direct comparison of the two "Sugar Rays".

 

Braddock, Schmeling, Galento, Pastor, Godoy, McCoy, Simon, Baer, Conn, Nova, Mauriello, and Walcott are only a few of the names of the 34 that Louis beat in his 12 year winning streak, before losing to Ezzard Charles.
Tyson beat Berbick, Smith, Thomas, Tucker, Biggs, Holmes off his couch, Tubbs, Spinks in a knee brace, Bruno, and Williams before losing to Douglas.
Louis had more big name wins than Tyson had defenses.

 

John L Sullivan put more distance between himself and his closest challenger than did any heavyweight champion afterward.

 

Wlad and Louis are the only ones really in contention here.

 

Nobodies? He cleaned out all the big names of a heavyweight era spanning an entire decade.

 

was this when he knocked the guy into the piano at the bar with a wild roundhouse right?

 

It was when he was so dominant that he convinced most observers and fighters that had seen boxers as far back as the 1840s that he was the greatest that had ever been. Pretty hard to unite generations into believing that the current guy is by far the greatest, as we still see nowadays. Also, a lot of good fighters who had seen Sullivan first hand that lived into the 10s-30s still rated him very highly like Jack McAuliffe and Professor Mike Donovan, who were renowned technicians that were still relevant in boxing until they died.

 

Wlad was dominant for 3 years when Vitali was out of action for the first time and dominated 3 years after Vitali had his last fight. It's nearly 6 years with Vitali out of the picture. To put it into perspective: they were co-champions for 4 years.

 

Bum of the month was referring to him fighting every month for a certain period. Not the quality of the opponents. There were some easy fights in there but most weren't. Looking over it whatever way you slice it Louis has 15-20 quality defenses. Not mentioning the 2 BBBC defenses. Without WW2 we could easily be looking at 40 defenses.

Louis also probably has the greatest pre belt resume of any HW champ none of which are credited as title fights. 5 15 rounders before winning the belt and thats not even counting Sharkey. Louis was probably the consensus HW GOAT before he turned 25 with only 5 title defenses.

If this was about SOS not dominance Louis beats Ali,Wlad and Holmes hands down.

 

Yes because he didn't fight any of them for 5 years.

 

He wasn't undisputed champion for all that time, though, was he? Those four years are at least half of his undisputed reign and Vitalt was by far the best out there.

 

We're still discussing Joe Louis's reign who's reign began nearly 100 years ago.............and which a similar one hasn't been repeated. Had Tyson say..............beat Buster in a rematch, never went to prison and then continued to rule until maybe the late 90's I think the argument for his dominance would be stronger.

I think Joe's reign is unparalleled.