Most successful light-heavy against Heavyweights.

Obviously the lhws who were lhw and hw champ are first Fitz and, well, Spinks.

Then there would be the lhws who were hw champ, Burns, Tunney, Braddock, Charles and Moorer.

Then there are the lhw champs with a good record at hw Carpentier, Gibbons, Loughran, Rosenbloom, Conn, Maxim, Moore, H. Johnson, Pastrano.

And then there are the fighters with good records but no title at either weight, Choynski, Langford, Norfolk, Greb, Stribling, Bivins, Toney, Adamek.

Don´t know if I should include Byrd and Jones since they had only very few fights at lhw/hw.

Interesting here is the gap between the 60s and the 90s/00s in terms of successful lhws at hw with the exception of Michael Spinks.

 

:good

 

Loughran has to be the most overlooked guy. But another guy that never ever seems to get any love is Jimmy Ellis. That guy fought a who's who before moving up to heavyweight division. I always wondered how Jimmy is remembered if he stayed at middle or lh and how he would have done with King Carlos and Foster.

 

Ezzzard Charles!! I gave him a third "z" in his first name intentionally.

 

Joey Maxim

 

Loughran, Jimmy Bivins, Harold , James Toney, Roy Jones Jr.

 

Loughran has a shout.imo,he beat 3 heavyweight champions ,Baer,Braddock,Sharkey.

Good men like Risko,Uzcudun,Campolo,Griffiths,Schaaf,Godoy,Hamas,Levinsky, etc. Tommy is in the frame.

 

Spinks.. Legend beating a bigger legend. Some might have said Holmes is a better all around fighter than Spinks p4p, and Spinks moved up and beat him. A tired Holmes, but still he beat him when he was still decent.

 

Holmes was 36 and 37 years old.
Who else , did Spinks beat? A washed up Cooney? Stefan Tangstad?atsch


Prime Holmes spanks Spinks..:good

 

Spink's one big win ranks up with the best ever recorded by a LH but i'm really looking for what an actual at the time LH accomplished a la Loughran, Archie etc.
BTW Jeff Clarke has quite a resume of wins, Langford, Gunboat, Norfolk, Jeannette, McCathy or McCoy with Ruhlin, Maher, Choynsky and O'Donnell.

 

Chris Byrd , James Toney , Sam Langford , Doug Jones .

 

maxim beat walcott and floyd patterson.

laughran beat many HW champs and contenders.

philedelphia jack obrien beat joe choynski, tommy burns, bob fitzsimmons, drew with marvin hart and in world heavweight title fights drew with tommy burns and also jack johnson.

 

you are right he would beat Spinks, but I don't think it would be as onesided as some would think. 36 and 37 for a heavyweight is not old compared to lower weights. Spinks accomplishment was still great. Certainly much better than Toney or Jones beating Ruiz.

 

36/37 is not old for a heavyweight? Take a look at Louis ,Holmes, Ali. in thier prime , take a look at them when they are 36/37, then get back to me.

 

Well in my book the men who have been king of both division are:

Fitz
Burns
Langford
Tunney
Charles
Bivins
Moore
Spinks

I think the obvious choice is charles. Langford a close second.

Honourable mentions for patterson and byrd who were successful heavyweights and could likely have made lhw. Also mention for corbett who was a lhw before the division was created.