My attempt at a top 50 heavyweights and some honorable mentions.

I'm not a historian ,just a fan and an average one at that.
My 50 best heavyweights would not be of sufficient interest to this forum to make the effort to produce it worthwhile.
It's your list, where you place anyone is up to you, I have no issues with that at all .
I've explained my only bone of contention and thats it for me.

 

He only has one embarrassment on his record by my count.

He gets full credit for beating Lewis. His entire game plan was crafted around throwing right hands with Lewis, designed by Manny Steward. He gave Lewis trouble before the bomb landed.

He also beat Damiani, which I didn’t mention.

I see a guy on the list who knocked out Lewis and was stopeed twice by Maskaev. McCall took both out.

 

how the hell could Johnson's legacy not suffer from failing to fight his top contenders? That's a champions job. I don't consider him champion myself due to this issue.

 

If a champion today refused to fight his top contenders the public wouldn't regard him as champion anymore.

 

These lists are always impossible but I commend anyone that attempts them, and i’m a sucker for them. I do enjoy reading them. So kudos.

IMO to ensure a quality list the creator should adhere to 3 basic principles. 1. Before making the list create what your criteria is - for making the list, then adhere to it- this helps reduce personal favoritism.
2. Factor in what is more important to you and how much more important to you is Legacy vs H2H. Is it 50/50 90/10 100/0. H2H is always subjective - and sometimes lists should be separated as strictly legacy or H2h. I mean Corbett was a master in his day but could he really compete with a Razor Ruddock who didn’t come close to reaching Corbett’s success but in all honesty would probably blast Corbett away in two rounds.
3. How do you judge top talent that didn’t become champion?- I would break down how good was fighter in their time and for how long. Then how good was their era - again subjective - many people feel the Klitschko brothers rules a weak era - but it was an era that was global - and not regional to just America and athletes generally become bigger stronger faster over periods of time - so how would Wlad rate against someone like Tunney who lost once and avenged it but never faced an opponent of color and did bulk of his work against smaller opponents.
It’s tricky in short.

 

I always like these lists. It’s just my opinion obviously, but I think you have Joshua way too low, even at this early stage in his career. On a head-to-head basis, he beats 90% of the fighters on this list imo.

 

But he didnt refuse to fight his top contenders he signed to fight them ,if you had bothered to read the rest of the thread you would know that. .As to where you place any fighter in boxing posterity I give that the gravitas I think it deserves!

 

You know a lot more about boxing history than me especially the guys who there's almost no footage of. For what it's worth, here's my reaction to your list :

1. You clearly don't factor in the H2H dimension in your list and that's fine, your choice.

2. Joshua is too low, his wins over Wlad, Parker, Povetkin and Whyte are impressive.

3. You're absolutely spot on with Vitali not being in the top 20, he only ever fought two fighters with elite skills, a fat Super Middle Weight (Byrd) and an old, out of shape, disinterested Lewis and he lost to them both.

4. Holmes at 16 is flat out wrong, first list like this I've seen where he's not even in the top 10, in fact most have him in the top 6 or 7 - Norton, Shavers x2, Snipes, Smith, Witherspoon, Berbick and Cooney.

5. Wlad is way too high, 23 defenses is only impressive without context, he was champion in probably the weakest era in HW history and unlike Louis and Marciano who had multiple defenses Wlad did so in an uninspiring, fearful style driving countless fans away from the sport (the fight with Ibragimov at MSG was a slap in the face to that arena's legacy).

6. Your top 5 is pretty much as I'd have it apart from Holmes possibly being in there.

Respect for taking the time and research to put something like that together, nobody ever posts lists like these and has the full agreement of fellow posters.

 

Holmes 16?
Wills 9?
Frazier 6?

Disagree, Holmes at least 6 spots better, Wills and Frazier and least 6 spots further back.

 

If he can't make the fight happen he can always relinquish his claim as champion.

Can you imagine a fighter today pulling what Johnson did and getting away with it?

 

As champion he has an obligation to fight his top contenders, if he can't get as much money as he wants for the fight, tough luck, fight for less or relinquish your title.

Throughout Johnson's supposed title reign Sam Langford consistently fought and beat superior opposition. He seems to have a much better claim to being champion than Johnson based on competition.

Let's suppose Johnson doesn't lose to Willard and continues to fight easy competition through the 1920s ducking Wills, Dempsey, etc. Is there a limit to how long he can hold the title hostage? 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, 25 years? What is it?

 

When have anyone ever opted to give up a championship, because they couldn't come to terms with a top challenger?

When the champion and Johnson still don't come to terms, do they give up the title, and let Johnson become champion again?

Or more likely a couple white guys fight for it, and the winner draws the colorline.