My Method for Determining the Greatest Heavyweight Champions.

Determining the greatest is an impossible task to do accurately, but I believe my method of rating to be better than the method of most experts who's lists I've ever read. My method consisted of taking a champion who was at his absolute best, and putting him against all the other champions on this list at their best and estimating how many wins he would get in 10 fights. Afterward I tallied up all the wins. The fighter who gets the most wins is the best out of the fighters on the list since I purposely left fighters out to make the list simpler. I only included champions who I feel established a high enough legacy and who I am familiar enough with. So most of the partial champions of modern times you won't see and I left out fighters like Bowe, Norton, Terrell, Johannson, Walcott, Charles, Baer, Schmeling, and others who might've made it on the list. I decided to use Jack Johnson as the cut off point as far as era's are concerned, so you won't see fighters like Jeffries or Sullivan.


1. Lennox Lewis- In his prime I believe he would've beaten every champion on this list a majority of times except for Holmes and Ali. He scored 101 wins out of 120 in my estimation.

2. Mike Tyson- I believe with the exception of a peak Lewis and maybe a peak Holyfield, he would've beaten every champion on this list a majority of times. Tyson scored 92 wins out of 120 fights.

2. Larry Holmes- He might be the best master boxer ever in the heavyweight division. I think he could have beaten every heavyweight champion on this list a majority of times except for Tyson. His score was also 92 wins.

4. Muhammad Ali- He revolutionalized the sport, but in reality, at his best he probably wasn't as good as the champions above. I say this truthfully because he is my favorite fighter. In my opinion, Tyson and Holmes would've beaten him more times than not. Ali scored 88 wins.

5. Evander Holyfield- He scored 84 wins.

6. Sonny Liston- He scored 69 wins.

7. George Foreman- He surprisingly scored 61 wins. I was sure he would score higher than Liston.


Now we reach the lower end of the list, where every fighter from Frazier on loses more than half of the matches against everyone else.


8. Joe Frazier- Head to head and at his peak Frazier might possibly win close to half of the matches verses a peak Ali. The reason why he's ranked this low is because some of the opponents who would beat him I feel Ali could beat, but I don't think Frazier could beat anyone who could beat Ali. Scored 57 wins.

9. Floyd Patterson- When I first watched footage of him I was extremely impressed with the combination of his hand speed and punching power. Everyone might think I'm crazy or stupid for rating him this high, but I'm basing this result from how many fights I think he would win out of 120 fights against the rest of the fighters on this list. He scored 40 wins.

10. Jack Johnson- He was a master boxer for his time, but I think he was too cautious to be rated higher. Scored 36 wins.

11. Joe Louis- I like Joe Louis, but in my opinion, he is one of the most overrated champions in history. I'm sure I'm going to get negative responses for this, but I'm not convinced he would be a champion today. He scored 33 wins.

12. Jack Dempsey- He might have been one of the hardest pound for pound punching heavyweights ever but from what I've seen on film he looked kind of crude even for his day. His score was 15 wins.

13. Rocky Marciano- His punching power was good, but I feel it was overrated. One thing that does impress me was his excellent stamina and conditioning. Score was 12 wins.


If it's possible, can anyone else follow the same system that I did? I'd like to see what scores other people would come up with for the champions.

 

Ok, enough about my list. Can any of you guys compose your own list using the same method, even though you don't agree that it doesn't determine greatness? I'm only interested in H2H and prime abilities. Not accomplishments.

Also TheGreatA, I may very well have underrated Louis' H2H abilities. How Many times do you think he would have beaten Patterson out of 10. I estimated 3 times, all by KO.

 

Let's not forget that Charles lasted the distance against the Rock in their first fight. To say that he'd KO Patterson ten times out of ten fights sounds like an emotional statement.

 

The 120 fights are only fought between the guys on the list (10 fights between each fighter). This list is only mean't for heavyweight champs. Also, I left Bowe and Walcott out purposely (see first paragraph of original post).

 

Fair enough. By the way, the purpose of my original post is to see what everyone else would come up with using my method. Not for everyone to critisize my own results. I just posted a list to prompt others to post one also, using the same method.