My stab at a top 20 HW List

I will try to look in more detail later, but on the losses being in a bad part of Holys career, this is true, but Foreman had the same bad period (perhaps worse) the difference is, that when he lost his speed, his stamina, etc, he still found ways to win, and was never stopped or knocked off of his feet.

 

Why did they fight Foreman ?

 

Ok, I'm waiting for your reply and thoughts :bbb

 

Good list overall, even if Gene Tunney should be a lot higher. Lennox Lewis is not in the top 5, and Jack Dempsey is not left out of the top10, unlike in many (possibly most) lists done today :good

 

I don't believe we should be ranking Wlad until his career is finished, I think if he retired now he is a top fifteen fighter but for all we know if he fights someone like Tua or Haye and they get to him he may drop well out of our top twenties.

 

Bonavena I guess. Not many very big punchers. Quarry was a good puncher but nothing damaging or lethal.

I based a fighter on the quality of his opposition. Maybe I should evaluate the array of fighters he faces, and those type of fighters. In Liston's case... what great boxer-mover did Liston ever beat? Machen hardly counts. Any legit 6'2-6'3 boxer-mover types?

Are you implying Frazier ducked big punchers, or just wisely avoided them?

I don't think we assume Frazier loses to all big punchers because of this. I think his style is bad against a puncher. He probably beat the likes of those 70's punchers (Bearing Foreman). Maybe Lyle would be his toughest matchup.

It would but it would also be stupid. Nobody fought an old Liston. It was a dangerous fight with little reward. Let's not forget Frazier wasn't as hungry, nor in tip top shape when he met Foreman. He was 10 lbs overweight, and fighting rather stupidly trying to left-hook Foreman out of there.

That's fair, but we clearly have a different way (System) of evaluating greatness.

 

We had this discussion in the past. Tyson is the youngest belt-holder. Patterson the youngest champ. Patterson was younger when he beat Moore than Tyson was when he beat Spinks.

1. It is in my book. It shows that he could comeback from a setback. Liston couldn´t do the same against Ali.
2. You sell Johannson short. He is better than you give him credit for.

Because he just came out of a hard trilogy against Johannson and would follow up with Liston. Every champ has some easy ones after a hard one. Why is it such a bad thing with Patterson? Because it suits your argument?

Inexperienced at the very top. If I remember right he only fought 2 top fighters until he fought Johannson and one of these fights was at lhw. I´d call that inexperienced.

You do know that sounds like an excuse? Machen was 32, he may have been past it but not by much and Patterson beat him so convincingly that it´s hard to see a different outcome in a prime for prime match-up.

Patterson arguably won one fight against Quarry and the fight against Ellis.

Floyd was not intimidated by size, he fought bigger guys all his career. The only fighter he ever was intimidated by was Liston and that had nothing to do with Liston´s size but with his persona.

I asked what he did to be ranked so highly, not how he looked.

A wide array of losses? Come on you know better than that. Two of his losses are disputed, one loss was thouroughly avenged, one loss should have been avenged, two losses came against a consensus Top2 heavy and 2 losses to the guy who was a stylistic nightmare. That does not sound bad to me.
He has three knockout losses, not "some".
He beat many contenders, was ranked at the top for a very long time, was competative in a very good era depite beeing undersized and past his best.
He compares very well to Liston, who beat mostly smaller man, quit in the biggest fight of his career and got knocked out in the rematch in one.
I don´t think there is much between them. Not in what they actually did. In a h2h list Liston would rank clearly higher but like I said before I don´t rank h2h.

 

Suzie-Q---on Johansson's experience---He was 19 and Sanders was 22. Ingo might have had a lot of fights, but at what level of competition? Like I posted before, Sweden was hardly the center of the boxing world.

At the same age that Sanders was in 1952, Ingo was knocking out the 6' 5" former European champion, Hein Ten Hoff.

 

1. Joe Louis
2. Muhammad Ali
3. Jack Johnson
4. Jack Dempsey
5. Rocky Marciano
6. Larry Holmes
7. James J. Jeffries
8. George Foreman
9. Sonny Liston
10. Joe Frazier
11. Gene Tunney
12. Lennox Lewis
13. Mike Tyson
14. Evander Holyfield
15. Sam Langford
16. Jersey Joe Walcott
17. Ezzard Charles
18. Harry Wills
19. James J. Corbett
20. Bob Fitzsimmons

 

:shock::shock::shock: Where is Corrie Sanders?


atschatsch

 

Interesting list. I just have two questions for clarification:

1. Why do you rate Baer #11? This is the highest I have ever seen anyone rate him.

2. Why do you rate Carnera at #20? While I think the fix accusations with him might be exaggerated, this seems high even if every fight he had was on the utter up and up.