My top 20 heavyweights of all time

"Those who saw Jeffries felt he was a top 3 guy up to the 1960's. Were they wrong?"

It is a possibility. All kinds in accepted opinions have been reversed over the years in almost every field. To take one example. Do you think the films which won the academy award as best picture are always the best picture Hollywood made that year?

I have a question, though. Plenty of people who saw Jeffries and also saw Johnson and Dempsey, rated Johnson and/or Dempsey ahead of him.

The question I would ask is which one of these old experts do you choose to listen to and why?

 

Here's an interesting guy to consider for top 20: Jimmy Bivins

He was arguably the best fighter in the world during the War Years when Louis was out, beating everyone from 160 and up.

In this time he beat HW contenders Maxim, Bettina, Pastor, Mauriello, Valentino, Murray, Sheppard, Flynn, Lee Savold, Buddy Scott, and Walker.

He also knocked out Moore and beat Billy Smith as a HW, though they were under the limit.

Bivins' long run ended when he lost a controversial split decision to Walcott. Two judges scored it to Bivins but it was overruled officially.

However by 46, Bivins was on the slide while his previous victims were on the rise, now on the losing end to elite fighters like Moore, Charles, Sheppard, Maxim, and Murray. However, Bivins was still beating the next tier of contenders in Thompson, Agramonte, Valentino, and Payne.

By 49, Bivins refused to become a trial horse spoiling prospects and future contenders in Clarence Henry, Coley Wallace, and Mike DeJohn. He would still lose a rematch to Henry, comeback Louis, and to rising contenders Baker and Harrison before retiring at 36 years of age.

What a HW career. Absolutely top notch and worthy of a high placement.

 

I think Fitz has a decent shout at beating Charles, Walcott, Schmeling, Langford and Patterson.
He beat prime Maher, Sharkey-in truth-Choynski, Ruhlin and Corbett. Unbeaten from 1890 to 1905 except for the two Jeffries' fights, the first when he was 36 years old against the 24 year old Jeff and the second three years later when he gave him one hell of a shellacking.

 

This was my top 25 from another recent thread;
Ali
Bowe
Charles
Dempsey
Fitz
Foreman
Frazier
Holmes
Holyfield
Jeffries
Johnson J
Klitscho V
Klitscho W
Langford
Lewis
Liston
Louis
Marciano
Norton
Schmeling
Sharkey J
Tunney
Tyson
Walcott
Wills.
To lose five I'd let Tunney, Walcott, Wills, Charles and Bowe go, maybe. Some hard calls.

 

The McCallum survey with 12 historians ranked the champions in the late 50’s. Jeffries came out #1. With little prime film on Jeffries the historians of the time and the fighter’s opinions on him need be relied upon.

Champions like Fitz, Corbett, Johnson, Burns, and Dempsey felt Jeffries was the best. Top contenders in Langford, and Sharkey concurred. This covers over 30 years of championship boxing from 1892-1925

Though I did not clarify, I prefer to rate the man, not the era he fought in. With his athleticism and size, I think Jeffries projects well in modern times. Not every old timer does.

 

And who in the names you listed is top 35 ?

 

And who in the names you listed that he defeated is a top 50 heavyweight ?

 

Jimmy Bivins was a light heavyweight or smaller .. top fifty heavyweight in a head to head, get real please ..

Nino Valdez ? On one hand you knock him as not worth Rocky fighting his while champ but now he's a barrier of entry to quality Moore as a top heavyweight ?

As far as Moore's record, irrelevant .. who'd he beat that was anywhere near any form of top all time heavyweight ? The answer, no one. A crafty, cagey, blown up light heavyweight earning with enough talent and game to get by against small, limited 1950's heavyweights. Credit without question but perspective , please.

 

You can all fight about the other placings but mike tyson is no.1 his speed,power come forward style was great to watch and he dominated.i think one of the most important criteria of the greatest is,were you excited by their performance?

 

Thank you.

The internet is great. I looked up the McCallum Survey and found a post which listed the top 10. The poster went by the name of The Great John L. He is referring to a McCallum Survey done in the 1970's. Here is part of what he says and the top ten.
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"McCallum had conducted a survey of the top 10 fighters based on the opinions of old-time fight managers. The top 10 list of heavyweights is quite poor. Many will wonder how anyone could possibly have produced this. Anyway, here is the list:

1--Jim Jeffries
2--Jack Johnson
3--Bob Fitzsimmons
4--Jim Corbett
5--Jack Dempsey
6--John L Sullivan
7--Gene Tunney
8--Joe Louis
9--Rocky Marciano
10-Muhammad Ali"
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*in fairness to this survey, Ali was mid-career and so I would ignore his low ranking at this point.

My take is that it is very odd that with boxing illegal in most of the United States, restricted as a major sport to the USA & parts of the British Empire, and with a much smaller population generally, five of the top six fighters were active in the 1890's and the top four were active in 1900.

So boxing becoming a world sport, becoming popular in continental Europe, Latin America, and Africa, becoming a legal and wildly popular sport in the USA, the fall of the color line, etc., merely means the sport went rapidly backward with the best champions of the 1920's through the 1950's, despite in some cases superior records, were not up to the titans of the turn of the century.

Well, everyone is welcome to use their own criteria, but I at least would not abjure my own judgment in favor of these sorts of "expert" surveys.

Anyway, thanks again. We just have an honest, and extreme, disagreement on how to achieve all-time rankings.

 

"Nino Valdes, Bob Baker, and Clarence Henry were big young powerful top 5 rated heavyweights (any one of them could sneak into the top 50)."

I rate them fringy candidates for a top 100 position myself, and none would make my top 100. There has been a lot of boxing over a long time and these three just don't have records which are all that outstanding. Archie Moore and Harold Johnson, or Jimmy Bivins, are much stronger contenders for a top 50 spot.

 

Couldn't you say the same thing about Vitali Klitschko?

 

"head to head"

This presumes that is the standard which should be used.