My Top 50 All Time Heavyweights

Peak versions of walcott and charles would have easily outpointed the 1927 jack dempsey. maybe stopped him.


better? a far past his prime rusted jack dempsey was not better than prime charles and walcott. no way.

also when you look at quantity, rays wins over savold, peaks, thompson first fight, haynes, daniels, thomas are far more impressive than tunneys 2nd teir wins


tunneys heavyweight wins are terrible. he fought less than 10 pro fights at heavyweight! ray went 74-2 run during his prime years at heavyweight! tunney cant match that at heavyweight!



as for "clean wins" ray did beat them cleanly, this is from a thread last year by MF.


Second, the 1946 Walcott fight:
This one was a razor-thin split decision for Ray. While this match was very close, from the accounts I've seen of it, there seems to be pretty widespread agreement that Ray did deserve the slim nod. According to Sid Roth, "the Violent One, whom they had kept out of lucrative Madison Square Garden for so long, had a clear winning edge." The New York Times account had it 6-4 for Ray


The United Press scorecard had it 5-4-1 for Ray, while the Associated Press card scored the match 5-4-1 for Charles. Here is the description from the Middlesboro Daily News account: "The gallery gods went into ranting hysterics last night when the burly negro who once wrestled alligators for a living smashed the myth which was Ezzard Charles. The boxing bigwigs, who had been grooming Charles for a fight with Joe Louis, laughed. Once more they had given Joe Louis, the heavyweight champion, an excuse to dodge the violent one. For from 10 rows back it looked like Charles all the way. He danced and jabbed and landed a lot on Ray's bobbing pate and Elmer's busy elbows. But inside 10 rows you could see the devastation wrought by Ray's jarring hooks, blasts which raised the sheaf of Ezzard's cheek. “No holding,” was the continual admonition of referee Eddie Joseph. But Ezzard, of the winged retreating feet, had to hold for his life, and in doing so he made of Elmer Ray a modern Sam Langford."
According to the Nevada State Journal, "Ezzard had clicked off 15 straight victories since he received his discharge from the army 18 months ago, including nine knockouts, but he was unable to overcome his heavier and more experienced opponent, and he was unable to score a single knock-down against rugged Ray, who kept marching in, bobbing and weaving and throwing hooks to body and head. Although Ray admits to 31, which would make him at least five years older than his opponent, it was Ray who finished stronger in the 10th round and thereby apparently wrapped up the bout by a close margin."

 

younger? Charles was 27 when ray beat him, corbett was 30. Jersey Joe Walcott was only 32 years old, trim lean at his peak reflexes better than ever.


bigger? corbett was only 5lb heavier than charles and walcott was bigger than corbett


Talent wise? charles and walcott was the better fighters than corbett


better yet, ray was 37-38 years old when he beat young versions of charles and walcott. very impressiv.e

The United Press scorecard had it 5-4-1 for Ray, while the Associated Press card scored the match 5-4-1 for Charles. Here is the description from the Middlesboro Daily News account: "The gallery gods went into ranting hysterics last night when the burly negro who once wrestled alligators for a living smashed the myth which was Ezzard Charles. The boxing bigwigs, who had been grooming Charles for a fight with Joe Louis, laughed. Once more they had given Joe Louis, the heavyweight champion, an excuse to dodge the violent one. For from 10 rows back it looked like Charles all the way. He danced and jabbed and landed a lot on Ray's bobbing pate and Elmer's busy elbows. But inside 10 rows you could see the devastation wrought by Ray's jarring hooks, blasts which raised the sheaf of Ezzard's cheek. “No holding,” was the continual admonition of referee Eddie Joseph. But Ezzard, of the winged retreating feet, had to hold for his life, and in doing so he made of Elmer Ray a modern Sam Langford."
According to the Nevada State Journal, "Ezzard had clicked off 15 straight victories since he received his discharge from the army 18 months ago, including nine knockouts, but he was unable to overcome his heavier and more experienced opponent, and he was unable to score a single knock-down against rugged Ray, who kept marching in, bobbing and weaving and throwing hooks to body and head. Although Ray admits to 31, which would make him at least five years older than his opponent, it was Ray who finished stronger in the 10th round and thereby apparently wrapped up the bout by a close margin."

Walcott was robbed against Maxim. new york times described the first fight as "the clevelander winning a very unpopular decision." besides maxim was a lightheavyweight who occasionally had an overweight the weight heavyweight match. ray was a fully fledged heavyweight his whole career with tools 6'2 81" reach for a long armed hard punching swarmer that made him lethal on the inside and outside. rays a nightmare h2h

not at all. he beat ray bivins and murray 3 of the best heavyweight contenders of the decade!

maxim fight was a robbery, walcott won all 3.


ray was a great fighter, he would have beat many champions. walcott went 2-1 vs him

only on the scorecards. the times described the fight as "walcott won the fight easily going away, dropping bivins for a long count with a sharp counter right hand."

 

I think you do a "the glass is one-quarter empty" number on Douglas versus a "the glass is one-quarter full" number on Weaver.

Besides Berbick and McCall, Douglas defeated Page and Cobb--Page ko'd Coetzie and Cobb beat Mercado.

You are right that many of Douglas' wins came over men on the way up or on the way down, but McCall, Berbick, Page, and Cobb still give enough support to the big Tyson win, along with greater consistency, to top a resume of Tate, Coetzee, Williams, Tillis, Mercado, and LeDoux.

Weaver was indeed ko'd early in his career when green. He was also ko'd late in his career when washed up, but he was also ko'd in his prime. He was stopped in 1 of each 5 fights he had. That is pretty bad.

 

I agree. were talking about a 167lb bareknuckle style standup straight chin out hands low type fighter vs a 6'2 190lb 81" reach long armed puncher-swarmer with excellent defense and two fisted attack.

 

dempsey far past his prime rusty

tom heeny below average

tom gibbons very old retirement home and 175lb


harry greb 165lb

Johnny Risko- good win but risko was still pretty green



Tunney never took on sharkey, godfrey, wills, schmeling, stribling, gains,

LOL dempsey got the **** beat out of him for 6 rounds by sharkey, he beat sharkey by hitting him inna balls!

dempsey barely won a round vs sharkey! why not rate sharkey over tunney, tunney avoided sharkey and sharkey recorded far and away better wins than tunney did.

Yes I guess its clean when a certain fighter is down for 14 seconds

you use boxrec for all your information?



The United Press scorecard had it 5-4-1 for Ray, while the Associated Press card scored the match 5-4-1 for Charles. Here is the description from the Middlesboro Daily News account: "The gallery gods went into ranting hysterics last night when the burly negro who once wrestled alligators for a living smashed the myth which was Ezzard Charles. The boxing bigwigs, who had been grooming Charles for a fight with Joe Louis, laughed. Once more they had given Joe Louis, the heavyweight champion, an excuse to dodge the violent one. For from 10 rows back it looked like Charles all the way. He danced and jabbed and landed a lot on Ray's bobbing pate and Elmer's busy elbows. But inside 10 rows you could see the devastation wrought by Ray's jarring hooks, blasts which raised the sheaf of Ezzard's cheek. “No holding,” was the continual admonition of referee Eddie Joseph. But Ezzard, of the winged retreating feet, had to hold for his life, and in doing so he made of Elmer Ray a modern Sam Langford."
According to the Nevada State Journal, "Ezzard had clicked off 15 straight victories since he received his discharge from the army 18 months ago, including nine knockouts, but he was unable to overcome his heavier and more experienced opponent, and he was unable to score a single knock-down against rugged Ray, who kept marching in, bobbing and weaving and throwing hooks to body and head. Although Ray admits to 31, which would make him at least five years older than his opponent, it was Ray who finished stronger in the 10th round and thereby apparently wrapped up the bout by a close margin."

 

disputed maybe, but not robberies. they were fights that could have gone either way, the first walcott fight however is a clear decision for ray. i dont think any papers had walcott winning. charles fight is a toss up, whether you prefer sharper more often hitting/counterpunching vs effective aggresion harder punches?



boxrec's account IMO is very vacant and leaves alot of unaswered questions. it hardly has any round by round accounts. the source MF posted a while back that I used seems far more reliable, giving detail descriptions.

 

the ray-charles fights seems like one of those fights u were best able to score up close, since you were able to see the full blast of rays damaging blows were doing to charles.

 

I suggest looking to other sources once in a while. as in the ray-charles I case, some papers have very different opinions on fight compared to others. it gives u a chance to grasp what really happened in the fight

 

"Thompson illegally intentionally hit Ray low"

How do you know it was intentional? Did Thompson fess up with a "I was losing so I hit 'im in the balls" statement to the press?

"so he could get out of the fight"

Well, he fought a rematch a few weeks later, so he couldn't have been all that awed or afraid, and Thompson stopped Ray in one in that rematch.

I would like to see film before making judgements on this fight.

 

if u watch sharkeys face, right before dempsey hits him with a left hook, sharkey is already grimmacing in horrible pain grabbing his balls already on his way down........dempsey hit him with a left hook to make it look like he knocked him out legitley, but sharkey could be seen on the canvas in pain grabbing his balls. i wonder how much the left hook even affected him. it was not a clean knockout whatsoever