Nothing compares to the Heavyweight Champion...

TFFP as always your making some good points. Dempsey is such a tough fighter to place, and his best days were actually before he fought Jess Willard for the championship, but i think even in his short, interrupted reign he was an all out attacking phenomenon. When Dempsey was on top he was the most famous man in the world, he was one of the fore-fathers of heavyweight boxing .. But i take your point that he never took on any dangerous 'black' contender and Tex Rickard really protected him. Theres no way I, personally can rate Lennox Lewis ahead of Jack Dempsey knowing nthe countless Lewis flaws in a weak heavyweight era .... I also think that Marciano's resume is unfairly critiscised, Walcott, Moore and Charles were brilliant fighters in my opinion .. I totally respect your opinion TFFP and you could be right on my rating of Dempsey and Marciano

 

I have Lewis as 3/4th, I can never fully decide. Ali/Louis 1&2 of course.

 

Fair enough, but the fact that Marciano HAD to absorb that amount of punishment from older fighters like Wallcot, Moore and Charles puts him down my list. Real beasts like Tyson, Foreman and Liston would have stopped him and the top boxers like Ali, Holmes and Lewis would have had him on the end of a jab/ right cross all night. And all of those guys, with the exception of Foreman and Liston, had more impressive title reigns than Rocky.

 

Marciano is without doubt my favourite fighter of all time. However, I find him very hard to rank when it comes to lists of top 10 ATG HW's. He did all he could be asked. He rematched people that took him the distance and promptly dispatched them in the return.

As for the list itself. People seem to have seriously skewed views of what gets you onto the ATG list. Each to their own when it comes to making these lists but it is obvious that people chop and change the rules for different fighters.

Taking a few examples. People are willing to write off Lewis losses to McCall and Rahman and put them down to 'bad days at the office'. They also say he cleaned up (which is fair comment) in his era. They ignore that a lot of his opposition was pretty average and focus on his boxing skills being so good. And also his lack of really big wins.

Then for another boxer they will slate him for losses. Perhaps malign him for not cleaning up despite the fact that boxer might have fought in a much tougher era and had bigger wins on their resume.

Where does greatness start and stop? Does Mike Tysons greatness suffer because he got fat, old, weirder, more depserate for cash, less hungry to fight etc...??? Or do we let him away with that because of the obvious outside factors that intervened in his career? Does he answer for all of it? Or is there the factor that comes in with Lewis and the whole 'ah that wasn't the real Tyson' on that given night?

To have people come on here and make ATG lists in any division you have to set up the paramters first. If you don't do that then people will use different reasons to defend their choices. If there was a list of set parameters these things are somewhat easier to argue out. Unless one of the heavyweight posters on here wants to start a proper thread (which would be interesting IMO) defining these thigns then all you are ever going to hear is the usual cliched bollocks for the most part.

Like Ali and Louis are the natural 1-2. Are they ****. Thats lazy, lazy, lazy. I know some people would pick them as their 1-2 with good solid foundations and reasons for their choice. But I know a lot more people pick them at 1-2 because thats 'conventional wisdom' or whatever.

 

Thats a great post but Ali and Louis are undoubtably the best 2 heavyweights of all time for various reasons .. You may not like it that most people think that way but it is in fact the truth .. Ali and Louis are so far in front of the number 3 that its not worth talking about ..
The real question is, who do you think is at number 3 .. It could be Jack Johnson, Marciano, Dempsey, Holmes, Tyson or Foreman .... But that is the real question, who is the number 3 greatest heavyweight of all time .. the top 2 are clear no matter which way round you have them, it has to be Ali and Louis ......

 

When you say 'Real Beasts' would have stopped Marciano, i have to disagree to a point .. I agree Foreman would have done damage but Tyson and Liston never faced a Marciano. Nobody that Tyson faced came close to Marciano apart from Holyfield and Holy destroyed Tyson .... The 80s Tyson is a myth, people think he was this all conquering phenom that knocked out everybody and COULD knock out anybody in history .. Just because he knocked out Berbick, Spinks, an old Holmes and Pinklon Thomas doesnt mean he could do the same to Marciano .... The Tyson prime is mythologised way too much to the fact that he is somehow superman .... Tyson never liked it when fighters caught him with good shots and Marciano, Dempsey and Frazier would definately catch him with a few tasty ones .. Tyson was a great offensive fighter but if you pressurised him and picked your own shots you could discourage him. In my opinion Tyson wasnt half the fighter of Marciano, Dempsey or Frazier .. Can you imagine what Ali would have done to Tyson, it would have been far easier than what he had to go through with Frazier because Tyson was basically a 4-5 round fighter, you see them rounds out and he's yours to pick off at will for a skilled boxer ..........

 

I'm no Tyson apologist but to say he was 4 or 5 round fighter is just concentrating on the tail end of his career after he'd been released from 4 years in prison. Before that he'd shown no problems fighting 12 or 15 rounds.

I think its fair to say that Tyson was suspect mentally when a determined. skilled fighter fought back at him, but the fact was no one was good enough to do it to a prime, motivated Tyson (1986-1989) and I don't believe Marciano would have been able to either.

I know the hole in that argument is that I'm basically giving Tyson a "freebie" for the Douglas fight but I really think Tysons lifestyle and lack of motivation was totally responsible for that defeat rather than any lack of heart or ability.

 

Agreed. Brought on by the firing of Rooney.

 

Tyson was always overrated.

 

No offence but your clearly the biggest moron that ever wrote on this forum .. Do you really think that Marciano was a bum ?? This is a man that beat Archie Moore, Ezzard Charles and Jersey Joe .. Are you seriously saying that he's a nothing ?? When you say 'Stylistically he doesnt compare', thats a moronic statement, every fighter has his own style ..
Im guessing your fairly young since all you mention is Lennox, Evander, Tyson and Holmes .. I agree that Holmes was a very special fighter but the other 3 were 'modern day' over hyped fighters that would have had they're hands full with Marciano .. You dont rate anybody before Louis, so you dont rate Jack Johnson, Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney ?? Are you serious ??
The common sense analysis is that you havent got a clue what your talking about but take comfort in the fact that your not alone. Theres so many 'boxing fans' that disregard everything before Ali or Louis .. Its totally ridiculous considering that Boxing is a sport that does not evolve over time like other sports, thats the mistake people make ..

 

And who did Tyson, Lewis, Holmes and Holyfield fight that were of the class of Archie Moore, Ezzard Charles and Jersey Joe Walcott ..
Obviously i agree that Holmes was a special fighter but i'll pick holes in the other 3 all day long compared to Marciano, especially Tyson and Lewis .. Who the hell did they fight with any boxing skills who wasnt 5 years past they're prime ?? Your an idiot who knows nothing