Ranking the Heavyweights of Patterson/Liston Era

Very difficult I did my best. I mostly went by my opinion of whose the best head to head, but resume did come into play, ring magazine rankings, as well as who impressed on film.

I started from Patterson-Moore 1956 and worked up to Liston-Ali 1 in 1964

1. Muhammad Ali
2. Sonny Liston
3. Floyd Patterson
4. Ingemar Johannson
5. Ernie Terrell
6. Cleveland Williams
7. Archie Moore
8. Harold Johnson
9. Zora Folley
10. Eddie Machen
11. Henry Cooper
12. Nino Valdes
13. George Chuvalo
14. Doug Jones
15. Mike DeJohn
16. Bob Cleroux
17. Roy Harris
18. Johnny Summerlin
19. Alex Miteff
20. Alejandro Lavorante



Next I’ll do the 80s heavyweights

 

Ehhh good question. I may have given Moore the benefit of the doubt and rated the late 50s Moore still very highly h2h. He went 6-1 vs Harold Johnson and Nino Valdes, but all the bouts took place before my time frame. Valdes and Johnson went on to have a lot of success in late 50s at heavyweight with wins over Machen, Jones, Erskine, DeJohn, Summerlin, London, Holman, Satterfield. So the question bares did Moore drop off significantly in ability during this time? Despite his very old age, I think he still maintained quite a bit of his ability all the way through 1963. No doubt he did not test himself vs the gauntlet as he did in his younger years, but he still took care of business defending his throne. Outside of a lazy over the weight loss to Rinaldi (avenged), no one beat him from 1957-1963 besides Ali. He maintained his knockout prowess flattening Roger Rischer in 4 rounds (went the distance with Machen and Folley), knocked out whitehurst (went distance with liston 2x), at age 45 in 1962 he drew with Pastrano in a fight AP scored 8 rounds to 2 for Moore (Pastrano would dominate Harold Johnson a year later to win world title)…most impressive he utterly destroyed # 4 ranked heavyweight Alejandro Lavorante in 1962 at age 45 who was coming off a knockout victory over Zora Folley. Lavorante lost every round and was carried out of the ring on a stretcher! On film, Moore speed was gradually slowing down but he kept his punching power, finishing ability, and his ring smarts were never better. He still had enough speed left.

you can make a case Folley, Machen fought and beat better opposition during this period but like I said I think I gave Moore the benefit the doubt. I think a late 50s archie Moore was still a handful for most heavyweights of that era

 

To simplify things even more, I was never going to rank Harold Johnson above Moore.

now Harold beat Machen head to head
Harold shut out Doug Jones who went 1-1 vs Folley.

I couldn’t rank either Folley or Machen above Harold.

did Harold close the gap on Moore? Well Moore had 4 out of 5 victories over Johnson before the time frame.

during the time frame, both men fought Eddie Cotton and Willie Pastrano. Moore demolished Eddie Cotton pitching a shutout. Cotton fought Johnson 15 close competitive rounds. Pastrano beat Johnson pretty cleanly, while the fattest worst version of Moore fought to a controversial draw vs Pastrano in a fight everyone thought Moore won

 

Machen went 0-3-2 against the men you rated below him. Perhaps you may rethink your ranking of him . Still decent list you got the right names