Select the toughest top 10 heavyweight contenders possible

If you had to design a heavyweight division that would provide the optimal challenge for a heavyweight champion, which ten contenders from ANY POINT in history would you pick?

(You can't pick lineal champions).

To put it another way: You're trying to create a heavyweight division that would chew up and spit out most heavyweight champs. The greatest possible challenge for an all time great to clean out.

 

The trick here isn't to get the ten BEST contenders ever, necessarily, but to pick ten contenders whose strengths overlap enough to make the division impenetrable.


1) Ike Ibeabuchi

As an iron-chinned, hard-punching swarmer with 235 pounds of body mass behind him, I think Ibeabuchi could deal with a lot of the smaller champs (and weaker-chinned fighters) from before the 1940s.

2) Harry Wills

Here, I'm bowing to the assumption that the traditionalists have it right -- a special fighter will remain a special fighter in any era. Wills doesn't exactly look amazing on film, but that's fine. If I'm wrong, I've only wasted one of my ten picks. If I'm right, though, I've just picked up the last man who could have been champion without the color line. A bargain price heavyweight champion. I'll take that bet.

3) Ken Norton

A lot of heavyweight punchers could mulch him, but Kenny's going to brutalize slicksters. He'd also give me a 1/3 shot of seeing off Muhammad Ali or Larry Holmes. Especially if he catches those guys on an off night. Norton ate up boxers.

4) David Tua

I need somebody who can threaten the weaker-chinned fighters, and who could stand and slug with everybody else. Tua would do both. He's also one of the few fighters who could provide a threat to Tyson, so there's that, too.

5) Oliver McCall

The guy actually KO'd Lennox Lewis. Since Lennox would be one of the greater threats to my division, I'm putting McCall in there. And he was pretty good (and a good puncher) too, so it's not like I'm getting a bad deal. He might give young Foreman issues as well.

6) Tim Witherspoon

Provides a good balance of hitting power, size, and boxing skill. He could outbox a lot of the better punchers and superheavyweights, but still had the power to remain a threat to everybody else. An excellent fighter all around.

7) Jimmy Young

A good -- if criminally undermotivated -- fighter from an awful era. Terrible style. Boring. Limited will to win. While all of these criticisms are valid, they omit the reason Young succeeded for a while: he was incredibly frustrating to fight, and could make any bout excruciating. Assuming fair judges (which don't exist in the real world, but would exist in our hypothetical division), he could outslick a lot of good champions.

8 ) Ernie Terrell

He's here on the same theory that got Young into the game: we need a spoiler, and I think that Terrell was a better octopus than Ruiz.

9) Mike Weaver

Another good, competent boxer from the 1980s. Gave Lennox some trouble when long past his prime, and gave a prime Holmes a lot of trouble as well.

10) Corrie Sanders / Vitali Klitschko

Which one I pick will depend on whether you consider Vitali's RING title "lineal". If it's not lineal, then I'm using Vitali. If Vitali's off-limits, then I'm going with Sanders. Sanders wouldn't be a favorite to beat many fighters, but he was good at generating upsets. Hits a lot harder than most heavyweights from the past, too. He might knock out a couple fighters early.


Honorable Mention: Billy Conn

Probably a controversial choice, but he came within an ace of upsetting one of the best boxer-punchers in history. Slippery little guy, and the best of the small fighters. Plus, the larger superheavyweights might take him lightly because they're worried -- like Louis -- about looking like bullies. I'll throw him in there for variety, if nothing else.




I'll also note that I've mixed and matched the modernists' reasoning with the old-timers' reasoning. This is an added form of insurance. One of the factions is probably right.

One thing I'm missing: a big (6'4-6'6") skilled heavyweight boxer-puncher like Wlad or Lewis. There haven't been many of these. Eh, it's late and I'm not revising yet. Maybe later.

 

Nope.