Should any heavyweights really be ranked all time in the

I used to think that Ali and Louis belonged in the top 10 p4p all time ratings but I’m not so sure any more. As you say the greats of the lighter classes generally tend to have a lot more fights, titles in multiple classes and wins over more ranked men. I suppose I could see both Ali and Louis could make top 15

 

The heavyweight division is "heavy" not only because of the weight. Many of the heavyweights can't really choose a lot of categories, like at best be cruisers. But if one is 2 meters tall or even more, well the choice is only a theoretical. It's not like the lower classes, where the difference between them is 2-3 kilos, so one can go with 3-4-5 of them even. They are also taking less damage than the heavyweights. And by saying all that I don't intend to take anything from the smaller fighters, but better comprehension of the biggest ones is needed.

I also think that nowadays, a boxer is limited to 3 fights in 12 months, not like some decades/a century ago. But going so back in time there're a lot of crazy things about boxing that are unthinkable now, like fights that lasted for hours.

 

Any fighter that has 25 title defenses…in a time when there was only one belt …and 8 weight divisions …should be pretty high on the list

 

I suppose it takes P4P to its very essence.

There might be 20 more skilled fighters than, say, Ali or Louis through the weights and through the years. I personally don't think that to be so but won't argue too hard.

But could these 20 fighters take a load of punches from top men weighing 200plus pounds or could they consistently gain the respect of men weighing in at that region? The answer is no. They'd need to weigh nearer to 200lbs themselves to do so and that would be to the detriment of all the other skills that we are rating them so highly on.

Boxing Illustrated did a dream tourney at the end of 89, pitting Dempsey, Louis, Marciano, Ali and, I think, Holyfield (the no 1 at the time) against Tyson. The caveat was that they would all weigh 217, just like Tyson, but not at the expense of their stamina, speed, or other skills. They would just get exponentially stronger, more powerful and with greater endurance. One reader queried this, saying if you can retain every bit of skill, why not throw Tyson in with a mythical 217lbs Meldrick Taylor who performed with all the speed and skills he showed at 140lbs? It was a really good point.

It's hard to judge P4P on the eye test as different weights have different disciplines. It's best to evaluate the career as a whole. Did they beat the best men around? Did they do so convincingly? Were their skills markedly better than their peers? And so on. Because if you compare skill sets, then the 1989 version of Meldrick may have been even better than Ali - greater speed, punch variety etc but you would be laughed off the forum - rightly - if you claimed Meldrick could even be mentioned in the same breath as Ali as a lb for lb great.

So can you find 10 or 20 fighters through the years who dominated their peers like Ali and Louis over such a long time? Don't forget, also, that heavyweights are exceptional, physically. There aren't that many of them relative to welterweights or middleweights. To have a heavy in an all time top 10 would be something as the division comprises a relatively small proportion of the sport's participants.

I personally think you have two heavies in the all time top ten and that is testament to the remarkable skills and careers of Ali and Louis, because I think they have really defied the odds being up there.