Should The Records Of Past Heavies Be Scrutinized & Reassessed Using The Modern Cruiser Standard?

A couple of things, here.

1) A fighter's greatness is determined soley by what they did in their division in their time. Any head to head is hypothetical.

2) If head is head is done for fun (because it just does not effect overall greatness...can't emphasis that enough) then it has to be consistent. Some posters on here in the same breath will castigate Marciano for not being "a modern heavy," and in the same breath praise Liston who was also not "a modern heavy," and call him a great head to head fighter when his best four wins were modern cruisers...or praise Holmes as a great head-to-head when he lost to a career LHW.

It's stupid. Consistency.

 

He still says Huck is the only opponent he really doesn't like, although he has little good to say about Dubois, now.

 

Sensibly it will never happen.

 

Interesting thread CST80.
I was watching videos of a young Ali the other day and genuinely thought this guy is a light- heavyweight.
Anyway, I don't think we can change the past, many big heavys now could do Training and cutting like the older fighters, be in better shape and come in lighter. Parker weighing in heavy for Wardley is probably an example of this, (although it will likely pay off for him).

Hmm this is not a straight forward answer. I
I'm saying no, because there is a big argument 215-220lbs at an average is the most effective fighting weight.

Carlos Takam who is a decent heavy by todays standards would be a similar height to Sonny Liston but is nothing in terms of boxing skills. Takams weight however makes up for it.

Anyway I'm going off at tangents here. You guys get what I mean I hope.

 

You forget at this thoughts that cw is "protected" with an upper weight limit while heavy is not , so inside the cruiser division no natural heavy can "visit" it and clear this up .

In practical terms usyk during his cw time of course never had to face a true heavy like prime fury , prime aj , prime wilder etc , so of course his achievenents at cw cannot be counted backdated to heavy .

Would cw be non existent in 2013 , he would have to deal not only with opponents he truly dealt with but also with all the natural heavies from that time .

 

Hmm... not sure that holds true.

I think it is fair to say that you think Wallin is and always has been a bit **** - i.e., your position is he never was a top 10 heavyweight, correct? I don't think I am misrepresenting your position given the number of threads you've started on the topic.
So given Wallin made easy work of Gassiev (the homecooked score cards aside)...it seems unlikely many of Usyk's CW wins would have ever made the heavyweight Top 10.

Again, Gassiev, who Usyk fought to become Undisputed at CW, is seen among his best wins, and it's fair to say was very unlikely to have ever been anywhere near Heavyweight Top 10. The only one of Usyk's former CW opponents who got into the top 10, from the top of my head, was Hunter. And Usyk beat an early career Hunter that moved up to Heavyweight in his next fight, and it took Hunter a while to break into the top 10. So it's probably highly unlikely any of Usyk's wins would have been Top 10 at heavyweight at the time. Otherwise, let's be honest, they would have been campaigning at heavyweight - the money division - at some point in their careers.

I guess some may have made the top 20. Who knows. That's still a thin resume at the top end of heavyweight

 

So Hunter was weight drained?

 

Well I guess it is also that through sports science, diet, etc. the pool of super-heavyweights that actually have the skills to compete (and at times dominate) the heavyweight division has just gotten bigger.

Like I don't necessarily know that if we somehow could move past periods forward 50 years of development that these same guys wouldn't be an inch or two taller and little more filled out.

As you say, heavyweight is the division with no upper limit. The crown is also considered the greatest prize in the sport (if not in all of sport at one time). If guys were able to fight and compete at heavyweight they did. Now if the heavyweight champions were deliberately targeting guys in lower division consistently, that is a little different. But if a lower division guy successfully made the move up, then that is something different again.

Usyk is the top guy in the sport. An ATG. But officially he is a lineal champion with, currently, 2 defences of the crown, and 8 fights in the marquee division of the pro sport

 

Size doesn’t apply to Liston, visit classic for a few minutes you get hit with “well the SHW’s like Vitali would be bigger targets!” Meanwhile the guy only terrorised a bunch of 190lbers (modern 175lbers) guys who’ve met Patterson and didn’t fight at 160lbs have said he’s tiny. Marciano couldn’t fight anybody in the top 10 today… Louis, Louis could beat anybody he’s the best boxer HW has ever seen for skill… but he couldn’t survive a career at HW now, the grind of having guys 50-70lbs heavier night after night… he’d lose to someone shocking even if he did beat someone good like Fury,