The only fighter more overrated than Ezzard Charles…

Just to put this on record you think losses after a fighter is clearly past prime/shot has equal weight to a loss to when they were at or near their prime? Are we getting that right?

 

So, if Charles had retired after losing the title to Walcott, you'd have him considerably higher all-time than with his additional 40 past prime fights? I don't think I agree with such conclusion.

Joshua has decent resume, beat some good fighters and if he lost the next 16 fights, some against weak competition, it would be clear that he's not on the level he was a few years ago. The difference is that Charles had over 80 fights when he started losing, Joshua had much less than that.

That's more about the recency bias than anti-modern propaganda. People might believe that Roy peaked as the best ever, but he never had the resume to compete with GOATs. It's not about his losses, it's about him not beating good enough competition.

I don't bash anyone here, so I don't know why you put this rant under my quote...

 

Id love to see the 14 heavyweights you have better than Holmes

 

Holmes does lose brownie points for not unifying, however, if you were around at the time, EVERYBODY knew who the main man in the division was

 

First of all to premise this as Ezzard is overrated is bananas. Then to rate both him and Holmes as such is even more bananas. Holmes is probably a top 5 H2H HW. He wasn't a dynamic fighter, he was just professional at everything he did, and no matter what the opponent did he was just a bit better. He was an up and down fighter, when you watch those fighters you sometimes don't understand what you're watching till you go back over and over again, those are the hardest fighters to beat because they simply don't give you much to work with. You do this, they do that just a little better.

 

How do you know? We haven’t seen the fight… Usyk has accomplished much more than Fury in boxing, Olympic gold, undisputed and unified so far, also a stylistic nightmare for Fury. To say Fury is better than Usyk as if it’s some kind of concrete fact is just stupid

 

I’m not into these types of lists but that’s just silly, who on earth did Jack Dempsey ever beat to get that high

 

Little to go on...but Fury did look better against Chisora than Usyk.

 

I’ll also ad that he was champ in two weight classes and has virtually no padding on that record. I won’t bet money on who wins head to head but Usyk is one of the great fighters of our time

 

I'd say Tim Witherspoon was a good win and Holmes was past it at that point.
Bonecrusher Smith was a pretty good win.
Same as Mike Weaver.

All three went on to become champions.

 

If only Mike Tyson was 10 years older and came around 10 years earlier. Perhaps Holmes and Tyson square up in 1978-79? But you can only beat who's around at the time.

 

Nobody has said that Holmes was unbeatable. OP ****ed up right there.

 

People don’t realize back in the day when they just had the WBC and WBA. It was pretty well known who the real champion was whether he was the WBC champ or the WBA champ you had to be there.

 

Well made points .
Agree with all.
Holmes was a great fighter , no doubt.
I think what slightly worked against him , was he didn't establish his place at the top until he was 28/29 . He spent most of his 20's in relative obscurity as Ali's sparring partner.
He was 30 when he beat Ali and only then was he universally recognized as the champ .
By the time he began working his way through the various contenders he was in his thirties and in those times that tended to be heading ' past your best ' . He had a defining fight ( Cooney in 82) it's generally overlooked how big that fight was at the time with the fight almost seen as 50/50 . Before long he was heading to his mid 30's and wear and tear set in.
He was a fairly active champ and often involved in some competitive and action packed fights. He looked vulnerable at times but always pulled through .
I enjoyed his Era/ reign and despite being sandwiched between Ali and Tyson I think his career stands up well.
His comeback , like Foremans isn't something I factor in when rating his ability and it went on too long , but in the years 78-84 he was a terrific champ.