The Top 100 Pound for Pound All-Time Greats

Discussion in 'Classic Boxing Forum' started by McGrain, Feb 15, 2013.


  1. McGrain

    McGrain Diamond Dog Staff Member

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    #94 Lennox Lewis (41-2-1)

    A discussion of Lennox Lewis’s all-time great status generally descends into an argument about step-aside money paid by Don King and/or a disagreement about the legitimacy of the British heavyweight’s TKO victory over Vitali Klitschko.

    I am not conflicted on either of these issues. The circumstances surrounding the payment of step-aside money that Lewis accepted from Don King to postpone a fight with Mike Tyson doesn’t matter. Lewis is great without any provisos. The Vitali Klitschko victory is very simple to appraise: a 256 lb. man punched a 248 lb. man in the face until he was no longer able to continue with the fight. That is what boxing is, precisely.

    Aside from the outstanding achievement of beating his immediate successor as the world’s best heavyweight, Lewis beat every man he ever faced as a professional. He beat more Ring ranked contenders at heavyweight than anyone aside from Joe Louis and Muhammad Ali. He won the European title in his thirteenth fight, the British title in his fourteenth (from the enormously tough Gary Mason) and was still matching top contenders thirteen years later.

    Lewis has not inspired the fans in the same way that Joe Frazier and George Foreman have, but he has terrified the opposition. David Tua, Andrew Golota, Henry Akinwande and even Mike Tyson are the world-class heavyweights who quit to him in one way or another. Capable of outboxing the boxers and outpunching the punchers, his chin will remain in doubt based upon those two knockout losses to Oliver McCall and Hasim Rahman but it is also true that beating heavy hitters was his meat and bread. He destroyed the opposition (Michael Grant KO2, Hasim Rahamn KO4, Donovan Ruddock KO2), he patiently outboxed the opposition (Evander Holyfield twice, Zeljco Mavrovic, Tony Tucker, all UD12).

    He beat a huge array of fighters and styles and is the most dominant heavyweight champion since Joe Louis.


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  2. McGrain

    McGrain Diamond Dog Staff Member

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    :lol:

    He ****ing was though, wasn't he? He fought like it, anyway.
     
  3. Mr Butt

    Mr Butt Boxing Junkie Full Member

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    Yeah he lived in top gear flat out even in old age who would of thought a poor kid from the east end would have a opera made about his life
     
  4. Drew101

    Drew101 Obsessed with Boxing Full Member

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    He's got one of my favorite nicknames, too. The Whitechapel Whirlwind. You just can't do much better than that.
     
  5. McGrain

    McGrain Diamond Dog Staff Member

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    #92 Joe Frazier (32-4-1)

    Frazier snorted his way from an Olympic gold medal to the professional ranks without fanfare; perhaps the frustration informed his killing style.

    He hit the ground running and by 17-0 had dispatched top names Oscar Bonavena, Eddie Machen, Doug Jones and George Chuvalo. The legend that belongs to Mike Tyson and Sonny Liston in truth should be hung upon Joe Frazier who ripped the massed ranks of the deepest heavyweight contendership in history to pieces before he had boxed twenty times.

    Buster Mathis, Manuel Ramos, Jerry Quarry and Jimmy Ellis all followed before 1970 was out and then Frazier painted his first legitimate masterpiece by breaking a helpless Bob Foster into two clean pieces in two scintillating rounds. Frazier had mounted one of the most rarefied peaks in heavyweight boxing history.

    For all that Marciano is the pressure fighting juggernaut that ranks highest upon this list—you’ll have to wait to see where—it was Frazier who executed the definitive pressure-fighting performances at the weight. Even upon investigating the more mobile pressure fighters who occupy the lower weights it might be the case that no lesser a fighter than Henry Armstrong is the only boxer that bears a positive comparison. In the 1971 Fight of the Century, in spite of high blood pressure, in spite of deteriorating eyesight, Joe Frazier turned in arguably the best performance ever filmed at the weight. Watch carefully as Ali, still in possession of some of the fastest feet in the division’s history, bounces from rope to rope and the attack dog Frazier moves with him, never more than a half step behind and usually in perfect tandem. The left hook he threw to drop Ali to the canvas in the fifteenth round is said to be amongst the best ever thrown; it’s nonsense, of course, but not many men other than Joe himself threw better.

    He eventually lost the series to Ali and would later be rag-dolled by the formidable George Foreman. What these two proved between them was that you had to all but kill Frazier to beat him.

    What is clear is that in his savage prime, there are but a handful of men that could have held out the merest hope of doing so.


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  6. the cobra

    the cobra Awesomeizationism! Full Member

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    Frazier was such a BAMF.
     
  7. El Bujia

    El Bujia Boxing Junkie Full Member

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    Kid Berg but no Kid Chocolate? You may yet be losing it old man.
     
  8. McGrain

    McGrain Diamond Dog Staff Member

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    Berg>Chocolate. Don't doubt it.
     
  9. El Bujia

    El Bujia Boxing Junkie Full Member

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    He has a few big wins, almost all of them highly controversial, and looks pretty **** in the available footage. I doubt he'd make my top 200. But oh well, a cool effort overall. A lot better than I could've done, so I guess I shouldn't nitpick.
     
  10. lora

    lora Fighting Zapata Full Member

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    Buchanan>Morales

    There is yet time to change
     
  11. Flea Man

    Flea Man มวยสากล Full Member

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    Humph. I imagine not, although I'm sure lora will agree.

    Yoko was aesthetically pleasing stylewise, and in terms of his cracking Afro-tache combo, but he's too thinly spread in terms of quality and the way he finished his career up was very disappointing IMO.

    If you'd said Hiroyuki Ebihara the answer would be a definite 'Yes' :good
     
  12. Flea Man

    Flea Man มวยสากล Full Member

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    Great write up for Lennox (didn't even realised he'd stayed in there, perfect, although Foreman>Frazier IMO but oh, well) and I think you covered just about everything.

    Lennox isn't controversial, he was beastly. He wasn't infallible in the chin department but he was more than capable of beating monsters. Lovely stuff.
     
  13. mattdonnellon

    mattdonnellon Boxing Junkie Full Member

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    O'Brien had another distinction, he actually admitted in the press that he part-took in several earlier fixed fights. He's getting included in the top 100 p4p fighters of all time and two of his greatest achievements are beating a 44 year old fighter who had beaten him a year or so earlier. He came up through the weights beating a slew of ok fighters, losing to Young Peter Jackson before beating the great Joe Walcott(with what must have been a big weight advantage) and revenge over Jackson. He beat slipping heavy Peter Maher and slipping L/heavy Choynski as well as a draw with a coming Marvin Hart. He had a pick 'em with a downward going Tommy Ryan and solid wins over Hugo Kelly, Schreck and Twin Sullivan-good stuff but not the stuff of McGrain top 100 legends, I would have thought. Now add in a draw with an alcoholic Maher, A slipped McCoy, a strange ko loss to Al Limerick, a Ko loss to old man Fitz, a middleweight title claim loss to Hugo Kelly, all at his peak?
    For balance he outpointed Burns in a six, a good win over a coming Kaufman and the title draw(fix) v Burns. Also the six rounder with Johnson which I place little merit on but some people rate. He achieved a lot for a guy with a glass jaw, he was a master boxer with speed and he had no punch. As an over-achiever top 10 lock, top 100 P4P ahead of similar sized Jeff Clarke and Kid McCoy? -no way can I see it.
     
  14. lora

    lora Fighting Zapata Full Member

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    Ebihara is still a genuinely overlooked fighter imo, despite tha fair deal given to the midgets by most around here these days.Thai corruption screwed him over, make sure you get that in your book flea:yep

    Gushiken is just too shady.
     
  15. Flea Man

    Flea Man มวยสากล Full Member

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    :happy :clap: :deal

    **** that, take Marquez out and put Benny Lynch in. Small Montana was better at that point than Manny was when Marquez starched him :yep