TIER LIST: Heavyweight Champions by title fights (1990 to present)

Updated following Usyk v Dubois 2

 

I understand what you are saying. But it starts to become quite subjective. Who decides who is an outstanding contender. How many outstanding contenders did Wlad, for example, face?

Regarding Ruiz, again, I understand your point on that, but at the same time Ruiz has only lost two fights - both at world title level.

For me this is more an indicator of which champions are fighting regularly enough to give contenders an opportunity. Something which I believe marks Wlad as an ATG champion. Joshua for all his faults did try to fight people on the ladder. But he doesn't have the quality or alternatively the longevity, of those above him (and even some below).

 

I totally agree about using top 5 fighters. It would eliminate fighters such as Martin, Breazeale, etc. from Joshua's wins column. However, I suspect it would rapidly reduce the numbers for many titlists.

To be honest it was the next stage that was planned back when we first started this in 2021. Unforunately, TBRB stopped maintaining their ranking archive online which would make it difficult to start doing that. And tracking down all the Ring rankings again will be a pain in the arse. haha
Maybe I will some day.

 

They are active, they just stopped maintaining their archive. Most of it is still there though. And to be honest, I kind of know who were top 5 wins since they stopped.

 

@DaRealJT , @kirk
Actually, I do know some of the wins by top 5 for the more recent champions.

(Top 5 wins at world title level)
Usyk has 5 (Joshua '21, Joshua '22, Fury '24, Fury '24, Dubois '25)
Fury has 4 (Klitschko '15, Wilder '20, Wilder '21, Whyte '22)
Joshua has 4 (Klitschko '17, Parker '18, Povetkin '18, Ruiz '19)
Wilder has 1 (Ortiz '18)
Ruiz Jr. has 1 (Joshua '19)
Dubois has 1 (Joshua '24)

I think that is right.