Top 10 heavyweights that never won lineal title

A rough sketch although I’d say the top 5 are pretty set in stone. There’s plenty that could be rated Between 6-10 but this is what I would put without giving it that much thought.

1.Harry Wills
2.Sam Langford
3.Peter Jackson
4.Vitali Klitschko
5.Ken Norton
6.Tim Witherspoon
7.Sam McVea
8.Aleksander Povetkin
9.Joe Jeanette
10.Elmer Ray

 

#10. Jerry Quarry
#9. Jimmy Young
#8. Eddie Machen
#7. Alexander Povetkin
#6. Vitali Klitschko
#5. Sam Langford
#4. Tim Witherspoon
#3. Ken Norton
#2. Chris Byrd
#1. Harry Wills



Peter Jackson, Anthony Joshua and a few others could definitely make it on there, especially PJ, I just don't know where.

 

1. V Klitschko
2. Wills
3. Norton
4. Witherspoon
5. Langford
6. Young
7. Lyle
8. Ibeabuchi
9. Byrd
10. Tua

 

Made a whole giant post about this lol

1 Harry Wills
2 Archie Moore
3 Sam Langford
4 ToMy Loughran
5 Jimmy Ellis
6 Alexander Povetkin
7 Ernie Terrell
8 Harold Johnson
9 Jimmy Bivins
10 Chris Byrd

Vitali it could be argued is lineal so left him off

 

Other names worth mentioning:

Mike Weaver, Archie Moore, Harry Greb, Tommy Loughran.

 

Byrd ain't number 2, chief.

 

No Norton? No Wilder? Joshua?

 

Wilder wouldn’t crack my top 20. And AJ is arguably lineal. That and they’re going strong (Povetkin is older and near the end and also much better record then wilder).
I don’t feel Norton deserves top ten...have him in the 11-15 range with Quarry Bonavena Machen Zora

 

AJ isn't lineal. Nobody claims that.

Wilder won ten title fights, and is 3-1-1 against guys in the top 5. The loss and draw are to an ATG heavyweight, at least h2h.

Povetkin never won a title, and is 2-2 against top five heavyweights. He also was caught dirty on multiple occasions.

Norton beat Ali and ran him close twice. Idk what most of these guys did to match that.

 

exhaustive

 

Most of these other guys not only beat champs before or after they won the title but beat a long list of other high ranked contenders. Loughran beat like 3 lineal champs. Bivins cleaned his division along with wins over all time p4p greats. Wilder literally had 1 slightly ok win over an ancient Ortiz. Norton has one excellent win and one ok win in the about to retire quarry win. He arguably lost to Young. And if you look at his resume after that it’s rather thin. Povetkin has a lot more names on his ledger then Wilder. A lot more. A case can be made for a lot of people I guess just my opinion on it