top 5 Heavy/Achievement

I have seen the entire film of the Maxim fight and I disagree. I bumped a thread in which John Garfield, who was at ringside, comments that he thought Maxim won.

By the way, I remember reading a biography of Patterson back in the early sixties and no claim was made that this was a terrible decision. Has anyone done any original reseach on what the ringside reporters thought? This unanimous opinion could be an urban legend. Tommy Loughran, the analyst on the TV tape which exists, did not question the decision at all.

 

Smart & Correct answer

 

Top three is down right unreasonable.

There is nothing that can justify Joe Frazier ranking in the top 5 let alone top 3.

 

Ali......Most skilled and accomplisehd hw of all time in my opinon
Louis....unmatched title reign
Marciano.......Undefeated record and his will to keep fighting to maintain that record make him special
Johnson......Being skilled enough and determined enough to break the color barrier
Tyson...........Youngest HW champ, Biggest box office draw in boxing, turning a weak divison around and sparking excitment back into fight fans

 

Tyson was not the youngest heavyweight champion. Floyd Patterson was.

 

Gene Tunney won the heavyweight championship in a 10 round fight. The rematch with Dempsey, which was a title fight, was also scheduled for 10 rounds. Lots of championship fights were scheduled for 10 rounds. The number of rounds has nothing to do with it. With your argument anybody can be heavyweight champion if some acronym creates a belt for them.

Larry Holmes was the champion of the world. You can't take that away from the man by talking about belts he wore or didn't wear.

 

An argument could be made for Dempsey being the biggest draw in boxing history

 

i was thinking that when i wrote it but im not sure.....dempsey brought in huge crowds but tyson definatly sold a lot of ppvs

 

Yes. And Ali also.

 

True, but PPV's weren't around in Dempseys time, I'm sure he'd sell a shitload today

 

absolutely

 

It's truly remarkable to me than when so many other champions are derided for defending their titles against over the hill contenders, Holmes is actually excoriated for the youthfulness of his opposition. Larry defeated five future champions during his reign (Ocasio, Weaver, Berbick, Witherspoon and Smith). He shut out Berbick (who knocked Larry's former WBA counterpart Tate cold) over 15 rounds, before Trevor went on to handily drop Greg Page from the unbeaten ranks, and would eventually dethrone Needles Thomas for his paper WBC Title.

Holmes defeated three challengers who would eventually beat Page, handing two of them their first career loss. Pinko may not have been defeated during Holmes's reign, but he didn't exactly set the world on fire with his ten round draw against Coetzee either.

One reason I think Larry ditched the WBC was because the shortened 12 round distance nearly enabled the inferior Withspoon to upset Holmes. Luckily for Timmy, that wasn't a 15 rounder. Carl Williams probably would have upset Holmes over the pansy arsed 12 round distance. Larry's ninth round bodyshots made sure that didn't happen. When Holmes did lose the title, Mike Spinks had to go 15 rounds to take it. If Larry had lost it by 12 round decision, my interest in boxing would have been instantly terminated permanently. (As it essentially was by SRL/Hagler. But hell, current boxing is much better off for my indifference to it.)

 

The results of Dempsey's fights from Willard on were trumpeted in large print headlines on the front page of the New York Times. His face graced the cover of Time Magazine. Today, it's amazing if a world title fight gets two sentences buried in the margins of page four of the sports section.

 

great post.

 

True, you want to live in England, if its not about Hatton or Calzaghe you'd be hard pressed to find boxing in any newspaper