Was Tim Witherspoon a top 30 heavyweight ?

There's been a fair bit of arid wit used on the forum recently so, not sure if you're being serious about the bit in bold above. If you are, I'd like to read your rationale for Tua and Ibeabuchi ranking above Tim Witherspoon.

 

I'm not adamant about it, hence why I said probably. Actually thinking it through, I'd probably come down on the side of Tim being above them.

 

Fury is clearly higher than spoon.

 

I think he's outside the top 30

 

I’d say there’s plenty of bones I’d pick with your list, but that’s the fun part, we all have our own views and opinions so there’s no malice behind my words. Especially when there’s plenty of people on the forum more equipped to argue than I, but it’s all a learning curve, we all have our own truths.

Personally I don’t think Tua is a justifiable pick above Witherspoon under any circumstances personally, Ibeabuchi maybe depending how you feel how good he was. Even so if it were down to me neither Tua or Ibeabuchi make the top 50.

 

Well, fire away! Or at least, in relation to Tim, we don't want to derail anything.

Like you say, it's all part of the fun!

 

I think you nailed it here, John. Nicely done

 

Ibeabuchi I can understand, because he’s one of them what if guys. He could have been a goddamn force to be reckoned with, but he really only has his wins over Byrd and Tua (just)

For Witherspoon it’s such an odd one, I think where for the first time that it was majorly apparent in the 80s, the heavyweight title being split between the 3 major sanctioning bodies at the time, actually robbed a lot of the top heavyweights at the time from solidifying themselves in history as a legit no.1 contender, which is why everything gets very convoluted from then on in any weight class, not just the heavyweights.

Sadly I’m not old enough to have witnessed the 80s, or the 90s for that matter in real time, but from watching virtually all the competitive heavyweight fights from that 80s era Witherspoon stands out as the best behind Holmes and Tyson.

He gave Holmes, the dominant heavyweight of his era as good a fight as anyone, has nice wins over Snipes, Page, Williams, Smith, Bruno (although he was miles behind) Tillis, Took Tyrell Biggs 0, which ranks quite away above what Tua was able to achieve (considering his shortcomings against Lewis) and what Ibeabuchi managed to achieve, even if his career was cut short.

For me what takes Witherspoon out of the top 30 was his consistency as a top contender. If we take away all the lineal champs and that’s not to say they were all better than Tim, but you still have great contenders like Ray, Langford, Wills, Norton, Jeanette, McVey, Povetkin, that all deserve to be above him in my opinion

 

Witherspoon did not take Tyrell Biggs’ zero. Tubbs?

 

Cheers Clint.

 

Yeah.but lost in a single round against Smith too

 

Yeah messed up on that, cheers for the correction!