Where would you rank Zhang among the greatest heavyweight punchers in history?

Way than that smaller mostly lol. In Ali's era around 200 pounds the average heavyweight was.

 

There’s always been giants in boxing. You just never heard of them because the 220 lb’ers could fight too good for the mastodons. Kinda like what happened with usyk, lol. Only there was always more than 1 usyk back then.

 

Big Zhang is up there. Definitely top 15 imo. Hes not only a huge heavyweight at 270lbs but he has very good technique and pretty good hand speed for a guy that size. That right hook is NASTY.

 

I get the argument but couldn’t the same be said for literally every boxer that’s ever laced up?

Give Ali the power of Foreman.
Give Foreman the footwork of Ali.
If only Tua was a bit bigger.
Give Tyson more discipline.
etc.

If Zhang was good enough he’d have been a factor 10 years ago. He’s not, so he wasn’t.

If Zhang has this unworldly, never before seen power he’d have KO’d Parker and Zabayel. He doesn’t so he didn’t.

Zhang is what he is. A very good puncher who can time a shot but with nothing much else that separates him from the better guys in history.

And he doesn’t hit harder than Foreman, Shavers, Lewis, Wlad, Tyson etc. That’s a nonsense and their respective records back it up.

 

Its silly to rank him specifically since there have been so many heavy weight punchers, but you could argue he would be in the top tier. He is a heavier puncher than someone like wilder who I think was wildly overrated.

 

He has a veeeeery thin resume of KO's for someone being talked about in the company of truly great punchers as he is in this thread.
My two cents is we don't know and never will.

 

Weird people keep pretend old HW eras weren't small. Do people have any understanding of the massive difference in stature between current populations and those 40+ years ago?

Zhang is a product of 'modern times' and probably a lot of HGH and weird stuff going on in Chinese 'sports science', like our old friends the 'Chinese Olympic Female Swimmers' who had broader backs than men. It's very odd he spent so long not fighting anybody in his prime only to arrive post prime and start threatening the top fighters.

But as it stands he absolutely destroys all these old fighters though. 'Big George', the one who dwarfed so many would be dwarfed.

Imagine Zhang versus Frazier, who was destroyed by Foreman. It would be utterly hilarious. Zhang would probably cartoon punch him out the ring.

 

No in the top 20. But the next level. He did not KO many guys who were rated in the top ten, if fact he Ko'd none of them.

 

What are you talking about, Joyce was in the top 5

 

My bad, that is one man who was 38+ years old. I forget if Joyce was rated then. Anyone else?

 

Shavers didn't always stop guys either. But like Zhang, he still often hurt or KD'd the guys he couldn't stop.

Edit: Others beat me to it.

 

And I think all these arguments are valid and make boxing an exciting thing to fantasize about. I have heard the Mike Tyson one lots of times and it's as interesting as what would have happened if the members of Club 27 had gotten to old age, being productive for a long time. There is also this mathematician, Galois, who was incredibly productive when young and then got killed in a duel...

 

To add some context, Zhang has been in 5 fights with Ring rated contenders and dropped them all

 

Biggest load of BS I have ever read on this site.

And that is saying something.