Who’s the hardest hitting boxer of all time?

Because they were the best in the world. It's insane to call generations (almost 50 years) of boxers bar room brawlers only because two of the GOAT candidates dominated throughout 3-4 divisions. Both Fitz and Langford fought anybody relevant in their eras. They didn't duck anybody.

Besides, we have footage of Langford and his opponents.

 

Shavers I believe was actually a better boxer and had a better delivery mechanism than Tua, which is why he was able to stun and knock down a lot of historically rated guys. He was naturally quite crafty at times, with decent timing on the counter and an understanding of how to go to the body to open up the head. Tua was always just a plodder who employed the same predictable modus operandi every fight. But when he knocked guys down they stayed down. The same can't generally be said for Shavers.

 

How many deaths you have on your resume is now a criterion of punching power is it? In which case a good ninety percent of fighters in this thread need not be mentioned, eh?

Sorry, but slow windmilling haymakers delivered with kid gloves landing on 190lbers and occasionally dropping them to the canvas after a couple of hundred blows to the noggin (illegal and otherwise) doesn't impress me very much.

Show me Baer flatlining a top twenty HW in under thirty seconds the way Tua flatlined Ruiz and Moorer, and I might start to take this ludicrous line of reasoning more seriously.

 

It's not, bit it's a bloody good indicator and a reason why I have Baer as number 1.

Ruiz was never anything special, and Baer would've done the exact same thing, put Ruiz in Baer's era and we wouldn't know who he is. Moorer was very far past his prime and was a Chinny Heavyweight in his prime. Tua's best win in Rahman (which isn't as good as Baer's second best win, in Carnera), came from an illegal punch after the bell

 

In about 10 years it will be Deontay Wilder.

 

Most of the responses are hardest hitters overall, however p4p I'd say Satterfield. In terms of heavyweights probably between Shavers, Foreman, Tua and maybe Wilder when its all said and done.

 

Nothing wrong with Heavyweights being the hardest hitters p4p. Making p4p comparisons gotta work both ways.

 

It's not a good indicator because it's so often a result of multiple sub-concussive blows delivered to the opponent over the course of a fight, coupled with (in many cases) pre-fight trauma going into the bout. And it's such a rare occurrence anyway (thank God) that it doesn't provide a meaningful metric for anyone but a minute handful of fighters. Even then, what the hell does it prove?

Ruiz was a world champ with wins over Holyfield and Rahman and a debatable points loss to a prime Ruslan Chagaev. He was clearly no scrub, and a damn sight better than a lot of the ham n eggers Baer fought.

And since when was Baer's era anything special?

 

Is this fun yet? Are we having a good time? Can we have another 5000 threads on this same dullard topic?

 

Possibly but Earnie was glass comparative to Tua and was left behind stamina wise as well. This gave Tua more opportunity to get them out of there.

 

Dunkhorst was ko'd by a guy 50+ pounds less before Fitz ever ko'd him so i'm not too sure his durability should be praised. Also if we are going to look at also rans we would need to look at Shavers multitudes of KO victims - i have no doubt some of those guys had decent durability. Being lesser fighters however allowed Shavers to land those immense blows.

If we had all of Shavers ko's on film and there would be well over 50 that aren't i think many would have their eyes opened very wide. Imagine that highlight reel. Look at how many were genuine ko's, not tko's.

Fitz was a giant in his time for sure. A rare exception for sure. This is why he is so highly ranked in top 10 lists. He's a top 10 ATG. I however do not think the heavyweights of that day were very good particularly after Jeffries. To be completely honest i do not in any way think even a great like Fitz would be overly successful in more modern era's. I think the ATG middles like Monzon, SRR, Hopkins, Hagler etc would chew him up.

 

Baer wasn't slow at all, I don't understand where this narrative comes from. He was faster than Shavers for example even though he was bigger.
Maxie didn't need "a couple of hundred blows" to KO opponent. Have you seen Comiskey and Levinsky fights?

Baer had 14 1st round KOs in his career. It's not my fault that only one of them is available on YT, he fought 80 years ago. You can watch Comiskey fight if you want to see Baer destroying good durable heavyweight in 1st round.

 

When? He was KOed by Ruhlin and Butler before Fitz - both big heavyweights.

You can say the same with Fitzsimmons. Imagine having his fights with Maher, Ruhlin, Sharkey, Zender, Dunkhorst. Imagine seeing him destroying fighters 20+lbs bigger in less than 4 rounds. Imagine him stopping big guys with body shots. TKO were very rare back then, probably huge majority of his stoppages are also true KOs.

But these are only opinions. The only heavyweights from that era you can see in decent film are Fitz and Corbett, in one fight and quality clips are rare today. We don't have anything clear from Jeffries, Sharkey or Ruhlin. We don't have anything at all from Maher and Choynski. How could you know that they were terrible?

Basically the same thing applies to Fitz. We have one incomplete fight from his prime - a fight in which he struggled more than in any other fight after 1st Jeffries. Even then we don't have his best rounds after 10th. We do have KO blow though and it looks phenomenal. All you can look at is his stance and some defensive habits against bigger and faster fighter in a finish fight. Fitz fought much differently at MW than at HW from what we can read. He was much quicker on his feet and much more agressive. His power is undeniable and he had more experience than any of guys you mentioned. He was probably more durable than them too, given his HW career.

 

Butler was known as the King of the Middleweights and was at one time the colored middleweight champ. Thru his career he usually weighed from just under middleweight to around light heavyweight. How could he be a "big heavyweight"?? He was outweighed by more than 50 pounds in his actual bout with Dunkhorst.

Yes film helps andt there's also no substitute for good quality. We do have plenty of high quality film with Shavers power on display despite missing so much.

Call it an educated hunch and going by the little we have. I also didn't actually saw "terrible". I said imo they would not be overly successful.

What KO blow do we have sorry?

Him being more durable would be complete speculation based on how good the Heavyweights actually were.

Robinson had 120+ fights under his belt by the time he won the Middleweight strap, how would Fitz be more experienced?

 

Yeah I've mistaken him with Armstrong, my bad you have the point.

I don't get this point.

KO against Corbett.

No, him being more durable would be based on how good 20 years of fighters (1880s-1900s) across three divisions were. Unless you think that fighters back then couldn't hit, were weak or simply inferior physically to SRR opponents (who fought only 30 years later, so it's not possible) he had to be extremely durable especially for a middleweight.

We have footage of almost 50 years old Fitz fighting in hot sunny day against heavyweight in 12th round and he took huge beating, but he kept staying on his feet. You can watch it and still believe that he wasn't durable, but that would be silly.

You are right, Robinson is an exception. The rest had less fights and it's very likely that Fitz had way more fights than record shows. He said himself that he had around 300 fights which wouldn't be strange given others P4P GOATs records (Greb, SRR, Langford).