Who are really the top finishers in the heavyweight division?

With PBO out of the game now, do they have to be ranked with Ring and TBRB going forward to be included or just one? And it's really a top 11 given that they don't rank the champion (if there is a champion).

 

Wlad Klitschko wasn't ranked by the Transnational folks when he fought Joshua.

He'd been out of the ring too long.

Actually, their ratings are all over the place when you go back and look at them.

Doesn't matter though because champs fight 'the org they represent's' contenders.

By that very real measure, they all defended against contenders.

Counting who was ranked which month by a group of guys who have no say in anything, certainly not who anyone fights, is pointless.

Everyone Joshua defended against was ranked by one of the orgs whose belt he was fighting for or defending.

Same with Wilder. Same with Usyk. Same with Fury.

Same with all the champs before them who were told who to fight by the National Boxing Association and the NYSAC and all the other sanctioning groups.

I don't know when some of you got so anal about this. But nobody used to give a crap if a guy was rated by a sanctioning body but not some independent ratings panel.

The WBA rated Wlad highly when Joshua fought him for the vacant WBA belt. That's all that matters. And it's the same when it comes to who any of them defended against.

It doesn't matter where a bunch of guys who had no say in anything ranked Wlad or anyone else.

 

"Wlad Klitschko wasn't ranked by the Transnational folks when he fought Joshua."

Finkel's going by a consensus of Ring, Transnational and PBO, so by that metric I'm pretty sure 2017 Wlad gets in. I don't know how he will quantify it going forward given that PBO stopped making rankings in 2022. Maybe replace PBO with Boxrec?

"Counting who was ranked which month by a group of guys who have no say in anything, certainly not who anyone fights, is pointless."

I guess the point (if there is a point beyond a kind of scholarly interest) is to work out who fought and stopped the most fighters who were ranked in the top 10/11 by these "independent rankings" bodies, which are considered by many to be less corrupt than the sanctioning bodies.

 

Maybe I was wrong about Sugar Hill being a fraud and almost getting Fury KO'd a number of times now.
Fury might well be the KO specialist Sugar has been telling us all along.
'Be da big dawg, land dat right and go home early! Dont overcomplication it!'

 

chisora, wilder, and whyte is the magical bum tour.

 

Don't know about Helenius, but Martin while i don't rate him high, was undefeated at that time, and was a IBF Champion, whether he was any good or not. That Glazkov fight though was yeah blqh. Clear injury that ended Glazkov career sadly.

 

I've followed boxing since the 1970s, and I have no idea what the PBO is (or was, apparently).

If fighters were ranked by the sanctioning bodies (WBC, WBA, WBO, IBF) that govern the sport ... and actually received title shots or held those organization's titles ... then they were ranked contenders.

Who a handful of guys (who had a website once upon a time and had no say in who anyone fought) ranked them means absolutely nothing.

It's not like the "fans" who start their own ratings don't have their own biases, too.

It's not like the "fans" who start their own ratings don't make up their own "dumb" rules that impact their "dumb" ratings (like you haven't fought in a year, so you aren't in the ratings).

Who thought Wlad Klitschko wasn't one of the 25 best heavyweights on the planet when Joshua fought him? But, he hadn't fought in a year, so he was "removed" from the ranking of best heavyweights by some of these fan ratings? That's as dumb as not ranking other org's champs, IMO.

I don't know why people try to make this overly complicated. The sanctioning bodies rank you, you're a ranked contender. Simple as that.

They govern the sport, they rank you, so, therefore, you're a ranked contender.

 

Taking a quick glance at the average from the WBC, WBA, WBO and IBF ratings at the time:

Deontay Wilder had 15 fights with ranked contenders (Fury 3 times, Ortiz twice, Stiverne twice, Parker, Helenius, Washington, Breazeale, Molina, Arreola, Duhaupas, Szpilka) and he scored 11 KOs.

Anthony Joshua had 16 fights with ranked contenders (Wallin, Helenius, Franklin, Usyk twice, Pulev, Ruiz twice, Povetkin, Parker, Takam, Wlad, Molina, Breazeale, Martin, Whyte) and he scored 10 KOs.

Tyson Fury had 12 fights with ranked contenders (Chisora three times, Wilder three times, Whyte, Wlad, Wallin, Schwarz, Hammer, Cunningham) and scored 8 KOs. (He'll add more fights since the Usyk bouts are upcoming.)

Joseph Parker had 12 fights with ranked contenders (Wilder, Kean, Joyce, Chisora twice, Fa, Whyte, Joshua, Hughie, Cojanu, Ruiz, Takam) and scored 1 KO.

Maybe there were a couple more here or there, I just skimmed it, but that's a quick and probably more accurate representation of what actually took place in this era that's winding down.

 

What's PBO? Who are they? Who runs that? What authority do they have?

Ring and TBRB didn't rank Fury AT ALL for half of 2022 when he was defending his title more than anyone else and filling up football stadiums for his defenses.

Sorry, but if you refused to rank and pretended that Tyson Fury wasn't a rated heavyweight for most of 2022, when he's defending the WBC title and selling tens of thousands of tickets to his title fights, you don't get to claim your ratings are the best.

They've all got problems. But the four sanctioning bodies govern the sport. Their ratings are THE ratings (whether anyone likes it or not).

If you're going to "average" ratings ... average the contenders in those ... since those are the ratings that athletes competing in the sport actually follow.

 

There's ranked contenders and there's real ranked contenders. I mean FFS Kownacki was in the top 10.

However the way you try to spin it the likes of Stiverne, Molina, Spzilka, Washington, Arreola, Duphaupas etc were poor opponents and were never really true world level boxers (Wilder has never beaten any). I mean his best opponent is Ortiz of all people.

Whilst Wilder avoided proven World level boxers such as AJ, Wlad, Povetkin, Whyte etc during this time.

 

BTW, Kownacki was ranked in the top 10 by Ring when he lost to Helenius. Helenius got ranked by the Transnational folks when he beat Kownacki.

And, of course, there are ranked contenders and "ranked" contenders. Guys are highly rated for a long time. Guys aren't. Guys are rated for a long time, lose, fall out, and then get rated again a few months later when other guys lose and they win.

It's all fluid.

But fans who go "this guy wasn't a ranked contender" ... when the same guy was ranked long enough to beat a heavyweight contender, fight in a title eliminator, and get two heavyweight title shots against two different heavyweight champions ... are just showing their personal bias.

All the ratings include personal bias. But purposely not looking at contenders rated by the sanctioning bodies that govern the sport isn't heing "scholarly."