Who ranks higher at 175? Bob Foster or Ezzard Charles

But maxim and Bivins weighed in as heavyweights two times each against Charles. Lesnevich too. Charles himself was above 175 against maxim and Lesnevich too as well as Harrison, Bascome, Harold Johnson, satterfeild and other LHW guys.

 

You nominated Moore - Patterson and Charles - Bivins. I explained the (meaningful) difference. It was straight forward.

 

Ezzard Charles was quite possibly the greatest light heavyweight that ever lived, so there's really no comparison.

 

He quite possibly is. Charles was certainly too good for that division.

 

Bob Foster was a true terror to those poor 175 lb'ers in the 70's, but there was nothing ordinary about Ezzard Charles...one of the classiest, most complete fighters who ever lived...so I have to choose Charles...and maybe only Tunney was up there with him...maybe.
Having said all that, I have to once again agree with my pal @jowcol regarding Eddie Mustafa....in that, as great as Michael Spinks was,...Eddie was even better. Eddie squandered himself before he even stepped in the ring with Michael...with that stupid, misbegotten foray into the heavyweight division for that pointless fiasco against Renaldo Snipes. Ask yourselves this question...was there any resemblance between the Eddie Mustafa before that blunder of his and what you saw afterwards?
Eddie had reached an almost nirvana state of mastery with that masterpiece of his vs Marvin Johnson, and he sustained that level of mastery in his defense against Jerry The Bull Martin afterwards, only to blow it all in a very foolish career mistake. Even still, as jowcol pointed out, you could see what could have been in that 15 round loss to Spinks, when for protracted periods, he controlled and outboxed Michael. Eddie Mustafa Muhammad had what it took to be the very best lightheavyweight champion of all, bar none.

 

He beat Maxin and Bivins while himself a LHW. I can't really strike that from his LHW achievements just because they were HWs at that time.

 

No it doesn't. It recognises he has the best LHW win resume.

At the time if the fights both men were LHW. except the bivins fight who was 3 pound over.

 

Well why don't you tell us what the best wins were that Charles had as a Lightheavyweight when both he and his opponent were within 175.

I think he beat Moore three times when both were within 175, his win over Lloyd Marshall and perhaps one of the earlier Maxim fights was within that limit. After that you will be hard pushed to find much more since usually Charles or the opponent was above 175.

 

But at the time, the wins furthered Charles heavyweight credentials rather than his LHW credentials since upon that time Maxim and Bivins (as well as being above 175) were beating rated heavyweights. If your over 175, beating heavyweights, rated in the top ten as a heavyweight then quite frankly, you ain't no Lightheavyweight.

Bivins never rated at Lightheavyweight after 1941. Jimmy was rated exclusively as a heavyweight and in the HW top ten from 1942 to 1952.

Maxim was rated in the heavyweight top ten as early as 1943 and as late as 1950.

 

I've already told you a couple of posts ago.

 

Should Charles be penalised if his opponents were nearer 180lbs while he was near the lhvy division?
Fitzie Fitzpatrick 182.5lbs Charles 174lbs
F F 173.25lbs Charles 175.75lbs

Lloyd Marshall 171.75lbs Charles 169lbs
Jimmy Bivins 184lbs Charles 170.25lbs
Joey Maxim 184lbs Charles 166lbs
Archie Moore 174lbs Charles 171lbs
A M 173 75lbs Charles 173lbs

Any other LHvy getting these results would be praised!

 

no you didn't. You seem to think Charles and his opponents were always 175 before he won the HW title.

Lesnevich was over 180, maxim was over 180 (rated at Heavyweight) and Bivins was over 180 (rated at Heavyweight).

Likewise Charles, Christafordis and Yarosz were all under 175 when they fought each other.

 

Great wins when Charles was himself within Lightheavyweight but that's how good he was, he was beating 180lb rated heavyweight Maxim and Bivins!

Maxim and Bivins were top ten heavyweight contenders since 1942.

 

Look at the weights of the fights I mentioned. The only one outside the LHW division was vs Bivins and that was because Jimmy was 3 pounds over the limit.

 

Foser's resume is too thin to compare to Charles.