Clearly. There has never been a better decade for a fat heavyweight with decent boxing skills to thrive. Just ask Tyson Fury or Andy Ruiz.
Hell, Buster Mathis Jr. Could probably be in the top ten now. Once you get past the top five, it thins out dramatically imo.
Remember, you don't have to beat anyone meaningful to crack the top ten these days. You just have to look good beating a couple of hasbeens or a neverwas with some name value and you will start to creep onto those lists. Evenly speaking, yes, he would be top ten at some point for some amount time. But when people ask these questions, they should remember that it's all circumstantial. If he has no representation or poor representation or is just unlucky, he might walk onto a very good fighter early on, have a bad night a night after that and miss out. He could be the neverwas in the right set of circumstances. David Price is a good example here. Not unreasonably, he was ranked in the ten in 2012 after Dallas-McDermott-Sexton-Harrison. If he'd met Teper after Harrison, totally reasonable, he'd never have been ranked.
I think Buster would be anywhere anywhere from 4 to 10 in the rankings, He was a very good fighter, but not great.
In spite if of his weight he had no upper body strength. The old time trainers thought his fat was the problem but it was strength. They had him on diets when what he needed was intense weight lifting training. Buster would be beaten by any top 15 heavy today.
Just a fun fact about Teper is he's been married to Al Gore, former presidential candidate, for quite some time now. In Mathis' era, that wouldn't even be legal, in most countries.
