Your top 10 greatest Heavyweight of all time?

Yes. What I mean by this is that I've seen reasonable arguments, given the comparative strength of the claimants between 2 and 15, for leaving any one of these other fighters at #11. This would obviously be dependent upon criteria.


So, Johnson, as is known, failed to meet the best of his era when they were ready for him. As champion his record for meeting top five contenders (by Matt Donnellon's work which as he says himself is not locked down - i think it's bloody close though) is very, very lax as champ. Johnson joins the ranks of the heavies who, for me, did not prove themselves the best of their own era.

This is very arguable, and i'm not interested in arguing it here, i'm just saying, with this perspective ranking him behind Dempsey, Wills, Holmes, Frazier, Marciano, Lennox Lewis, Tyson, Louis and Ali is fine. I think that's OK.

Similarly, you could legitimately rank Johnson at #3 (I wouldn't - but it's not the worst thing I've ever heard of) and Joe Frazier at #11. Nothing wrong with that. Look at his record versus other top ten heavies, his short prime etc. etc.

And so on.

Louis and Ali should be the top two. In my opinion, Ali is the clear #1, but there is just enough case for Joe that I can't insist upon it in the same way I insist upon the above. I'm actually, soon, going to put them under the microscope again and nail it down for my own self, but right now my top heavies are

1) Ali

2) Louis



3-10, eight from thirteen other fighters.

 

To put it another, shorter way, there is no fighter that can be left of a given poster's list to which my reaction would be "what a dummy" apart from Louis and Ali.

 

There's really nothing funny about that.

 

That's nonsense. Literally every serious source I know would regard the era as weak. That doesn't mean Wlad isn't excellent (he is) an ATG hw (he is) or that beating fighters from this era doesn't present a unique set of challenges (it does) but the era is very weak. Very little strength in depth. Most serious boxing men acknowledge that.

Asked if the heavyweight division could ever return to the "glory days" of the seventies, Freddie Roach, a modernist, answered "no."

 

Ok. Then it should be really, really easy for you to produce modernists with serious reputations - guys like, say, Emmanuel Steward, Freddie Roach, Robert Duran say, Eddie Futch, Gabriel Sarmiento, Naazim Richardson, someone of that ilk - who believe this.

Let's hear about the universally lauded boxing men who have let Ali and Louis go, who "don't put any stock in them."

According to you they are everywhere, so this should be really easy.

Is it Wilder?