Your Top5 Heavy Contenders FromThe 50's?

Idk goes by career total as a whole or when at peak best who was best are two different animals even if most good wins are 50s or 60s or 40s we still know whom the better fighter is.
1. Archie
2.Harold Johnson
3. Zora Folley
4. Eddie Machen
5. Rex Layne (and yes it was a tough one between him and Nino)...Rex has the best win of all of them and that’s a win over Walcott as well as Satterfield and Charles if it’s career as a whole Laynes second act of his career was dreadful which lowered his standing.
I’m assuming in this thread to also leave off Liston Patterson Ingo (champs).

 

I would like to add the stark differences between these men and the ones that fight today. They may not have had the size cough steroids cough but at the least they had the balls to fight each other and fight each other often. I doubt any contender in the last ten years has those kind of resumes. And those are just there wins

 

Elmer Rays quantity might not be as good as some of the names mentioned, but down to sheer quality I think he makes the list

 

Moore is first.

Then the rest is close. Henry at his best, which did not last long could be #2 Rocky pretty much fought the best of his times. Vales would have been nice, but he wasn't the #1 contender for a long enough time to be considered a duck.

 

Liston. He wasn't champ until 62, meaning he was a contender in 50s.

He mops the floor with everybody named in this thread.

 

In terms of h2h ability or resume?

Either way #1 is Archie Moore. Might take Machen next, then Layne, then Henry, then Folley.

 

He retired in 49 sadly

 

I assumed he meant to leave off Liston, Ingo, Patterson among wirh Marciano Charles Walcott and Louis...otherwise a much different list

 

I went with Moore, Baker, Valdes, Folley and Machen in no apparent order.

 

holy smokes my bad, my mind went off on a tangent and cocked that one up lol

 

except Liston didn’t score any key top ten wins until 1960.

he was certainly an outstanding and logical contender by 1961.Harris, Foley and Machen were what really established him.

 

Williams and Valdes not good enough for you?

 

No. Valdes was a dead man walking. I am surprised how highly thought of he was because he actually lost a lot more fights than many of the other best contenders of that decade. 14 times he lost while he was ranked.

And don’t get me started again on Williams. He’s more famous for being shot by a policeman than anything he actually did in a ring before being knocked out by Liston.