Top 10 Heavies from best to worst

[Mr. Ryan]

I have Liston way down on accomplishment lists, but he rises when I think of who would beat who. I have Lennox Lewis really high on both lists, because accomplishment wise he achieved a lot, and ability wise he could do everything well and his size would be too much for the likes of a lot of the smaller heavyweights.

But as big of a fan of Lewis as I am, I try to remain objective. It's easy to pick him over a lot of fighters in history because he was so much bigger and the sport has moved on so much. I too am not that impressed with Dempsey, sure I admire him and he was exciting and very original with his style, but I disagree with LRR about his boxing ability. Tunney was possibly for his time one of the greatest regarding boxing ability and as tough as they come and a very underated fighter by todays historians.

Getting back to Lennox Lewis and modern fighters, it's very difficult when trying to compare eras and even accomplishments, because there are more belts available, which means it's easier to win a version of the title and defend it against let's say, not the most deserving of a title shot.

How would Lewis fair against Dempsey and Marciano, IMO he would have made short work of both of them, but even the sizes up, and put Lewis in the same era as Dempsey with no Emanuel Steward to train him and I can quite easily see a win for Dempsey with Lewis looking a big clumsey fighter.

But they fought in the eras they fought in and were what they were and that is all we can judge them on and Lewis is top4 on accomplishments as the facts alone state it, and he beat all of his eras heavyweights and avenged both his losses, and beat everyone he ever faced. So on accomplishemnts and who would beat who he stands above Holyfield and Tyson. And surely because of his size, speed, skill and power he beats 90% of the past champions. I can see him beating all of them on his day, but the same could be said for some of the other greats, they too could beat all the others on there day. The past champions that would have posed the biggest problems to Lewis would have been Ali,Louis,Holmes and Liston. Then there are three more that would have been tricky fights. Foreman,Tyson and Frazier all would have been really dangerous. As for the rest they were great in their time, but IMO were not technically good enough or big enough to trouble Lewis.

But it is good to fantasize and I believe had there only been one champion in today's time then Lewis would have won the title the way he should of by beating Riddick Bowe. Maybe he wouldn't have made so many overall defenses as he did or won the title 3 times, but I think he had the talent to do so. I also believe had there only been one champion, then he would have fought Tyson and Holyfield much earlier in his career. Would he have been remembered even greater than he currently is, who knows.

So to sum up, I believe Lewis to be overall on everything a top4 in the history of the heavyweights, but it's my opinion and what I believe. No one can say for certain if I'm right or wrong and we all have our own thoughts on the matter. But it's great to debate and reason with like minded boxing fans.

P.S. Good luck in your career, it is something I would love to do myself. You are very lucky to be doing something you love. Forget the ones who criticize you, most are jealous. Don't take anything in the dome seriously, it's just fun. Childish fun at that, but that's one of my faults maybe. Keep your enthuism for it, is my advice as it's a great quality of yours and shines through in your articles. Keep having fun doing what you love and thanks for joining in on the thread.

Stylistically, Lewis would have blown Dempsey out. It wouldn't have been a fight. Dempsey showed that he couldn't handle a jab and was wide open for the right hand. I can think of better qualities to enter a fight with Lennox Lewis than that.

Tunney's issue was that he didn't make noise with the press. He never was able to gain the respect of the newspapers because they interpreted his worldliness and intellect as weakness. We saw this to an extent with Lennox Lewis and how people perceived his British gentleman mannerisms as making him a less ferocious being than a Mike Tyson. Back on subject, Tunney was a wonderfully skilled fighter with excellent fundamentals, but his lack of post-Dempsey fights and that he may have been "too" perfect hurts him. America loves flawed people, Tunney lacked sufficient flaw to endear himself to people at that time.

As for Marciano, it's hard to imagine him beating Lewis given his lack of size. But let's pretend he was Tyson's size, could he have given Lewis trouble? I think so because he put pressure on you and stayed low. If you stay low against a tall fighter, yo make him reach down to come get you. Marciano was smarter than some people give him credit for. He could set traps, go to the body and generally rattle an opponent's cage. I'd say he would give Lewis trouble, similar to the way Mercer gave Lewis trouble, but he probably wouldn't beat him.

On the last part, it was my pleasure to join in the discussion and thank you for the kind words.

[Mr. Ryan]

** That's fine kid, but Povetkin a modern Dempsey type style is only an average puncher and a top contender now.

If Ali didn't have the fast feet, his lack of skills would have left him an open target. At the end of the day, they can't help but be what they were.

I've certainly seen many more very unimpressive Ali bouts than Dempsey bouts. One shudders to think what moderns would think about Ali if all they had was Norton 1/2, Young, Cooper 1, and Spinks1/2 to look at.

Watch what happens when they put Povetkin in with Klitschko and we'll see how well that style helps him.

You mention Young and the Spinks fights, but do you give Ali any allowances for his age? Ali fought all of those fights after 34 and was faded badly after the third Frazier fight. That same Jimmy Young went on to beat George Foreman a year later, BTW.

As far as Cooper, you get caught sometimes. True Dundee gave his fighter an unfair advantage with the cut glove, but Ali came back on his own accord and stopped him in the next round. He also stopped him in a rematch.

We only have the fights after 1919 to look at Dempsey, and what you had was a lot of mauling and an inability to stop a standard 1-2. There was a lot of power-punching and a nice left hook thrown in there too, but to say "I've certainly seen many more very unimpressive Ali bouts than Dempsey bouts" doesn't paint a clear picture given that Dempsey only had 10 fights after becoming champ.

[LondonRingRules]

Watch what happens when they put Povetkin in with Klitschko and we'll see how well that style helps him.

You mention Young and the Spinks fights, but do you give Ali any allowances for his age? Ali fought all of those fights after 34 and was faded badly after the third Frazier fight. That same Jimmy Young went on to beat George Foreman a year later, BTW.

** Povetkin only an average heavy contender in the Dempsey style. He's well overmatched in talent, size, strength, and experience against Wlad. It's like matching the Ali styled Greg Page against Wlad. Povetkin and Page lack the superior natural attributes and talents of Dempsey and Ali.

Ali is credited with a vast number of title fights, many of which he won in controversies. Those are fair game for criticism since he is often held to be unbeatable, yet was showing he was very beatable all through his career, some major lapses.

It was your claim that Ali possessed great skills and that Dempsey was unskilled that prompted my reply. You got the skill aspect reversed and if you read the dozens of Ali bios, that is the consensus. He was a natural talent nurtured by Dundee, not honed in learned skills. When Dempsey and Tunney fought, that was one of the highest skill level and natural attributes heavy contests in history, on the level of Corbett/Jackson.

[mcentepede]

Asain Hurricane had a pretty good list...and is explanations were spot on, resembles mine and the only weak point in his list was that Dempsey was too high. Yeah he was popular and stuff...but if I remember the biography, he couldn't even beat Gene Toony, who boxed circles around him every time they show the fight on t.v. Dempsey was brutish and wild, and couldn't even handle some of the guys from his own era (Toony). Holmes was overrated big time because he beat Ali and was ugly. But many of the fighters he beat would have an alphabet belt by today's standards. Also Foreman is up there too, he was stopped only once in 70 fights, by Ali and more due to exhaustion than being beaten up. If he got in shape, I say he wins a belt next week.

[mcentepede]

Typo...I meant Holmes was under-rated of course. He is 3 or 4 of my best Heavies of all time.

[Mike Tyson77]

UNDISPUTED

[Scoooter]

M. Ali
J. Louis
J. Johnson
G. Foreman
L. Holmes
L. Lewis
J. Frazier
R. Marciano
J. Dempsey
E. Holyfield? Tunney? Jeffries? Liston? Patterson?

Damn, this list gets hazy fast. All the names are there, but the order is tricky...

[-CANE-]

M. Ali
J. Louis
J. Johnson
G. Foreman
L. Holmes
L. Lewis
J. Frazier
R. Marciano
J. Dempsey
E. Holyfield? Tunney? Jeffries? Liston? Patterson?

Damn, this list gets hazy fast. All the names are there, but the order is tricky...

Thanks, it's a very subjective thing. The reason peoples list differ so much is the criteria used. Do you base it on ability, who would beat who or achievments or do you use all 3. Personally I have different lists and on my achievments list I score the fighters in different categories. 5 points for each year reigned, 5 points for every succesful defense, 10 points for each time they won the title and you can go on such as 2 points for every year from the first title win to the next.

Try doing something like that yourselves by setting up a spreadsheet which is what I did. Once you have done your achievment list you can then build it up by giving them ability ratings in whatever categories you choose such as speed, power, ring generalship etc. You can then even break that down into punches such as jab, uppercut etc. I did this as well giving a rating out of 100 for each. I also then added Quality of Opposition and Impact on the sport.

[randy johnson]

Why do people keep putting people like Marciano and Ezzard Charles as heavyweights when one was a natural middleweight and the other was either a slightly bigger than average light heavyweight or a small cruiserweight.Why not put Marvin Hagler on this list or Bob Foster?I don't how Joe Louis gets on any list either.Who the hell did he fight....how many heavyweights the size of Foreman,Lewis, or Bowe did he fight?How many fighters like Tyson did he fight?Because he beat up alot of bums back in the day that makes him special now?Do you know how many real heavyweights would have 20 plus title defenses if they fought the same level of trash Louis fought?Do you know many 200 plus pound heavyweights could go undefeated if they beat the losers Marciano beat?

[StarshipTrooper]

Why do people keep putting people like Marciano and Ezzard Charles as heavyweights when one was a natural middleweight and the other was either a slightly bigger than average light heavyweight or a small cruiserweight.Why not put Marvin Hagler on this list or Bob Foster?I don't how Joe Louis gets on any list either.Who the hell did he fight....how many heavyweights the size of Foreman,Lewis, or Bowe did he fight?How many fighters like Tyson did he fight?Because he beat up alot of bums back in the day that makes him special now?Do you know how many real heavyweights would have 20 plus title defenses if they fought the same level of trash Louis fought?Do you know many 200 plus pound heavyweights could go undefeated if they beat the losers Marciano beat?

Even though I'm sure this is an alt acting like a troll I'll respond to this nitwit even though it's really beneath any serious poster to give him the time of day.

There's a reason why I have a cesspool called "The Ignore Bin": It's because of ignorant, moronic, short-bus riding ******s who make posts like this. SO! Into the bin this mongoloid goes.

Poet