Top 5 all time greatest heveyweights.

I know that this topic has been extensively debated and appreciate its difficult to compare boxers from different eras, however should someone like Tyson Fury be considered top 5? Joe Lewis is often regarded as the second best heavyweight in history but does anyone really think he would have beaten Lennox Lewis, Tyson Fury or Deontay Wilder (taken into account weight and reach advantage). Rocky Marciano is also often considered top 10 but with a reach of 170cm and weight of under 200lb surely no one would suggest that he would beat someone like Fury. Therefore what makes a top 5 all time great is it legacy or how they would compare against boxers from other eras? If the later what would your top 5 be? - - I'd start by not asking U. And it's Joe Louis, the greatest ever. Fury blubbered wif MTK fraud.

The 5 Pioneers: Jack Johnson Joe Louis Muhammad Ali Lennox Lewis Tyson Fury Ahead of their time, although Lennox & Fury were right on time. We won't see another Fury for a long time though.

I am not on board with the popular argument that Fury & Lewis beat all the heavyweights of yesteryear just because they’re taller & stronger. Bigger also means slower. More time for brain signals to travel. More mass to move & control. Bigger fists means that the punching force is spread out over a larger surface area, and hence less potent. How many of you remember when Wilder was undefeated, and fans were saying he’d KO Ali in one round? Cause I remember people saying that, and I laughed at them. My head-to-head Heavyweights list is as follows: 1. Muhammad Ali - I’m not one of the boxing fans who views Ali as a sort of god. But he was truly something special. The speed and vitriol he used when fighting off the ropes was a sight to behold (third Frazier fight being a prime example). 2. Joe Louis - In my opinion, he was everything good about Deontay Wilder as a fighter, packed into a more compact frame, blessed with quicker hands, and free of the flotsam & jetsam and questionable skills of the much larger man. Watch some of his old fights and see how fighters just go down when he lands. To borrow a Deontayism, “it’s like cutting through cheese!!” to round out my top five, we’ve got… 3. Rocky Marciano 4. Mike Tyson (prime, obviously) 5. A near tossup between Holyfield, Frazier, and Foreman. I’m going to give it to Holyfield. Honorable mentions: Lennox Lewis, Tyson Fury, and the Klitschkos cluster between #8 and #20, in that general order. If Usyk retired today, he’d be near the Klitschkos. Higher if he does more, like beating Fury.

Ali, Foreman, Louis, Lewis, Holyfield and probably the top 5 names. There's a few others who can get in there but Ali is always in. No, Tyson Fury isn't in the top 20 let alone top 5...unless you started watching boxing two years ago.

OK put prime Louis in a ring with Fury who would win? Put prime Marciano in a ring with Klitschko who would win? I know ATG is normally measured by resume but should it be? Should we instead try to compare how a Joe Louis would fare in a fight with a modern heavyweight? An all time great surely is the best ever, if we are in agreement that Louis would not beat any of the current heavyweights surely he can't be considered an ATG!

What makes a top 5 boxer or an ATG is their legacy, resume and skillset.

Fury will never be rated as an ATG due to his lack of resume, but most real boxing fans know that he's h2h one of the greatest of all time. Anyone who claims that midgets like Louis and Marciano would beat him are idiots.

Before I get slated Joe Louis not Joe Lewis.....

Fury fans are funny. They claim Wilder is trash, but want to say Fury is top 5 all time for beating a guy they consider to be garbage. Make that make sense to me because I don't understand it. As for ranking today's fighters in any weight classes, they just don't fight enough to compare to previous eras. Now I'm not saying every fighter from the past is better than all of the fighters today, but how can you compare an era in which you had to have at least 30-50 fights before contending for a title to a 6 belt era(wba and wbc bs) in which guys fight 2 or 3 times a year? Most guys will finish their career with 50 fights or less and 2 or 3 big fights on their resume. SRL his first 4 years as a pro had already fought Hearns and Duran TWICE. Boots and Ortiz have been pros for 6 years and neither have fought another top 10 fighter yet!!!!!

Ali has best resume so if he loses h2h against lennox he s still greater. If fury beats usyk and josh, he's ahead of Louis maybe?

If it's legacy then it should be the best boxer of each era, no second fiddles, then compare their legacies and there you go. If it's who will beat who, no one prior to mike tyson will make the top 50 list much less the top 5.