Lennox Lewis and the KLITCHKO BROTHERS are top 3 heavyweights of all time

[StarshipTrooper]

Liston never claimed this. He always said that the fault was Jersey Joe Walcott's refereeing and that he was ready to go on when the fight was stopped.

Sonny cleared his throat, sat up and began talking like a man who is discussing a painful subject for the absolute last time. "Clay caught me cold and the count was messed up, and that's all they was to it," he said. "Clay knocked me down with a good punch. Anybody can get caught cold in the first round, before you even work up a sweat. And when I was down, Clay stood right over me. No, I never blacked out, not for a second. But I wasn't gonna get up, either, not with him standin' over me. See, you can't get up without puttin' one hand on the floor, and so I couldn't protect myself, and he can hit me on the way up.

"So there was Walcott [Referee Jersey Joe Walcott] and Clay wrasslin' over me and Walcott finally got him to a corner or somethin', and then I got up and Clay come back and we started back to fightin' again.

"And Nat Fletcher [ Nat Fleischer, editor of The Ring Magazine] began wavin' his arms at ringside and Walcott stopped the fight. Nowadays Nat Fletcher says he was just callin' Walcott over to tell him that the timekeeper wanted to see him or somethin', but other people says it was Nat Fletcher stopped the fight.

"I was never counted out. I coulda got up even right after I was hit. And I still felt pretty good when I did get up. I mean I could still go on. What Walcott shoulda done, he shoulda sent Cassius to a neutral corner. When the referees call you out in the center of the ring before a fight, they tells you that: go to a neutral corner. And that's when they count you out, not with no fighter standin' right over you.

"They shouldn't have fighters refereein' no fights no way," Sonny added, now back in his horizontal position. "They should have people that don't get excited."

http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.c...66/6/index.htm

Great post, as always!

Poet

[knn]

I don't understand the logic of this KNN chick. So because the cruiserweight limit is 200lbs today that means that heavyweights from past eras never existed? What weight class were they fighting in?

Winning against a sub-200 opponent counts as cruiser win. What's so hard to understand? Who cares how it has been called once? 192lbs is 192lbs. Joe Louis was a good cruiser. Sonny Liston has been a mediocre cruiser.

Actually I am pretty merciful here, because heavies whose weight is approx at the lower limit (200-210) usually don't box as heavies but as cruisers. Thus you could make an argument to count everything below 210 or so as cruiser fight. A lot of David Haye's opponents were like this: Around 199lbs at weigh-in and 210+ at fight night. No heavy who weighs 210 would engage in a fight against Klitschko. Instead they sweat off some pounds and then fight another cruiser.

Deleting sub-215 fights off Ali's record would merely leave 11 fights (and only 3 KOs in rounds 1-12) in Ali's record. That's approx. Ali's record if you want to compare it to nowadays heavies.

Records in 215+ fights (both fighters 215+lbs):
Ali: 10-1 (3 KOs)
Frazier: 1-2 (1 KO)
Lennox: 34-2 (27 KOs)
Joe Louis: 0
Holyfield: 10-4 (3 KOs)
Holmes: 20-3 (7 KOs)
Wlad: 46-3 (41 KOs)
Sonny Liston: 4-0 (4 KOs)
Foreman: 34-3 (29 KOs)
Tyson: 33-6 (28 KOs)
Ezzard Charles: 0
Archie Moore: 0
Mercer: 20-6 (14 KOs)

The last 7 win-opponents of Wlad
Chagaev: 20-1 (12 KOs)
Tony Tompson: 30-2 (19 KOs)
Hasim Rahman: 35-6 (28 KOs)
Ibragimov: 13-1 (10 KOs)
Lamon Brewster: 25-4 (22 KOs)
Ray Austin: 24-3 (16 KOs)
Calvin Brock: 23-1 (17 KOs)

The last 7 win-opponents of Ali:
Spinks: 3-2 (1 KO)
Shavers: 4-1 (3 KOs)
Evangelista: 7-3 (3 KOs)
Ken Norton: 5-2 (4 KOs)
Dunn: 1-0 (0 KOs)
Young: 2-3 (1 KO)
Coopman: 2-0 (0 KOs)

Shows you approx. where Ali would be if there would be a superheavyweight division (215+). Already prepare yourself for the establishment of such a division (just like at MMA). I sincerely hope they actually name it SUPERheavyweight or so, so that people will finally stop to even TRY to compare Ali to Klitschko or Marciano to Tyson.

If someone started to compare Ali to Klitschko then I just could say "Ali wasn't superheavyweight, but a division below" and that would be the end of it.

Basically all opponents of Ali (like Norton 205lbs or featherfist Frazier 205lbs) would fight as cruisers nowadays. Or they would be examples of "how the division sucks".

Only 2 opponents of Ali never boxed below 210lbs in their careers: Foreman and Mathis. Thus all (except these 2) of Ali's wins are against cruisers, former cruisers or would-be-nowadays-cruisers.

[T.Horton]

Winning against a sub-200 opponent counts as cruiser win. What's so hard to understand? Who cares how it has been called once? 192lbs is 192lbs. Joe Louis was a good cruiser.

How ****** are you? Who are you to change the rules that have been in place for more than one hundred years. They all fought heavyweight fighters and all the fighters that you mention are heavies - end of.

And you cry about revisionism.

[fdotorres]

stop posting this kind of **** here and spend that time on burning those 400 fat pounds you got

[knn]

How ****** are you? Who are you to change the rules that have been in place for more than one hundred years. They all fought heavyweight fighters and all the fighters that you mention are heavies - end of.

I don't change any rules. Who cares whether they CALLED a 150lbs fight "superheavyweight" in the medieval ages. 150 is 150 NO MATTER HOW YOU CALL IT. That is the main reason for the delusion that Marciano would have any chances against a heavyweight nowadays: Because he has been CALLED a "heavyweight" ONCE.

If you are unhappy about calling former-heavyweight-fights "cruiserweight" then let's simply call them "sub-200 fights". No big deal.

Terms like "Heavyweight" are TEMPORARY definitions: The boxing organizations change the definitions every few years. Thus you cannot go by the terms, you have to go by the weights instead.

Klitschko cannot say "Well, 175lbs was called heavyweight once, so I line up 20x 175lbs opponents and KO all of them and I will have the best record of all fighters". If he would fight sub-200 fighters (like Ali) then everybody would complain about the terrible state of the division.

MOREOVER (what is even more important): You suddenly upgrade a fighter's record to heavyweight JUST BECAUSE HE GETS FATTER. Just take James Toney: He is now a heavyweight with a record of 71-6. BUT OF COURSE HE DIDN'T HAVE 71 wins in heavyweight fights. It's quite something different to win against 71 heavyweight opponents than to win against fighters like Esteven (150+) or Joe Johnson (who boxed at 130+). Toney's heavyweight record is 6-2 (1 KO) = this is approx. his real value as a heavyweight. The full record (71-6) is only important if you want to assess a fighters experience, and whether he is a bum. Or for p4p rankings.

You know exactly how fans cry out nowadays "David Haye is a nobody at heavyweight" yet he is exactly like cruiser-fighter Frazier.

[T.Horton]

I don't change any rules. Who cares whether they CALLED a 150lbs fight "superheavyweight" in the medieval ages. 150 is 150 NO MATTER HOW YOU CALL IT. That is the main reason for the delusion that Marciano would have any chances against a heavyweight nowadays: Because he has been CALLED a "heavyweight" ONCE.

If you are unhappy about calling former-heavyweight-fights "cruiserweight" then let's simply call them "sub-200 fights". No big deal. Otherwise a heavyweight would always be a heavyweight although the boxing organizations change the definitions every few years.

Klitschko cannot say "Well, 175lbs was called heavyweight once, so I line up 20x 175lbs opponents and KO all of them and I will have the best record of all fighters". If he would fight sub-200 fighters (like Ali) then everybody would complain about the terrible state of the division.

MOREOVER (what is even more important): You suddenly upgrade a fighter's record to heavyweight JUST BECAUSE HE GETS FATTER. Just take James Toney: He is now a heavyweight with a record of 71-6. BUT OF COURSE HE DIDN'T HAVE 71 wins in heavyweight fights. It's quite something different to win against 71 heavyweight opponents than to win against fighters like Esteven (150+) or Joe Johnson (who boxed at 130+). Toney's heavyweight record is 6-2 (1 KO) = this is approx. his real value as a heavyweight. The full record (71-6) is only important if you want to assess a fighters experience, and whether he is a bum. Or for p4p rankings.

You know exactly how fans cry out nowadays "David Haye is a nobody at heavyweight" yet he is exactly like cruiser-fighter Frazier.

how ****ing warped.

[StarshipTrooper]

how ****ing warped.

Don't you love his reasoning? 70s Heavyweight division is "terrible" because the fighters weighed less than 225 pounds. To take that to it's logical conclusion then ANY fight where the participants weigh less than 225 is "terrible" by his reasoning. So, Hagler Vs. Hearns was a "terrible" fight, after all since it was a Middleweight fight and Middleweight is obviously less than 225. Chavez Vs. Taylor must also be "terrible". In fact, all weight classes from Light-Heavy to Fly are "terrible" according to knn. So what it REALLY boils down to is boxing's "watchability" is in direct proportion to the weight of the participants. So sad.

Poet

[knn]

how ****ing warped.

You know you got owned if your reply consists only of swearwords and smilies.

[GJC]

How ****** are you? Who are you to change the rules that have been in place for more than one hundred years. They all fought heavyweight fighters and all the fighters that you mention are heavies - end of.

And you cry about revisionism.

Totally agree, isn't there a phrase, if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck and looks like a duck, its a duck.

[knn]

Don't you love his reasoning? 70s Heavyweight division is "terrible" because the fighters weighed less than 225 pounds. To take that to it's logical conclusion then ANY fight where the participants weigh less than 225 is "terrible" by his reasoning. So, Hagler Vs. Hearns was a "terrible" fight, after all since it was a Middleweight fight and Middleweight is obviously less than 225. Chavez Vs. Taylor must also be "terrible". In fact, all weight classes from Light-Heavy to Fly are "terrible" according to knn. So what it REALLY boils down to is boxing's "watchability" is in direct proportion to the weight of the participants. So sad.

Pinky Poet found a new hobby: Rebutting statements he himself invented. Do you have friends, Pinky? Is there a life without medication, Pinky?