Redefined Greatest Heavyweight Ever List

[M Bison]

Let me assure you that I personally watched enough fights of the so called "golden age of heavyweight boxing" (the 1960s and 1970s) to be UTTERLY UNIMPRESSED.

Those boxers were NOTHING SPECIAL.

The greatness of heavyweights of the 1960s and 1970s is an ILLUSION FABRICATED by the iconization industry, fame factory, mythology mill of the USA in the 1960s and 1970s the lack of global competition (the Soviet bloc was FORBIDDEN to box professionally)

The heavyweight boxing of the "golden age" was mainly a local contest comparable to the European heavyweight title (EBU) nowadays. All the achievements in those times are either pretty worthless or at least highly doubtful.

The golden boys had far less power than modern American boxers, they were much slower, they were less muscular and athletic than modern boxers.

There is NOTHING remotely impressive about these "golden boys". It's 90% hype and 10% truth.

In fact you could take nearly all of the myths of the good-old-time fetishists and expose them for what they are: Ridiculous exaggerations. Whether it's Sonny Liston's supposedly "phenomenal jab" or "Muhammad Ali's reflexes" or whatever… it's all lies or blatant exaggerations.

Sonny Liston's jab was one of the slowest you'd ever see. Ali's reflexes are non-existent (he gets hit even by the slowest punches). It's all mythology.

Half of Klitschkos opponents would have ruled the 1970s. Sam Peter would be undisputed world champ. Chris Arreola, too. Tony Thompson would an be awe inducing giant. Eddie Chambers and David Haye would be the fastest boxers the world has ever seen. Just to name a few random boxers off the top of my head from recent times.

I would like to hear some of the JUSTIFICATIONS for some of these toplists compiled! That would be more worthy than the worthless compilations of them which contain boxers who either have no business being on a HW toplist, or a toplist at all!

You know damn well that you wont hear any reason on why those fighters you mentioned wont stand a chance the typical response of the brainwashed fan would just be "Hahahahaha are you serious" or possibly some insult without anything because the social norm of boxing 'historians' seems to be you can't question anything from 40 to 70 years ago.

There is no reason behind it, I think a lot of fans who follow the history of boxing build their opinion off of these so called historians of boxing, all I ask of these people wanting to follow boxing from the past is for them to make up their own opinion.
Watch the fights yourself, decide for yourself and for god sake make your own opinion!

Its like having the MLS and having a good couple of footballers in that league and all of sudden turning around and saying that this league is clearly the best ever knowing fine well that your team doesn't compete in any of the major footballing event AKA Champions league or Europa league, so it can't be tested.
That's the same thing with boxing back then, it wasn't as popular as it is now.

I stand by and say guys like Ali, Louis, Frazier, Norton, Willie Pep and so and so on have played a vital role on making this sport as popular as it is but to say they would dominate anyone from any era is just absolute nonsense.
Some would come into an era and do the business but it'd be a lot more competitive to what they're use to that is just the facts.

[Elroy1]

It wont allow me to give you anymore green K yet Cyclone..

But it's definitely warranted!

[GhostBlade]

I think Holyfield should be ahead of Foreman.

[daggum]

why isn't pulev on the list?

[Greg House]

Well, there are quite a few videos of Jack Johnson's fights, but my reasoning for ranking him highly is a mix of resume, skills, longevity, out of the ring persona et al.

He was a great champion and a good man.

Yeah, because that's so important in these kind of lists...

[Greg House]

Shocking list.

But the reason I commented was because of the ridiculous statement above.

Marciano and Dempsey had determination and 2 handed power so could beat anyone?

Marciano and Dempsey have not 1 single decent real HW win, let alone a KO of one, between them.

They could barely even box, just maulers.

And they are not even real HW's.

They are cruisers or sub-cruisers and cannot be compared at all to what we today call "HW".

Were any professional HW boxer somehow be allowed to face such a boxer as Marciano or Dempsey, they would knock them straight out, and walk through their punches as if it was a pillow fight.

And for all your self-promotion as a great trainer and evaluater, you actually include such boxers on a HW toplist?

Utter fool!

He is right about this. A LOT people are biased with this subject about old timers but not with current fighters.

When Cunningham moved up in weight after reigning the cruiserweight division for years, he faced Tyson Fury and got stopped and many people here were dismissive about the credibility of that fight being a "good victory" because Steve was "only a cruiserweight" and not a "real heavyweight".

Also when Vitaly destroyed Adamek I believe it was Larry Merchant or someone like that who complained about the fight and said something like: "Cruiserweight Vs Super Heavyweight, of course he had no chance"

But when we talk about these old timers, from the black and white era that weighed around 180 pounds, we are supposed to believe that they would be able to beat Lewis or K bros? You people are delusional. They were just people, not superheroes.

Also Andre Ward is the P4P Nº2 in the world and also rehidrates himself on fight night to the same weight that those lightheavyweights from the past. How many of you think that he could beat Lebedev or Huck by clinching and bulling them to a decision? Somehow I don't think many of you would consider him a favourite in those fights. And that's just cruiserweight, we are not even touching heavyweight. Size matters in boxing, that's why we have 17 divisions!

In the past, a lot of lightheavyweights moved up in boxing and manage to get into the top 10 heavyweights in the ring magazine rankings. Some of them weren't really that successful at their original divisions (they weren't special on a pound for pound level) but they managed to get into those rankings anyway. How many people here think that Andre Ward (P4P Nº2 in the world) could pull that one off in these day and era? Suddenly the "weak" heavyweight division doesn't look that weak ...

[Elroy1]

Thanks for that well thought out observation Greg House.

I am glad you touched on that point too about modern limit division fighters rehydrating and putting on before the actual fight too.

When we see olden days HW's that were CW sized, that's exactly how big they were at fight night.

When we see a CW fight like Mormeck vs Bell for instance, they only need to make 200lbs at weigh in. In terms of the actual event itself they often weigh 210, to 215lbs, about the same weight as Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali except much more athletic and leaner!

The modern Cruiserweights would not only be considered HW's back in those days, on fight night they ARE HW's even in OUR times!

Expressing even further why many of these boxers should rightfully be compared with the contemporary Cruisers as well.

When we do this we can see modern CW's are much faster, much stronger, much more athletic.

Of course a modern superheavyweight boxer is going to appear to have a lower workrate, a more challenging stamina, to be slower on average, to have less fights, they don't even play in the same league!

[LacedUp]

Yeah, because that's so important in these kind of lists...

I should have phrased that differently. I obviously don't mean how nice he was as a person, but rather what he did as a person for black people etc.

[Elroy1]

I should have phrased that differently. I obviously don't mean how nice he was as a person, but rather what he did as a person for black people etc.

Laced Up let's say you are right about Muhammad Ali with our conversation the other night and he was a great person who did lots of good things for people etc right...

I think what Greg House is saying is that ANY out of ring considerations have no bearing on where they should rank on a boxing toplist.

And that's a no brainer. It's a toplist for "boxing performance" not for the quality of any of their entrepreneurial skills or anything but what happens in the ring!

[kiDynamite92]

This is my head to head greatest heavyweights list.

1. Muhammmad Ali
2. Joe Louis
3. George Foreman
4. Larry Holmes
5. Jack Johnson
6. Sonny Liston
7. Joe Frazier
8. Mike Tyson
9. Evander Holyfield
10. Lennox Lewis