The Ten Greatest Heavyweight Championship Clashes

[K-DOGG]

we'll have to disagree:

i see your point on thrilla, and yes it probably lacked the "anticipation" factor. But was it less anticipated than louis-conn or norton-holmes?

louis-schmeling... my point stays: great build up, a world on the edge of WW2, but still... KO1, its just beyond me... i mean can you imagine telling a friend about the build up of the fight (or showing him a doc), then you put on the fight...
and it's 2 mins of domination.

Holyfield-Bowe, Louis-Conn, Norton-Holmes... i see your points but I would still rank the first higher than the latter (norton and conn were probably more of underdogs) (this is just an unresolvable matter of taste, of how you and i weight the criteria mentioned)

From this post it seems like i might think louis-conn and norton-holmes were so-so fights. NOT THE CASE!!!

anyway your list spawned a civilized debate in NSB, how did you do that?!?!

Heh, heh...Fair enough.

Norton was favoured to beat Holmes, btw; but okay, okay. We'll agree to disagree.

As far as civilized debate...well, there are some quality posters on here and they deserve the credit.

[badblood]

I loved the Cooney/Norton fight.

[CaLLaHaN]

i think its a good list

[AJ53]

good article k-dogg!

i think you summed it all up with this paragraph;-

When comprising any list, regardless of context, one must pay attention to the most minute details in order to assure the highest degree of accuracy possible. This is both an exhilarating and torturing task for those of us who enjoy such endeavors. I know, because of the headaches this particular compilation has caused me as I used and abused every thread of logic that I possess in search for the perfect order of these monumental clashes. In the end, I came to the sad realization that no matter what order in which they fell, there is no way in hell everyone who reads it is going to say, “Yeah, that’s pretty much the way they line up.”

altough i would place baer-braddock in the top ten personally, rather than holyfield moorer which i think was more about one lucky punch.
i cant disagree with your choices as you have explained your reasons for picking them very well.

altough it seems to be the most controversial on the list i totally agree with louis-schmeling 2 being no1.
altough the first fight in 36 is probably more remembered as louis's first setback on his road to greatness.
schmeling comprehensively beat louis with a great gameplan after studying videos of joes fights which was not really heard of at the time.
add to that the fact that the legendary jack johnson was also helping schmeling to plan the perfect way to to fight the brown bomber.
a prime louis wasnt just beaten but ko'd for the only time in his prime,
remember it was 15 years later that a washed up broke louis was stopped in 8 by marciano.
then fast forward to the 22nd june 1938...
the world is on the outbreak of war!!
schmeling is cast (unwillingly) as hitlers golden boy of the aryyan race fighting a black world champion who he had previously destroyed.
joe louis is the heavyweight champion of the world who has millions of people around the world willing him to put a spanner in hitlers propoganda,
against a fighter who had previously schooled him in the ring.

this wasnt just a boxing match it was us against them, good versus evil, right against wrong.
it was a stand-off.
which if louis was beaten would of given hitler more bragging rights to his march for supremacy,
against a world which was trying to say no!!! we are still here and we will match you all the way!!
joe louis had the weight of the world and it's brother on his shoulders going into this fight and i'm sure there must have been some doubt in his mind after the first matchup.
the fact that louis blow him out in 1 round probably adds weight to the fight being no1!!
the world put it's faith in joe louis and he delivered in startling fashion,
at a time when black america was seen as a second race joe louis stood up and was placed in imortallity forever.

peolple say that ali was the man who paved the future by making a stand,
and to his credit he did!!!

but imho if you take away louis - schmeling 2 the public may never have accepted ali's stance.
in less than 3 minutes joe louis gave hope to more people around the globe than any other boxer before or after ever did.

[K-DOGG]

good article k-dogg!

i think you summed it all up with this paragraph;-

When comprising any list, regardless of context, one must pay attention to the most minute details in order to assure the highest degree of accuracy possible. This is both an exhilarating and torturing task for those of us who enjoy such endeavors. I know, because of the headaches this particular compilation has caused me as I used and abused every thread of logic that I possess in search for the perfect order of these monumental clashes. In the end, I came to the sad realization that no matter what order in which they fell, there is no way in hell everyone who reads it is going to say, “Yeah, that’s pretty much the way they line up.”

altough i would place baer-braddock in the top ten personally, rather than holyfield moorer which i think was more about one lucky punch.
i cant disagree with your choices as you have explained your reasons for picking them very well.

altough it seems to be the most controversial on the list i totally agree with louis-schmeling 2 being no1.
altough the first fight in 36 is probably more remembered as louis's first setback on his road to greatness.
schmeling comprehensively beat louis with a great gameplan after studying videos of joes fights which was not really heard of at the time.
add to that the fact that the legendary jack johnson was also helping schmeling to plan the perfect way to to fight the brown bomber.
a prime louis wasnt just beaten but ko'd for the only time in his prime,
remember it was 15 years later that a washed up broke louis was stopped in 8 by marciano.
then fast forward to the 22nd june 1938...
the world is on the outbreak of war!!
schmeling is cast (unwillingly) as hitlers golden boy of the aryyan race fighting a black world champion who he had previously destroyed.
joe louis is the heavyweight champion of the world who has millions of people around the world willing him to put a spanner in hitlers propoganda,
against a fighter who had previously schooled him in the ring.

this wasnt just a boxing match it was us against them, good versus evil, right against wrong.
it was a stand-off.
which if louis was beaten would of given hitler more bragging rights to his march for supremacy,
against a world which was trying to say no!!! we are still here and we will match you all the way!!
joe louis had the weight of the world and it's brother on his shoulders going into this fight and i'm sure there must have been some doubt in his mind after the first matchup.
the fact that louis blow him out in 1 round probably adds weight to the fight being no1!!
the world put it's faith in joe louis and he delivered in startling fashion,
at a time when black america was seen as a second race joe louis stood up and was placed in imortallity forever.

peolple say that ali was the man who paved the future by making a stand,
and to his credit he did!!!

but imho if you take away louis - schmeling 2 the public may never have accepted ali's stance.
in less than 3 minutes joe louis gave hope to more people around the globe than any other boxer before or after ever did.

Thank you. I truly appreciate your kind words and your stirring analysis of the importance of Louis-Schmeling II.

[wmute]

Heh, heh...Fair enough.

Norton was favoured to beat Holmes, btw; but okay, okay. We'll agree to disagree.

As far as civilized debate...well, there are some quality posters on here and they deserve the credit.

that i did not know and i would never have guessed. so Holmes was the underdog? were the odds close at least?

(there is plenty of quality posters here, but usually the debate is dominated by e-thugs, maybe the historical content kept away their insults, :Pwned smileys, and CAPS...)

[K-DOGG]

that i did not know and i would never have guessed. so Holmes was the underdog? were the odds close at least?

(there is plenty of quality posters here, but usually the debate is dominated by e-thugs, maybe the historical content kept away their insults, :Pwned smileys, and CAPS...)

I honestly don't remember the exact odds; but you must remember this was Holmes before Norton, before Cooney, before he was a known commodity. He had fought one quality heavyweight before Norton, Earnie Shavers; and Howard Cosell, while calling the fight, admitted that he never thought Holmes could be "this class" of a fighter. Holmes had been stopped by Bobbick, I believe, in the 1972 Olympic trials and was fighting a bunch of nobodies on the way up. He wasn't considered "the heir apparent" by any means.

[hemichromis]

holyfield-bowe at 7?

a 1-sided 1-rounder at 1?

no thrilla in manila?

I cant find an answer to the above questions that is not offensive to the author

becuase louis had lost to schemling
because schemling was german
because of the world war

historically it was one of the biggest even if schemling was little challenge

frasier and alis first fight was their best!

[Yogi]

I tried looking back into the news archives to see if I could find the odds entering the Holmes/Norton, but my search came up empty besides some prefight comments like "Norton-Holmes expected to be close" and comments of that nature...And although Holmes had a helluva performance against Shavers the first time around in his 'coming out party' sort of thing (that may have been Holmes' best performance of his career), based on Norton's performances in recent fights and his standing in the division, it would kind of make sense that Norton was the slight betting favourite entering that fight.

[K-DOGG]

I tried looking back into the news archives to see if I could find the odds entering the Holmes/Norton, but my search came up empty besides some prefight comments like "Norton-Holmes expected to be close" and comments of that nature...And although Holmes had a helluva performance against Shavers the first time around in his 'coming out party' sort of thing (that may have been Holmes' best performance of his career), based on Norton's performances in recent fights and his standing in the division, it would kind of make sense that Norton was the slight betting favourite entering that fight.

Thank you for the effort, bro....and that's pretty much my line of thinking.

Several believed that Norton deserved the nod in the third Ali fight in 1976. After that fight, Norton racked up wins over the young contender Duane Bobick and also beat Jimmy Young, who had also lost a controversial decision to Ali as well as upset the Top ranked George Foreman.

Holmes, if memory serves me correctly, wasn't highly touted at all. It took him years of championship defenses before people stopped referring to him as Ali's former sparring partner.