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'The Greatest’ is the greatest
By Thomas Hauser
Muhammad Ali is the No1 HW of all time, according to a poll of 30 experts
In the past, I’ve overseen fantasy round-robin tournaments in various weight divisions that matched great fighters from different eras against each other with the results of each fight being predicted by a panel of boxing industry experts.
The heavyweight division doesn’t lend itself to this format. The size differential between fighters from different eras is too great. To draw an analogy to another sport, some of pro football’s greatest lineman from the past weighed 240 pounds. They’d be thrown around like rag dolls today. But they were great.
Also, previous polls in this series were limited to fighters from boxing’s modern age (roughly 1940 to date). That’s because there wasn’t enough film footage of fighters from earlier eras to properly evaluate how they’d perform against one another and also because boxing technique has evolved considerably since the days of Joe Gans.
To offer another analogy: Babe Ruth is widely regarded as the greatest baseball player who ever lived and, with the possible exception of Ted Williams, baseball’s greatest hitter. But if Ruth had been forced to contend with sliders, cutters, screwballs, forkballs, two-seam fastballs, four-seam fastballs and the like, he might have been less dominating.
This heavyweight poll has different criteria from previous exercises. Rather than match champions against each other in a round-robin tournament, the electors were asked to rank them in order of greatness. This is more than who would have beaten who. Other considerations are involved.
The poll evaluated 20 champions dating back to the dawn of gloved heavyweight championship fights. The fighters, listed chronologically, are John L. Sulllivan, James Corbett, Bob Fitzsimmons, James Jeffries, Jack Johnson, Jack Dempsey, Gene Tunney, Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano, Sonny Liston, Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, George Foreman, Larry Holmes, Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield, Riddick Bowe, Lennox Lewis, Vitali Klitschko and Wladimir Klitschko.
Great is a hard word to define, and greatness is subjective. It was up to each panelist to quantify greatness.
A fighter’s skill level is important. But so too is that fighter’s skill level within the context of his time.
How great was each fighter within his era? Was he the best of his era? Dominant in his era? How many other great heavyweights fought in his era? Great rivalries make great fighters. Did he fight the other great heavyweights of his time? Which elite fighters who were in their prime did he beat? One fight can go a long way toward defining a fighter’s legacy.
A great fighter needs great competition. That doesn’t necessarily translate into a pristine record.
There was an inclination on the part of the panelists to make pound-for-pound comparisons, thereby elevating fighters like Dempsey and Marciano above today’s much larger champions.
Some fighters were more feared than others. Opponents went into the ring against Louis, Liston and Tyson in their prime fearing for their lives.
And the panelists factored in toughness. Some of the fighters on this list had a bit of quit in them. In the eyes of several electors, that was where Tyson came up short.
And then there are fighters like Ali, Frazier, Holmes, Holyfield and Marciano. You could have shot those guys 10 times with a gun, posits one panelist, and they still wouldn’t have quit.
In weighing greatness, the electors also considered intangibles and how important the heavyweight championship of the world was, once upon a time.
Heavyweight champions have resonated in the culture. In that regard, Lennox Lewis (one of the panelists and also one of the champions being evaluated) observes, “A champion’s contribution to the sport is more than how great a fighter he was. It’s also about what he did outside the ring and what we’re left remembering about him.”
Each generation wants its own great heavyweight champion. Some generations have him. Some don’t. How important was a fighter in his era? What impact did he have on his time?
To what extent does the mythology that enshrouds a fighter factor into his greatness?
Tyson foreshadowed today’s social media world where fame often counts for more than character. Thirty years after Tyson ascended to the heavyweight throne, a Google search for “Mike Tyson” reveals 8,590,00 results. A similar search for “Joe Louis” turns up 432,000. For some electors, the magnitude of a fighter’s fame was worthy of consideration. For others, it wasn’t.
For some, character mattered. But one panelist opined, “For what we’re doing now, I don’t care that Joe Louis was a better citizen than Sonny Liston.”
In sum, the criteria diverged significantly from elector to elector. But lurking in the back of many minds was the question: Which of these fighters took boxing to a new level in terms of skills, societal importance, or both?
The 30 Panelists :
Trainers: Teddy Atlas, Pat Burns, Virgil Hunter and Don Turner.
Matchmakers: Eric Bottjer, Don Chargin, Don Elbaum, Bobby Goodman, Ron Katz, Mike Marchionte, Russell Peltz and Bruce Trampler.
Media: Al Bernstein, Ron Borges, Gareth A Davies, Norm Frauenheim, Jerry Izenberg, Harold Lederman, Paulie Malignaggi, Dan Rafael and Michael Rosenthal
Historians: Craig Hamilton, Steve Lott, Don McRae, Bob Mee, Clay Moyle, Adam Pollack and Randy Roberts
Lewis and Tyson also participated in the poll. Neither fighter ranked himself. Instead, a weighted average from the other panelists was assigned to their respective slots on their ballots.
Several electors didn’t feel comfortable rating Sullivan, Corbett, Fitzsimmons, Jeffries or Johnson because there’s virtually no film footage of Johnson in action and none of the other four. Once again, a weighted average of the rankings from the other electors was used to fill the void.
One elector stated a preference for replacing Vitali Klitschko and Fitzsimmons on his list with Max Schmeling and Sam Langford. Klitschko and Fitzsimmons were assigned a position behind the other 18 fighters on his ballot.
A weighted average was also employed for Steve Lott with regard to Tyson because of their friendship and close working relationship during the glory years of Tyson’s career.
In previous polls (which used the who-beats-who formula), most electors were confident in the choices. This time, a repeated refrain was, I could do this again tomorrow and, except for the top few guys on my list, I might have a different order.
But in the end, a consensus emerged.
If one of the fighters had been ranked No. 1 on all 30 ballots, he would have had a perfect score of 30. If a fighter was ranked No. 20 on each ballot, his score would have been 600.
Muhammad Ali’s score was 46, which, when divided by the 30 electors, averages 1.53. That’s Ali’s power ranking, which put him in first place.
Some of the margins that separated fighters were razor-thin. In one instance, there was no margin at all. Lennox Lewis and Evander Holyfield tied for 11th place with 328 points each.
Jack Dempsey (No. 6) edged out George Foreman (No. 7) by four points.
Joe Frazier (No. 8), Mike Tyson (No. 9) and Sonny Liston (No. 10) were separated by a total of 12 points. If the electors were asked to vote again, the order of these three might be different.
The same is true of Wladimir Klitschko (No. 16), Vitali Klitschko (No. 17), and James Corbett (No. 18), who were also separated by 12 points.
Nineteen of the 30 electors ranked Ali first. Nine chose Joe Louis. Two voted for Jack Johnson. Fourteen of the 19 electors who ranked Ali first ranked Louis second. Seven of the nine electors who ranked Louis first ranked Ali second.
One elector ranked Ali as low as fourth. One ranked Louis fifth.
As illustrated by the chart above, Ali and Joe Louis were tied for first place in the ranking by trainers. Ali finished alone in first place in the rankings by media, matchmakers and historians. Louis finished second in these latter three categories. Johnson finished in third place in the minds of the media and historians. Marciano finished third among the trainers. Foreman finished third among the matchmakers.
In some instances, the panelists offered commentary with regard to their rankings. We’ll come back to Muhammad Ali and Joe Louis later. A composite of comments with regard to the other fighters follows.
By Thomas Hauser
Muhammad Ali is the No1 HW of all time, according to a poll of 30 experts
In the past, I’ve overseen fantasy round-robin tournaments in various weight divisions that matched great fighters from different eras against each other with the results of each fight being predicted by a panel of boxing industry experts.
The heavyweight division doesn’t lend itself to this format. The size differential between fighters from different eras is too great. To draw an analogy to another sport, some of pro football’s greatest lineman from the past weighed 240 pounds. They’d be thrown around like rag dolls today. But they were great.
Also, previous polls in this series were limited to fighters from boxing’s modern age (roughly 1940 to date). That’s because there wasn’t enough film footage of fighters from earlier eras to properly evaluate how they’d perform against one another and also because boxing technique has evolved considerably since the days of Joe Gans.
To offer another analogy: Babe Ruth is widely regarded as the greatest baseball player who ever lived and, with the possible exception of Ted Williams, baseball’s greatest hitter. But if Ruth had been forced to contend with sliders, cutters, screwballs, forkballs, two-seam fastballs, four-seam fastballs and the like, he might have been less dominating.
This heavyweight poll has different criteria from previous exercises. Rather than match champions against each other in a round-robin tournament, the electors were asked to rank them in order of greatness. This is more than who would have beaten who. Other considerations are involved.
The poll evaluated 20 champions dating back to the dawn of gloved heavyweight championship fights. The fighters, listed chronologically, are John L. Sulllivan, James Corbett, Bob Fitzsimmons, James Jeffries, Jack Johnson, Jack Dempsey, Gene Tunney, Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano, Sonny Liston, Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, George Foreman, Larry Holmes, Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield, Riddick Bowe, Lennox Lewis, Vitali Klitschko and Wladimir Klitschko.
Great is a hard word to define, and greatness is subjective. It was up to each panelist to quantify greatness.
A fighter’s skill level is important. But so too is that fighter’s skill level within the context of his time.
How great was each fighter within his era? Was he the best of his era? Dominant in his era? How many other great heavyweights fought in his era? Great rivalries make great fighters. Did he fight the other great heavyweights of his time? Which elite fighters who were in their prime did he beat? One fight can go a long way toward defining a fighter’s legacy.
A great fighter needs great competition. That doesn’t necessarily translate into a pristine record.
There was an inclination on the part of the panelists to make pound-for-pound comparisons, thereby elevating fighters like Dempsey and Marciano above today’s much larger champions.
Some fighters were more feared than others. Opponents went into the ring against Louis, Liston and Tyson in their prime fearing for their lives.
And the panelists factored in toughness. Some of the fighters on this list had a bit of quit in them. In the eyes of several electors, that was where Tyson came up short.
And then there are fighters like Ali, Frazier, Holmes, Holyfield and Marciano. You could have shot those guys 10 times with a gun, posits one panelist, and they still wouldn’t have quit.
In weighing greatness, the electors also considered intangibles and how important the heavyweight championship of the world was, once upon a time.
Heavyweight champions have resonated in the culture. In that regard, Lennox Lewis (one of the panelists and also one of the champions being evaluated) observes, “A champion’s contribution to the sport is more than how great a fighter he was. It’s also about what he did outside the ring and what we’re left remembering about him.”
Each generation wants its own great heavyweight champion. Some generations have him. Some don’t. How important was a fighter in his era? What impact did he have on his time?
To what extent does the mythology that enshrouds a fighter factor into his greatness?
Tyson foreshadowed today’s social media world where fame often counts for more than character. Thirty years after Tyson ascended to the heavyweight throne, a Google search for “Mike Tyson” reveals 8,590,00 results. A similar search for “Joe Louis” turns up 432,000. For some electors, the magnitude of a fighter’s fame was worthy of consideration. For others, it wasn’t.
For some, character mattered. But one panelist opined, “For what we’re doing now, I don’t care that Joe Louis was a better citizen than Sonny Liston.”
In sum, the criteria diverged significantly from elector to elector. But lurking in the back of many minds was the question: Which of these fighters took boxing to a new level in terms of skills, societal importance, or both?
The 30 Panelists :
Trainers: Teddy Atlas, Pat Burns, Virgil Hunter and Don Turner.
Matchmakers: Eric Bottjer, Don Chargin, Don Elbaum, Bobby Goodman, Ron Katz, Mike Marchionte, Russell Peltz and Bruce Trampler.
Media: Al Bernstein, Ron Borges, Gareth A Davies, Norm Frauenheim, Jerry Izenberg, Harold Lederman, Paulie Malignaggi, Dan Rafael and Michael Rosenthal
Historians: Craig Hamilton, Steve Lott, Don McRae, Bob Mee, Clay Moyle, Adam Pollack and Randy Roberts
Lewis and Tyson also participated in the poll. Neither fighter ranked himself. Instead, a weighted average from the other panelists was assigned to their respective slots on their ballots.
Several electors didn’t feel comfortable rating Sullivan, Corbett, Fitzsimmons, Jeffries or Johnson because there’s virtually no film footage of Johnson in action and none of the other four. Once again, a weighted average of the rankings from the other electors was used to fill the void.
One elector stated a preference for replacing Vitali Klitschko and Fitzsimmons on his list with Max Schmeling and Sam Langford. Klitschko and Fitzsimmons were assigned a position behind the other 18 fighters on his ballot.
A weighted average was also employed for Steve Lott with regard to Tyson because of their friendship and close working relationship during the glory years of Tyson’s career.
In previous polls (which used the who-beats-who formula), most electors were confident in the choices. This time, a repeated refrain was, I could do this again tomorrow and, except for the top few guys on my list, I might have a different order.
But in the end, a consensus emerged.
If one of the fighters had been ranked No. 1 on all 30 ballots, he would have had a perfect score of 30. If a fighter was ranked No. 20 on each ballot, his score would have been 600.
Muhammad Ali’s score was 46, which, when divided by the 30 electors, averages 1.53. That’s Ali’s power ranking, which put him in first place.
Some of the margins that separated fighters were razor-thin. In one instance, there was no margin at all. Lennox Lewis and Evander Holyfield tied for 11th place with 328 points each.
Jack Dempsey (No. 6) edged out George Foreman (No. 7) by four points.
Joe Frazier (No. 8), Mike Tyson (No. 9) and Sonny Liston (No. 10) were separated by a total of 12 points. If the electors were asked to vote again, the order of these three might be different.
The same is true of Wladimir Klitschko (No. 16), Vitali Klitschko (No. 17), and James Corbett (No. 18), who were also separated by 12 points.
Nineteen of the 30 electors ranked Ali first. Nine chose Joe Louis. Two voted for Jack Johnson. Fourteen of the 19 electors who ranked Ali first ranked Louis second. Seven of the nine electors who ranked Louis first ranked Ali second.
One elector ranked Ali as low as fourth. One ranked Louis fifth.
As illustrated by the chart above, Ali and Joe Louis were tied for first place in the ranking by trainers. Ali finished alone in first place in the rankings by media, matchmakers and historians. Louis finished second in these latter three categories. Johnson finished in third place in the minds of the media and historians. Marciano finished third among the trainers. Foreman finished third among the matchmakers.
In some instances, the panelists offered commentary with regard to their rankings. We’ll come back to Muhammad Ali and Joe Louis later. A composite of comments with regard to the other fighters follows.
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