The Field of 16:
John L. Sullivan, Jim Corbett, Bob Fitzsimmons, Jim Jeffries, Jess Willard, Jack Dempsey, Gene Tunney, Max Schmeling, Jack Sharkey, Max Baer, Jim Braddock, Max Baer, Joe Louis, Jersey Joe Walcott, Rocky Marciano, Muhammad Ali.
My Comments re the Field:
Woroner was not a real boxing guy himself, and he knew it, so he spent a lot of time polling genuine experts, and a lot of them, regarding which fighters to include. That makes the two glaring omissions -- Ezzard Charles and Sonny Liston -- even more puzzling, at least to me. My suspicion is that Liston's 2 disgraces against Ali were too fresh in 1968 to be forgiven and that Charles, whose really great light-heavyweight bouts had neither been filmed nor seen by a very wide audience, just was not appropriately appreciated at that time. In any case, I would have included both Charles and Liston in the field. But whom to remove? Braddock for sure but, after that, it's murky. Had it been me, I probably would not have included Sullivan, as, IMO, his greatest successes were as a bare-knuckler and, further, there is no film of him at all, so he's very hard to evaluate. So, IMO: Sullivan & Braddock out; Charles & Liston in.
The Draw, First Round:
John L. Sullivan v. Jim Braddock
Jack Dempsey v. Jim Corbett
Joe Louis v. Jess Willard
Bob Fiztsimmons v. Jack Sharkey
Muhammad Ali v. Max Schmeling
Jim Jeffries v. Jersey Joe Walcott
Jack Johnson v. Max Baer
Gene Tunney v. Rocky Marciano
My Comments re the Draw:
These seem random. In particular, matching Marciano and Tunney in the 1st round seems premature and unfair to both. I can understand why he didn't seed the fighters 1-16 but I do think he should have taken the top 8 guys and made sure they didn't face each other in the first round. How to pick the top 8? I'd have gone with the 'consensus of expert opinion' at the time, to the extent I could figure out what that was. Here, not too tricky: Jeffries, Johnson, Dempsey, Tunney, Louis, Marciano, and Ali would definitely have made the top half. That's 7. Who would be the 8th seeded fighter? Probably Corbett or Fitzsimmons, both of whom were still included in most top 10 lists during that period. My hunch is that Fitz was more highly regarded at that time, if only by a hair, so I'd have made him and the other 7 guys I mentioned the "seeds," and ensured that none of them faced off in the 1st round.