Who was the best: These four boxers:

[Crease]

Out of these 4 accomplished boxers...
Cleveland Williams:
Tim Witherspoon:
Pinklon Thomas:
Greg Page:

[Goodnight, Irene]

Nobody's pound-for-pound nothin' till they beat a fella by the name of Greg Page.

Take it as gospel.

[SaadOffTheDeck]

Spoon
Thomas
Page
Williams

[Seamus]

x3

[Ezzard]

Saad has this one.

x4

[MEISINGER]

agree 100 %
kind of sad how much wasted talent each one of these men had

always thought witherspoon had the talent to be an all time great

[Adamj1987]

tim easy

[hurlock]

id say witherspoon as i witnessed him & read alot on page & thomas & saw them in action a only few times & thomas was to me was a strong square boxer who wasnt incredibly skillfull & page had more science.


spoon
page
thomas
williams(the guy who ali mullerd right??)

[tennessee]

Page was the most talented but also the laziest

[Goodnight, Irene]

Page was the most talented but also the laziest

That is some accomplishment (the laziest part, not the most talented bit) D

[Evander]

Witherspoon had a big punch and decent boxing ability but he was lazy.

[Crease]

The reason why I mentioned these four boxers is because I have put each of them in the same category:
Could have been better than what they were:
I suppose in that regard, I am echoing what another fellow said:

kind of sad how much wasted talent each one of these men had

Cleveland Williams:
William's career tailed off toward the end... And maybe if he lived in a different era he could've had a reign as world champion, but he wa never going to bat Liston, Patterson or Ali.
Another man who never realised his potential.

Tim Witherspoon:
Tim was more consistent than the others on that list. And with the years that he fought, he probably was never going to the number one boxer of that era (Larry Holmes, then later Mike Tyson) but watching him in a few of his fights, I thought at times he didn't fight with the same convcition that he did in others... His record coud have been better and he fought for too long, trying to get that 3rd world title.

Pinklon Thomas:
Pink wasn't active enough in his prime years, and after he won the world title, his career spiralled down considerably. And he got more and more lazy, losing fight which he could've won in his prime... Another case of: "yeah he was good. But he could have been very good".

Greg Page:
Came after Muhammad Ali and at the start of his career was considered that he could have been as talented as Ali. I suppose the comparisons were inevitable due to both fighers had succesful amaetur careers and both keep form Louieville.

I also read reports that Page was a regualr sparring partner for Mike Tyson and in 1990, knocked Tyson down in a sparring session.

When you look at his record, you do see a few fights on there which were very winnable for him, (Bey, Tubbs, Wills) but he never realised his potential. And maybe if he could have been more consistent, he could have had a longer world title reign and maybe another world title to his name.

[Crease]

As a sidenote I would also add that none of these boxers will probably ever be remembered as former Heavyweight greats, but they weren't one million miles off had they each reached their potentials.

[hurlock]

what about tony tubbs & michael dokes, jimmy young.

[dempseyfire]

what about tony tubbs & michael dokes, jimmy young.

Jimmy Young

Michael Dokes

Tony Tubbs

[MEISINGER]

what about tony tubbs & michael dokes, jimmy young.

i think you named 3 of the most evenly matched heavyweights
in terms of skill.

too tough to call gatta think about this one

[SaadOffTheDeck]

Not for me.

Young significantly takes that one and Dokes very clearly is second.

[hurlock]

wasnt dokes exeptional in the early days & had the best boxing people touting him to be the next best thing.

[SaadOffTheDeck]

wasnt dokes exeptional in the early days & had the best boxing people touting him to be the next best thing.

He had very fast hands. A lot of his hype died down when Ocasio beat the breaks off of him. Though Michael iced him in the rematch.

[Syntax Error]

Reading through this thread just brings back the frustration of the HW division in the 1980s.

Has there ever been a time when so many talented fighters existed at the same time & virtually all wasted their talents?

The 1980s could & should have been a heavyweight golden age, possibly as great, if not greater than the 70s & even better than the other unofficial HW golden age of the 90s.

As for the question, Saadoffthedeck has saved me some more typing, as he has nailed it as far as I'm concerned.

[witherspoon]

Reading through this thread just brings back the frustration of the HW division in the 1980s.

Has there ever been a time when so many talented fighters existed at the same time & virtually all wasted their talents?

The 1980s could & should have been a heavyweight golden age, possibly as great, if not greater than the 70s & even better than the other unofficial HW golden age of the 90s.

As for the question, Saadoffthedeck has saved me some more typing, as he has nailed it as far as I'm concerned.

I recently finished watching through almost the entire run of 80's/90's heavyweight champs career's, from Larry Holmes fighting on the Manilla undercard all the way through to Lewis v Klitschko (career dvd sets of Holmes,Witherspoon, Page,Tyson,Lewis ,Holyfield etc)
This was a joint undertaking with my 14 year old brother and I honestly thought that it would end up being a waste of time resulting in me bribing the kid to sit and watch with me when he would rather be playing on his x-box.
It ended up that he was constantly nagging me for the next session, and even more incredibly the 80's era of lost heavyweights turned out to be our most enjoyable viewing!
The outcome of this venture is that my little 14 year old bro is now a DIE HARD Greg Page fan! Watching him clown around while dismantling Scott LeDoux (rip) had us laughing our asses off (in the words of Don Dunphy, doing a better Ali than Ali himself).
He loves the guy so much he refuses to watch the Dale Crowe fight (and anything else after Ruddock).
Hopefully he does the same with his kids one day and I will have done my bit to pass the legend of the 80's heavyweight scene on to future generations!

[Syntax Error]

Reading through this thread just brings back the frustration of the HW division in the 1980s.

Has there ever been a time when so many talented fighters existed at the same time & virtually all wasted their talents?

The 1980s could & should have been a heavyweight golden age, possibly as great, if not greater than the 70s & even better than the other unofficial HW golden age of the 90s.

As for the question, Saadoffthedeck has saved me some more typing, as he has nailed it as far as I'm concerned.

I recently finished watching through almost the entire run of 80's/90's heavyweight champs career's, from Larry Holmes fighting on the Manilla undercard all the way through to Lewis v Klitschko (career dvd sets of Holmes,Witherspoon, Page,Tyson,Lewis ,Holyfield etc)
This was a joint undertaking with my 14 year old brother and I honestly thought that it would end up being a waste of time resulting in me bribing the kid to sit and watch with me when he would rather be playing on his x-box.
It ended up that he was constantly nagging me for the next session, and even more incredibly the 80's era of lost heavyweights turned out to be our most enjoyable viewing!
The outcome of this venture is that my little 14 year old bro is now a DIE HARD Greg Page fan! Watching him clown around while dismantling Scott LeDoux (rip) had us laughing our asses off (in the words of Don Dunphy, doing a better Ali than Ali himself).
He loves the guy so much he refuses to watch the Dale Crowe fight (and anything else after Ruddock).
Hopefully he does the same with his kids one day and I will have done my bit to pass the legend of the 80's heavyweight scene on to future generations!

Good on you.

I'm a big fan of the guys from that era & it really saddens me that they didn't realise their full potential.

Good to know that there are others that appreciate the bit that they did give us.

[witherspoon]

Another unlikely hero to emerge from watching this era was none other than Quick Tillis.
As me and bro progressed through the years, we started to realise that Tillis fought everyone who was anyone in the 80's.
We actually use the name as our personal slang term for a decent fighter who goes in with as many world class opponents as possible.

[Ambling Alp]

Tillis was a notch below these guys. He was often competitive but just couldn't get over the hump.

I give a slight edge to Witherspoon over Page, Thomas and the rest of the alphabet soup titlists. However, it always amazes me that so many people don't even think it's close. It is very close.

Witherspoon did beat Tillis easily, and stopped Bruno.
However, he lost to Thomas, and barely won decisions over Page, Tubbs and Carl Williams. He split fights with Bonecrusher Smith. He certainly didn't diminate these guys.

He fought a great fight against Holmes which is a major reason why he should get the benefit of the doubt over the rest of these guys. Had he fought like this most of his career he would be considered much higher. However, like the rest of the alpha's, he had his ups and downs. It could have been a better era if it wasn't for the drug and weight problems of so many of these guys.

[SaadOffTheDeck]

He beat Page handily. There was nothing barely about that win.