Top 10 Cruiserweights of All Time

[FruitStealer]

Holyfield first, adn Usyk close 2nd.

[Tuan_Jim]

Holyfield is easily number 1. A lot of people have forgotten Orlin Norris, who was a skilled cruiser until weight draining caught up with him. Qawi would bash most the guys in the lists so far. There's also Al Cole to think about, who had a solid run. The Toney who beat Jirov would beat most of the cruisers, including Haye.

I don't think any of these WBO champs merit a ranking, especially Johnny Nelson. He fought two world champs, lost horribly, so took the safe WBO route and miraculously became a 'long reigning champion'. He'd rediscover his level versus real top class fighters.

Way too early to rate Usyk so highly, for reasons which should be obvious to anyone who's been watching boxing for a long time.

[jamamb]

lol obv way too early but the clear #1 was only a cw for about 3 years? and tony campaigned at cw for about a whopping 10 matches. and norrs only spent a few years campaigning at cruser btwn what was mostly a hw career. dont understand that unless you are also rating them off stuff at other weghts...but then thats not purely a cw rating. or is there some alternate universe where those guys had long prolonged top level cruser careers with lots of fights there?

for accomplshments at cw usys already easily up there (lol maybe alp doesnt care as much about lineal now when an active guy does it). were he to retire now and do no more hed still easily deserve a high rating. stuff such as al cole beating glen mccrory doesnt change that.

[Tuan_Jim]

Holyfield mopped up the division and was completely annihilating guys who were known entities. With Usky and his opponents we don't have anything near a complete picture of their worth. In a few years we will be able to properly guage what his results mean. For instance, for years there was a conventional wisdom about the 90s heavyweights till Holyfield flipped it on its head in Nov 96. One fight put a totally different perspective on everything we had been watching. We just need to wait and see with Usky.

I will say I don't rate him that highly. This tourney spawned a lot of cruiserweight hipsters, salivating at the skills and destructive performances their favourites were definitely going to bring to their bouts. Instead we got a series of typical Euro style repetitive 12 round jab and grab fests between musclebound fighters who don't seem able to punch their weight. We've seen more dynamic imaginations and arsenals in the cruisers.

[Ambling Alp II]

I do generally go with the quality in the quality vs quantity argument. (Assuming the fighter with the better quality wins didn't have a really small of fights at the weight.)

Holyfield beat much, much tough competition. Not even arguable.

For the record, Toney technically had 17 fights where his opponent was a Cruiserweight; though two of them were against opponent was barely over light heavyweight.
Usyk had four fights that were against inexperienced fighters in fights scheduled for less than 10 rounds. all of Toney's fights were scheduled for at least 10 rounds.

I would argue his competition was clearly better than Usyk up to this point. Certainly Jirov was better than anyone Usyk has beat.

The guy barely beat Briedis and he is #2 already? Really?

[jamamb]

i dont see many people arguing usyk over holy, our 3.5 year cw pro

james toney had a cruiser run from around 97-2003, anything else at cruiser was pretty much a random stay busy fight at a higher weight while he was active in other divisions. he really didnt have all that many significant fights at cruiser . even if we count 17, including meaningless ones barely over the 175 limit, thats just 2 more then usyk, big freaking deal.

jirov was a good win, but the other oppisition he beat wasnt good at all, and not even one of the other guys was clearly a world class cruiser at the time he beat them. LOL of this laughable dressing up of espn us domestic scene guys like jason robinson, michael rush, and terry mcgroom. did you just assume no one would call that bullsh!t? i also wouldnt say jirovs wins were all thst great in comparison to gassievs, who had unified titles with some good wins.

usyk is undisputed and lineal cruiser champ, won all his titles fairly and in his opponents backyard, and has beaten several world class opponents amd former cw champs already. just reducing him to 'two points vs briedis' (a big majority had him winning) is incomplete, obviously biased, and frankly strange coming from someone who just the other day was going on about the significance of lineal titles, which usyk has by beating the other top cruisers

just reaffirms my believe that for some ppl here active fighters wont get a fair shake. ya, the elite cruisers around now have nothing on terry mcgroom or the gold rush

[jamamb]

but thankfully it seems most have there senses and already put usyk up there at #2, below mr 3.5. usyks very highly respected in boxing and with good reason

i didnt really think the absolutely mediocre cw scene of the early 2000s would get the histiry section 'need to make it look better then the current scene' polishing, but i was wrong

terry mcgroom bitches

[Cojimar 1946]

Yeah aside from Jirov Toney lacks good wins at cruiserweight, that's basically his only decent win.

[Cojimar 1946]

Ambling Alp out of curiosity are there any divisions today you think are good?

[jamamb]

ya, seriously lol at the attempt to pass off guys like rush, robinson, mcgroom, montana etc as superior opposition

does he even watch boxing today? a lot of reads like he just simply looked up someones record and judged them w/o watching the fights

[Tuan_Jim]

ya, seriously lol at the attempt to pass off guys like rush, robinson, mcgroom, montana etc as superior opposition

does he even watch boxing today? a lot of reads like he just simply looked up someones record and judged them w/o watching the fights

You're arguing things Alp didn't say, while also repeatedly referring to Holyfield as a '3.5 year cruiser', as if that is somehow cause to downgrade his standing. Mike Tyson is considered one of the greatest heavyweights of all time, and yet that is based on the performances he put in 1985-1988, which is also 3.5 years. What's your point? You don't seem to think things through, and unlike Alp obviously haven't been following the sport very long. Didn't you admit the other day that you didn't know much about Andrew freaking Golota? Where on earth have you been? You sound very new to the sport, and your contributions here underline that impression.

[jamamb]

ya, im trying to downgrade the standing of the guy i rank as the top cruiser ever

more like im just pointing out that i dont preclude holyfield from high spots due to his brief time at cruiser

to say toneys cruiser opp clearly trumps usyks, and to say tony had a higher number of significant fights, requires a massive inflating of the utterly mediocre early 2000s us domestic scene. guys like mcgroom, rush, robinson, etc were nothing. there the type of guys usyk wouldve been fighting a couple bouts in. utterly mediocre and not even as good as bj flores or darnell wilson or felix cora, who in turn were worse then every top 10 cruiser today. toney beat jirov, good win, but not one other guy was a world class cruiser at the time.

just strange to go after usyk but then argue for toney in such a way. to see that era of us domestic cruisers get the boxing history treatment is too funny

[Ambling Alp II]

Ambling Alp out of curiosity are there any divisions today you think are good?

Historically, some are bad, some good, some in between. The heavyweight division which we talk about the most has been awful for a long time.

[Ambling Alp II]

Nobody approaches Holyfield as far overall quality of opposition. Doesn't matter if he did it in 3 years or 10 years. Watching him on film it should not be any question that he was the best.

Toney's was certainly not awesome. He did have the win over Jirov, which was probably the 2nd best cruiserweight fight of all time. Watch that fight. Is anything Usyk has done so far reach that level? Of course not.

The others were mostly against fringe contender types. However none were guys with virtually no experience unlike Usyk.
I was just listing Toney as an example. I don't either should be close to #2.
There are several guys who at this point probably deserve to be rated higher. How about Carlos DeLeon?

Don't see the logic of ranking Usyk #2, and Briedies doesn't get ranked at all. So far, there doesn't seem to be of a gap between these two guys.

[BoxBuzz]

As a person from the Western World, I'm embarrassed that ONLY SQUIGGY rated Wamba........probably the only one who even knows he existed.

Why is that?

At any rate....you can't do a top ten list of Cruisers without him. IMHO.

[Tuan_Jim]

Wamba got one-punch KOd by a security guard. Gary Mason couldn't believe his eyes. Good job Wamba retired, someone would have landed on him.

[HomicideHenry]

From 1978 to be Present, not including the age old Heavyweights of yesteryear who fall under 210 pounds...

#1- Evander Holyfield

#2- Dwight Mohammed Qawi
(He gave Evander his toughest fight)

#3- Marco Huck

#4- David Haye

#5- Steve Cunningham

#6- Juan Carlos Gomez

#7- Jean Marc Mormeck

#8- Tony Bellew

#9- James Toney

#10- Vasily Jirov

[BoxBuzz]

Wamba got one-punch KOd by a security guard. Gary Mason couldn't believe his eyes. Good job Wamba retired, someone would have landed on him.

Do tell us more......was there a conspiracy, or did he just face nobodys?

Or are you hating on him because he gives Iran Barkley a run in the dashing good looks dept?


I'm honestly half serious....his record is good, I saw him fight a few fights on film, and was surprised at his record.

Did he really have a run in with a tough Dept Store Security guard? lol.

[BoxBuzz]

Looks like respectable saloon fighter to me.

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=An ... ORM=VDQVAP

[jamamb]

From 1978 to be Present, not including the age old Heavyweights of yesteryear who fall under 210 pounds...

#1- Evander Holyfield

#2- Dwight Mohammed Qawi
(He gave Evander his toughest fight)

#3- Marco Huck

#4- David Haye

#5- Steve Cunningham

#6- Juan Carlos Gomez

#7- Jean Marc Mormeck

#8- Tony Bellew

#9- James Toney

#10- Vasily Jirov

just curious, on what basis do you exclude undisputed and lineal champ usyk , but include someone like bellew?

tony bellews best cw wins: illunga makabu, matesuz masternak, bj flores

[HomicideHenry]

I don't really see Bellew as a Heavyweight, and I can't view him as a Light Heavyweight... He's too good for anyone at 175, and he's capable of beating decent Heavyweights but will never be a champion there... He's for all intents and purposes the lineal champion (imho) at Cruiserweight and he defeated Haye twice, and until Usyk beats him that's how my rating will be... Although I must admit that Bellew would lose to everyone on my list, despite me ranking him ahead of Jirov and Toney.

[jamamb]

so you basically created your own new cw limit so you could give bellew lineal status for beating haye almost 10 years after haye last fought at cruiser?

erm, okay

bellews top wins as an actual cruiser:

illunga makabu
bj flores
mat masternak
nathan cleverly

also, usyk beat marco huck, who you rate even higher then haye and bellew

[DrDuke]

Usyk is #2 after Holyfield. Being great is about beating the best of own era. Usyk has done it. And he has done it convincingly, he dominated everyone. And don't tell me about "tough" Briedis fight, where the scorecards actually sucked, it was competetive, but clear in Usyk's favor.

Usyk's era is very good. He has defeated a top-10 all-time competitor Huck and his conqueror Glowacki and then Briedis. He outclassed Gassiev, who had defeated a couple of dominant forces of the division's past.

Is Haye better? Of course, no, his resume wasn't that good, his performances weren't as flawless. Is Toney better? No for sure. He outclassed a top-10 all-time Jirov, but that was his only win over top competitor. Wamba and Gomez were pretty dominant, but didn't have that good opposition. And mentioning Bellew above Usyk was just awkward.

Even DeLeon is lower, than Usyk. He was around for pretty long time with recapturing titles, but his game wasn't that ingenious, his performances weren't that convincing.

Only Holyfield is better, than Usyk. Evander was destroying everyone, not just outboxing, but beating up. And there were big names among them.

[HomicideHenry]

Huck was champ for a long run. Time catches up with everyone. So your sarcastic mouth falls flat. I'd expect a younger, skilled, hungrier fighter to beat a guy who is shopworn. Huck had been a champion from 2008-2014, with the only loss in that time a failed bid for the WBA Heavyweight title against a drugged up Alexander Povetkin. From 2015-2018 he's gone 3-3-0, but, 2008-2014 (as champion) he went 13-1-1 and that's incredibly hyperactive in today's world. Has any CW title holder ever had as many successful defenses? Sure he's 33, but he's also a worn down and out 33.

New? The CW limit has been 210 for quite a few years. PERSONALLY I wish it never changed from 195, as it was for many years. However I must add that SOME (not all) states in the USA still recognize Heavyweight as 196 and up.

I consider Bellew superior, in part, because of his P4P accomplishments from 175 to Heavyweight. Usyk has just always been cruiserweight. Same reason why I have Toney on my list.

As for Usyk... Maybe I'm biased... But I don't trust athletes from the former Soviet Union considering how many of them test positive for banned substances in the amateurs and pros.

[jamamb]

lol the limit hasnt been 210 in years, where have you been? havent you looked at these guys records and wondered why there pretty much never above 200 pounds for title fights?

ya, time does catch up, like it did to haye as a man in his mid to late 30s whose leg snapped. he hadnt fought at cruiser in almoat 10 years, and the bellew fight wasnt at cruiser either