gil's Refined Ranking System

[784118]

I'm posting this because I genuinely think this system works out pretty well, and everything it's produced so far has made sense. I'll be referring to this a lot when comparing fighters so I figured I'd have the explanation here so everyone will know what the hell I'm talking about. Also I think this could serve to help settle debates or at minimum provide valuable information about guys' careers.

If anyone has any suggestions for how I could improve the Ranking system, I would be happy to take them into consideration if what you say makes sense. I'd also be happy to explain to anyone who cares to ask how my rankings wind up at the score they wind up at.

The Primary goal of this list is for me to take in everything there is to see of a fighters career on Video (generally all these fights are found on Youtube). This list will continue to grow as I continue to see all available footage of various fighters careers.

Heavyweight
1. Muhammad Ali - 1107 points
2. Joe Louis - 899 points
3. George Foreman - 694 points
4. Larry Holmes - 576 points
5. Lennox Lewis - 500 points
6. Rocky Marciano - 474 points
7. Evander Holyfield - 461 Points
8. Riddick Bowe - 448 points
9. Wladimir Klitschko - 426 points
10. Mike Tyson - 397 points
11. Joe Frazier - 353 points
12. Tyson Fury - 346 points
13. Sonny Liston - 284 points
14. Oleksandr Usyk - 266 points
15. Vitali Klitschko - 265 points
16. Jack Dempsey - 264 points
17. Jim Jeffries - 249 points
18. Jack Johnson - 246 points
19. Tommy Morrison - 241 points
20 (tied). Deontay Wilder - 227 points
20 (tied). David Tua - 227 points
22. Anthony Joshua - 223 Points
23. Ezzard Charles - 221 points
24. Gene Tunney - 206 points
25. Floyd Patterson - 198 points
26. Corrie Sanders - 192 points
27. Andy Ruiz - 188 points
28. Ken Norton - 169 points
29. Hasim Rahman - 168 points
30. Alexander Povetkin - 155 points
31. Lamon Brewster - 152 points
32. Joseph Parker - 149 points
33. Tommy Burns - 147 points
34. Ray Mercer - 145 points
35. Shannon Briggs - 140 points
36. Daniel Dubois - 139 points
37. Chris Byrd - 136 points
38. Frank Bruno - 130 points
39. Max Schmeling - 129 points
40. Primo Carnera - 120 points
41 (tied). Jersey Joe Walcott - 113 points
41 (tied) . Ingemar Johansson - 113 points
43. James "Buster" Douglas - 97 points
44. Michael Moorer - 96 points
45. Tim Witherspoon - 94 points
46. Michael Spinks - 92 points
47. Max Baer - 91 points
48. Fabio Wardley - 90 points
49. Michael Dokes - 88 points
50. Jess Willard - 75 points
51. Tony Tucker - 71 points
52. John Ruiz - 68 points
53. Gerrie Coetzee - 37 points
54. Trevor Berbick - 35 points
55. Gerry Cooney - 32 points
56. Jack Sharkey - 31 points
57. Earnie Shavers - 15 points
58. Roy Jones Jr. - 11 points
59. Samuel Peter - 6 points
60. Pinklon Thomas - 5 points

P4P
1. Manny Pacquiao - 903 points
2. Evander Holyfield - 774 points
3. Julio Cesar Chavez - 733 points
4. Naoya Inoue - 685 points
5. Roberto Duran - 636 points
6. Ezzard Charles - 628 points
7. Floyd Mayweather Jr. - 616 points
8. Ray Leonard - 607 Points
9. Marvin Hagler - 587 Points
10. Saul "Canelo" Alvarez - 586 Points
11. Terence Crawford - 557 Points
12. Tommy Hearns - 551 Points
13. Roy Jones Jr. - 524 Points
14. Oleksandr Usyk - 502 points
15. Oscar De La Hoya - 500 points
16. Gene Tunney - 476 points
17. Michael Spinks - 418 points
18 (tied). Naseem Hamed - 385 points
18 (tied). Felix Trinidad - 385 points
20. Vasyl Lomachenko - 346 points
21. Erik Morales - 320 points
22. Wilfred Benitez - 294 points
23. Floyd Patterson - 287 points
24. Aaron Pryor - 280 points
25. David Benavidez - 244 points
26. Michael Moorer - 240 points
27. Junto Nakatani - 191 points
28. Tommy Burns - 171 points
29. Arturo Gatti - 137 points

Unrated
Marvin Hart
Oleg Maskaev
Michael Bentt

I appreciate the list overall. Solid work. When I rank heavyweights, I prioritize clear wins over ranked/prime opponents and pay close attention to when those fights happened in a fighter’s career (prime vs. post-prime).

A few notes on placements .

I think are too high:Evander Holyfield feels a bit elevated. His record against top competition is tough: roughly 1-3-1 (or 1-4) against Riddick Bowe, losses to Lennox Lewis, mixed results vs. Michael Moorer (1-1), and 1-1-1 vs. John Ruiz. Factoring in other losses, I don’t see a strong case for him in the all-time top 10. He belongs in the conversation for the 11–20 range.

Riddick Bowe had the better of Holyfield in their series, but his next-best wins are who? He lands more comfortably in the top 11–20 rather than higher.

Tyson Fury and Corrie Sanders also seem overrated at their listed spots. Their resumes have quality moments, but not enough elite, prime wins to justify very high all-time placement.

Fabio Wardley in the ranking is a real head-scratcher.

Outside of those, the rest of the list looks reasonable.

[gilgamesh]

I appreciate your comments. Wardley is still active therefore his numbers will still rise and fall with his results. I wanted to have the Active guys on the list to see how their career legacies would be affected in real time with the results they've yet to have.

While I agree Bowe's resume is thin in regards to Quality wins, what I've found is honestly most Heavyweights have fairly thin resumes when it comes to really big wins, and most of 'em have losses that are a lot more embarrassing than losing to Holyfield which is the only loss Bowe has.

Fury may still rise or fall depending on how his career goes from here. Same with any active fighter.

Their Quality wins (Level of Opposition and Level of Performance) are my primary factors in what I consider to be big results. Some people probably think I'm too harsh with the points I deduct from the losses, but that came about for a reason early on in this process.

[gilgamesh]

With his victory today over Mariusz Wach. Tyson Fury receives an additional 4 points to his overall score which brings him to 350. His ranking remains the same.

If he defeats Anthony Joshua he will have crossed past the 350 point threshold into All Time Great status. Normally I would've given it to him at hitting the 350 point mark, but beating Mariusz Wach doesn't feel worthy of the honor. A win over Joshua would cement his status as one of the greats of his time though.

[gilgamesh]

With his victory today over Kristian Prenga, Anthony Joshua picks up an additional 6 points, and jumps ahead of David Tua and Deontay Wilder on my All time list by a couple of points.

[gilgamesh]

Bernard "The Executioner" Hopkins

With a record of 55-8-2 (32 KO's) with 2 No Contests. Hopkins competed in 35 Championship fights, and has a record of 26-7-2 in them.

He has 20 Quality wins (Segundo Murcado, John David Jackson, Glen Johnson, Simon Brown, Robert Allen 2x, Antwun Echols 2x, Keith Holmes, Felix Trinidad, William Joppy, Oscar De La Hoya, Syd Vanderpool, Roy Jones Jr, Antonio Tarver, Winky Wright, Kelly Pavlik, Jean Pascal, Tavoris Cloud and Beibut Shumenov)

1 of them is a Gold star win (Trinidad)

He holds 2 records. He both has the record for the most title defenses at Middleweight and is the Oldest Boxer to have won a World Championship.

His overall score comes to 506 points

[gilgamesh]

"The Pride of Wales" Joe Calzaghe

With a record of 46-0 (32 KO's). Calzaghe competed in 24 Championship fights with a record of 24-0 in them.

He has 8 Quality wins (Chris Eubank, Charles Brewer, Byron Mitchell, Jeff Lacy, Sakio Bika, Mikkel Kessler, Bernard Hopkins and Roy Jones Jr.)

He has 1 Gold star win among them (Hopkins)

Overall his score comes to 470 points

[keithmoonhangover]

Can I ask another question about Tommy Morrison.... How many points did you allocate him for the Tim Tomashek fight?

[gilgamesh]

Can I ask another question about Tommy Morrison.... How many points did you allocate him for the Tim Tomashek fight?

11 I'm pretty sure

And yes I've consulted my notes and confirmed 11

[keithmoonhangover]

Can I ask another question about Tommy Morrison.... How many points did you allocate him for the Tim Tomashek fight?

11 I'm pretty sure

And yes I've consulted my notes and confirmed 11

OK, so how many did you give Lennox Lewis for Golota and Akinwande?

[gilgamesh]

Can I ask another question about Tommy Morrison.... How many points did you allocate him for the Tim Tomashek fight?

11 I'm pretty sure

And yes I've consulted my notes and confirmed 11

OK, so how many did you give Lennox Lewis for Golota and Akinwande?

For the victory over Andrew Golota I gave Lennox Lewis 13 points. For the victory over Henry Akinwande it was also 13 points.

The Akinwande bout was worth more in terms of the prestige of the title at stake, but it was spoiled as a result due to Akinwande's incessant holding just kinda spoiling the bout in general. So it goes down as a victory for Lennox, but unfortunately not as impressive as it could've been due to the circumstances. Still though Lewis winds up with more points for those wins than Morrison does for Tomashek.

I considered Andrew Golota to be the better opponent than Akinwande, and obviously the result was better, but Lewis at the time of the Golota bout was only defending 1 world title. At the time of the Henry Akinwande bout he was a Unified Champion so even though the Quality of opposition and performance level wasn't quite as good as in the case of Golota, it ultimately wound up at the same score due to Lewis having defended a Unified title.

Lewis has quite a few wins on his ledger that rate higher than those 2 for him.

[keithmoonhangover]

11 I'm pretty sure

And yes I've consulted my notes and confirmed 11

OK, so how many did you give Lennox Lewis for Golota and Akinwande?

For the victory over Andrew Golota I gave Lennox Lewis 13 points. For the victory over Henry Akinwande it was also 13 points.

The Akinwande bout was worth more in terms of the prestige of the title at stake, but it was spoiled as a result due to Akinwande's incessant holding just kinda spoiling the bout in general. So it goes down as a victory for Lennox, but unfortunately not as impressive as it could've been due to the circumstances. Still though Lewis winds up with more points for those wins than Morrison does for Tomashek.

I considered Andrew Golota to be the better opponent than Akinwande, and obviously the result was better, but Lewis at the time of the Golota bout was only defending 1 world title. At the time of the Henry Akinwande bout he was a Unified Champion so even though the Quality of opposition and performance level wasn't quite as good as in the case of Golota, it ultimately wound up at the same score due to Lewis having defended a Unified title.

Lewis has quite a few wins on his ledger that rate higher than those 2 for him.

So a win over a prime Golota is only worth two points more than a win over a club fighter? You know that's completely insane, don't you?

[gilgamesh]

It's not insane at all. Many of the fights are only separated by an amount of points that can be counted on 1 hand. It takes particularly exceptional results or recognition as Unified or Undisputed Champion to get large boosts in points.

Golota is a good win. It's not a great one, and Lewis was only defending 1 title in that bout.

I do consider Lewis' win over Golota to be a Quality win though while I do not consider Morrison's win over Tomashek to be a Quality win.

My deeming something a Quality win is based purely on the Quality of the opposition that had been beaten.

[keithmoonhangover]

It's not insane at all. Many of the fights are only separated by an amount of points that can be counted on 1 hand. It takes particularly exceptional results to get large boosts in points.

Golota is a good win. It's not a great one.

I agree. But Tomashek is as far away from a good win as you can possibly get. How does Morrison get 11 points for it?

[gilgamesh]

It's not insane at all. Many of the fights are only separated by an amount of points that can be counted on 1 hand. It takes particularly exceptional results to get large boosts in points.

Golota is a good win. It's not a great one.

I agree. But Tomashek is as far away from a good win as you can possibly get. How does Morrison get 11 points for it?

It was a WBO title fight. Which gives him +5

It's that simple. Nothing more, nothing less. Tomashek was a 1 as an opponent. The result was a 5 because Morrison handled his business. That's 6 points. Add in +5 for it being a WBO Title fight, and boom you've got 11.

[keithmoonhangover]

It's not insane at all. Many of the fights are only separated by an amount of points that can be counted on 1 hand. It takes particularly exceptional results to get large boosts in points.

Golota is a good win. It's not a great one.

I agree. But Tomashek is as far away from a good win as you can possibly get. How does Morrison get 11 points for it?

It was a WBO title fight. Which gives him +5

It's that simple. Nothing more, nothing less. Tomashek was a 1 as an opponent. The result was a 5 because Morrison handled his business. That's 6 points. Add in +5 for it being a WBO Title fight, and boom you've got 11.

Gil, I like you and I respect you, but this is complete bollocks.

[gilgamesh]

I agree. But Tomashek is as far away from a good win as you can possibly get. How does Morrison get 11 points for it?

It was a WBO title fight. Which gives him +5

It's that simple. Nothing more, nothing less. Tomashek was a 1 as an opponent. The result was a 5 because Morrison handled his business. That's 6 points. Add in +5 for it being a WBO Title fight, and boom you've got 11.

Gil, I like you and I respect you, but this is complete bollocks.

Keith. I like you and respect you. I disagree.

And I challenge you come up with a system that isn't complete bollocks and take the time out of your life to rate (to date) 85+ fighters on it so we can all judge its merit.

Stand up to that judgment. Have an answer every time you're questioned because you've thought it all out so well.

Then your critiquing of my system will have weight.

[gilgamesh]

Also I'd appreciate it if the next time you ask me something about my system it's not about Tommy Morrison or Mike Tyson, in fact I'm probably just done answering questions on those 2 unless I get a new one. I have ranked many, many, many other fighters ya know.

[gilgamesh]

Gennady "GGG" Golovkin

With a record of 42-2-1 (37 KO's). Golovkin competed in 15 Championship fights and has a record of 12-2-1 in them.

He has 7 Quality wins (Grzegorz Proksa, Matthew Macklin, Daniel Geale, Martin Murray, David Lemieux, Kell Brook and Daniel Jacobs)

He was only really definitively beaten once in the 3rd bout of his trilogy with Canelo.

Overall his score comes to 352 points

[gilgamesh]

"Ferocious" Fernando Vargas

With a record of 26-5 (22 KO's). Vargas competed in 9 Championship fights, and has a record of 7-2 in them.

He has 4 Quality wins (Yori Boy Campas, Winky Wright, Ike Quartey and Javier Castillejo).

2 of those are Gold star victories (Wright and Quartey)

Overall his score comes to 203 points

[gilgamesh]

Carlos "Escopeta" Monzon

With a record of 87-3-9 (59 KO's). Monzon competed in 15 Championship fights going 15-0 in them.

He has 8 Quality wins (Nino Benvenuti 2x, Emile Griffith 2x, Jose Napoles, Bennie Briscoe and Rodrigo Valdes 2x)

6 of those are recognized as Gold star victories (Benventui 2x, Griffith (1st bout), Napoles, and Valdes 2x)

Overall his score comes to 717 points

[gilgamesh]

Sugar Ray Robinson

With a record of 174-19-6 (109 KO's). Robinson competed in 22 Championship fights and has a record of 14-7-1 in them.

He has 26 Quality wins (Sammy Angott 3x, Fritzie Zivic 2x, Henry Armstrong, Marty Servo 2x, Jake Lamotta 5x, Tommy Bell 2x, Kid Gavilan 2x, Bobo Olson 4x, Randy Turpin, Rocky Graziano, Rocky Castellani, Gene Fullmer and Carmen Basilio)

13 of those are Gold star victories (Angott 3x, Armstrong, Lamotta 4x, Gavilan, Olson 2x, Graziano, and Basilio)

3 of them are All Time great victories (Gavilan (2nd fight), Lamotta (6th fight), and Gene Fullmer (2nd fight )

His overall score comes to an astonishing 1352 points

[gp.]

Honestly, a system where the points awarded are so dependent on your subjective view of the opponent and of the fight doesn't really add anything to a purely subjective list of your opinion of the fighters you are ranking.

[gilgamesh]

To me it more clearly defines why somebody is ranked where they are as opposed to simply saying "I have so and so ranked 7". I have him ranked where he is, and a detailed reason for having him ranked there. I'm satisfied with the results so far, and there have rarely been any major surprises or bad conclusions come to as a result of this ranking system.

I also just feel like it gives me a reason to continue to watch and take note Classic fights which was a hobby I enjoyed anyhow, and this list gives that hobby a purpose.

[tiny_acres]

To me it more clearly defines why somebody is ranked where they are as opposed to simply saying "I have so and so ranked 7". I have him ranked where he is, and a detailed reason for having him ranked there. I'm satisfied with the results so far, and there have rarely been any major surprises or bad conclusions come to as a result of this ranking system.

I also just feel like it gives me a reason to continue to watch and take note Classic fights which was a hobby I enjoyed anyhow, and this list gives that hobby a purpose.

I like your list. A few are surprisingly higher or lower than I expected.
But a very interesting read and enjoying this so far.

[gilgamesh]

To me it more clearly defines why somebody is ranked where they are as opposed to simply saying "I have so and so ranked 7". I have him ranked where he is, and a detailed reason for having him ranked there. I'm satisfied with the results so far, and there have rarely been any major surprises or bad conclusions come to as a result of this ranking system.

I also just feel like it gives me a reason to continue to watch and take note Classic fights which was a hobby I enjoyed anyhow, and this list gives that hobby a purpose.

I like your list. A few are surprisingly higher or lower than I expected.
But a very interesting read and enjoying this so far.

I appreciate that tiny. At this point I'm mostly continuing on with this project out of my own personal interest in where it goes as it continues to grow, but I'm glad that at least a few people besides me appreciate it.

It really is such a beautiful thing to be able to go to YouTube and just watch fight after fight after fight of whichever fighter you're interested in seeing. Man what I wouldn't have given to have that 25 years ago. I would've had even less of a Social Life than the one I already didn't have