Ring Record Book's Top 10 Heavy's

perrycarter · Post by **perrycarter** » 05 Jan 2004, 23:16

I came across this one day at the library. Nat Fleischer, the famous former editor of Ring magazine compiled this top ten list in the Ring Record book which was written sometime in the 70's i believe. This is his all time top ten heavyweight list:
1.Jack Johnson
2.Jim Jeffries
3.Bob Fitzsimmons
4.Jack Dempsey
5.Jim Corbett
6.Joe Louis
7.Sam Langford
8.Gene Tunney
9.Max Schmeling
10.Rocky Marciano

Obviously this seemed a little off. Especially coming from someone so knowledgable in the game. Fitz, Langford, Corbett and Schmeling are rarely even in peoples top 15 anymore. Again this is not all that old of a document so I wanted to get some thoughts on this.

crooked nose · Post by **crooked nose** » 05 Jan 2004, 23:28

It is kind of an odd bunch - Jeffries way too high, Louis, Tunney and Marciano way too low. And remember it took a long time before Ali got his props from the boxing establishment, so it's not really surprising that he's left off, or maybe Fleischer was excluding active fighters.

perrycarter · Post by **perrycarter** » 06 Jan 2004, 00:54

I believe he was but still, Louis and Dempsey had been retired for many years. Today they are legends in the top 5 in almost every list. Why did he have them so low? perhaps he was just trying to give props to the old timers because not many did anymore.

Jaclem · Post by **Jaclem** » 27 Jan 2004, 02:31

ali was active when flescher made out his list. he had marciano at ten and said (paraphrased)...."to put ali in the top ten would mean rating him above marciano....a ridiculous proposition." although he was one who continued to call Ali champion even after he was stripped of his title, on the basis that a fighter can lose his title only in the ring, he never thought ali was a great fighter. He really wasn't all that much of a marciano admirer, either, and was highly critical of his crudeness and "lack of science"....when marciano was active. i can't recall who he dropped out his ten to finally include him.

He actually started fooling with a top ten list while joe louis was still active. remember now, at that time there weren't all that many heavyweight champions to consider. He had seen every heavyweight in action from corbett on, and always rated the earlier fighters higher. max schmeling is in there solely because of his defeat of louis.

it wasn't just the heavyweights where nat had the older fighters rated highest. i don't have his list handy, but when sugar ray robinson was at his peak as a welterweight i don't think he had him rated any higher than fifth. again, here was an active fighter, but the sugar man's career had already established his greatness.

all through the other divisions, the pioneers were virtually carved in stone in his upper tens. he was insistent that the fighters of the earlier era were more skilled in "the science of boxing"...one of his most used phrases.

if he were still around, i'm certain that the top five or so would continue to be the same ones.

he scoffed at the idea that archie moore might have been one of the all-time great light heavies and also under rated ezzard charles. among other greats who were at their prime while he was still covering the sport.

to be fair to nat, a lot of the old time writers ...some who went back as far as flesicher did, also held to the same frozen biases.