top 10 best heavyweights

[Ezzard]

Fleischer's ratings are badly biased towards fighters who were active when he was a boy or a young man, just as most people's ratings are.

I agree. I think for the most part we form the arguments as to why someone is best as an exercise in reverse engineering to make sure our favourites get the billing we want them to have.

[Goodnight, Irene]

On accomplishment, it's very hard for me to see Tunney in the top 10. Three fights only...

Tunney fought more than 3 fights at HW, so I'm not sure what your comment means. Please explain.

Three championship fights only is what I meant to say, but didn't properly clarify. I mention these bouts because it's often in the title bouts that great champions distinguish themselves from good ones. Tunney had a tremendous Light-Heavy career & a good one at Heavyweight, but not a great one because of the lack of longevity when compared with natural 200+lbers, Larry Holmes, Mike Tyson etc.

[Collins2000]

In the 1980s The Ring rated all HW champs in 10 categories. each category was out of 10 and the scores were added up and the list compiled.

Tunney came 4th.

The measure was more of skills and abilities and only 1 category was on level of opponents so this does skew the ratings in gene's favour. Still 4th shows that he is/was highly respected.

When I first started following boxing in the late 70's, Tunney always seemed well respected in the boxing magazines but in the last few years he has fallen out of favour.

Of course now, with the internet and boxing forums everyone is a fekkin expert and anyone who has had an article posted on a web site is a boxing historian.

[Collins2000]

Come on. Think of the athletes, musicians and movies you followed when you were a teenager. Don't you sometimes speculate that they were the best of all time? People who watched Tunney as a teenager started dying in the 1970s. Now there's more focus on Sonny Liston. In 40 years, People'll forget about him.

Your theory might hold some water if, say Dempsey and Louis, had gone out of fashion too.

I think it's a bit more complex than you make out.

[Collins2000]

Of course. Fighters like Louis, Dempsey, Ali and Tyson transcend generations. Some divisions transcend generations, like the heavyweight division of the 1970s, or the middleweight division of the 1940s.

That's better but...

If lesser known fighters fall out of favour when the guys who grew up with them all go belly up why have blokes like Willard and Carnera who were viewed as nothing much by the writers of their day started to get loads of respect in boxing forums?

Maybe it works both ways. A guy like Carnera who gets no respect in his day is now lauded by the instant experts of the net.

Maybe it's because there are a lot of huge freaks doing well in boxing today so the 3 week wonders on the net assume huge freaks of the past were also much better than they really were.

Hang on, I am beginning to sound as bitter and twisted as you. Where's my fekking happy pills...

[Collins2000]

Carnera and Willard weren't written off as nothing much in their own eras, though. They were viewed kind of the same way we view Maskaev and Wlad.

Give me some quotes from the respected writers of the day on Carnera that prove me wrong. You must have read them to be so sure.

And don't come on next week and say it doesn't count because when you wrote it you had been snorting battery acid all night...

[Heartbreak_Kid79]

Or, are there any George Foreman fights that you think should have gone the distance?

If the Frazier fights had not been stopped prematurely who knows what might have happened.

Joe would have been knocked out the next round