BoxRec

Every year since 1924, The Ring Magazine publishes it's annual rankings for every weight class in the previous year where they list a Champion (where applicable) and the top 10 contenders. It took me a while, but I went through ALL of the annual rankings and collated them with other annual rankings from the same decade.
My purpose was that I wanted to find the top ten Heavyweights from each decade in the most objective and impartial way as possible. So I devised a very simple scoring system which went like this:
Champ - 11 pts (if there was no Champion, then nobody got the full 11 pts)
1st - 10 pts
2nd - 9 pts
3rd - 8 pts
4th - 7 pts
5th - 6 pts
6th - 5 pts
7th - 4 pts
8th - 3 pts
9th - 2 pts
10th - 1 pt

Very basic, but effective. And so at the end of each decade (the ninth year) I then counted up each boxer's score and came up with a top ten from the 1920s through to the 2000s. I will publish my findings below.

1920s (from 1924 onward to 1929)
Jack Dempsey - 40 pts
Jack Sharkey - 37 pts
Gene Tunney - 30 pts
George Godfrey - 27 pts
Harry Wills - 23 pts
Paolino Uzcudun - 21 pts
Jack Renault - 16 pts
Jim Maloney - 15 pts
Johnny Risko - 14 pts
Young Stribling 14 pts

1930s
Max Schmeling - 80 pts
Joe Louis - 54 pts
Primo Carnera - 50 pts
Max Baer - 41 pts
Jack Sharkey - 31 pts
King Levinsky - 25 pts
Tommy Loughran - 23 pts
Ton Galento - 23 pts
James J braddock - 22 pts
Lou Nova - 22 pts

1940s
Joe Louis - 99 pts
Tami Mauriello - 46 pts
Jimmy Bivins - 37 pts
Jersey Joe Walcott - 37 pts
Elmer Ray 28 pts
Turkey Thompson - 27 pts
Lee Q Murray - 27 pts
Lee Savold - 22 pts
Joe Baksi - 22 pts
Melio Bettina - 21 pts
Bruce Woodcock - 21 pts

1950s
Rocky Marciano - 54 pts
Ezzard Charles - 47 pts
Floyd Patterson - 42 pts
Nino Valdes - 39 pts
Bob Baker - 27 pts
Willie Pastrano - 27 pts
Eddie Machen - 26 pts
Ingemar Johansson - 26 pts
Clarence Henry - 25 pts
Jersey Joe Walcott - 25 pts

1960s
Muhammad Ali - 87 pts
Floyd Patterson - 66 pts
Sonny Liston - 63 pts
Zora Folley - 47 pts
Ernie Terrell - 37 pts
Joe Frazier - 35 pts
Jimmy Ellis - 26 pts
George Chuvalo - 26 pts
Eddie Machen - 24 pts
Cleveland Williams - 23 pts

1970s
Muhammad Ali - 95 pts
George Foreman - 64 pts
Joe Frazier - 59 pts
Ken Norton - 54 pts
Ron Lyle - 47 pts
Larry Holmes - 33 pts
Jimmy Young - 32 pts
Jerry Quarry - 27 pts
Oscar Bonavena - 26 pts
Earnie Shavers - 21 pts

1980s
Larry Holmes - 64 pts
Tim Witherspoon - 49 pts
Pinklon Thomas - 44 pts
Mike Tyson - 41 pts
Gerrie Coetzee - 41 pts
Greg Page - 39 pts
Mike Weaver - 38 pts
Michael Dokes - 38 pts
Michael Spinks - 33 pts
Trevor Berbick - 30 pts

1990s
Evander Holyfield - 83 pts
Lennox Lewis - 71 pts
Michael Moorer - 51 pts
Riddick Bowe - 50 pts
Mike Tyson - 39 pts
George Foreman - 29 pts
Ray Mercer - 27 pts
Razor Ruddock - 19 pts
Tim Witherspoon - 17 pts
Michael Grant - 16 pts

2000s
Wladimir Klitschko - 72 pts
Chris Byrd - 47 pts
Vitali Klitschko - 44 pts
Lennox Lewis - 43 pts
Hasim Rahman - 31 pts
John Ruiz - 30 pts
James Toney - 28 pts
Oleg Maskaev - 24 pts
Ruslan Chagaev - 24 pts
Samuel Peter - 23 pts

As I say, this experiment has some very interesting outcomes... Clearly it's not a perfect system, but I allows us to have some fun in looking at those top tens and asking ourselves who we would/would not have in there for each decade.

This points system that I have devised favours fighters who were in the Ring Magazine's top tens for a long time (thus clocking up points for each year they were mentioned) and it doesn't take in to consideration what some now call "the alphabet soup" - for example, Sultan Ibragimov and Tommy Morrison aren't automatically included just because they held a World Championship.

Also, some boxers (like Bob Pastor & Clarence Red Burman) had their careers overlap in two decades, as such their accumulative points total is split between those decades and they don't maximize their investment in the sport. But alas, it is an imperfect system.

So here are the two questions I ask each of you:

1. How accurate are the above lists?

2. Who should have been mentioned and withdrawn?

The 80's list looks just about right to me

Personally I might just put Tyson ahead of Pinklon Thomas.

witherspoon wrote:The 80's list looks just about right to me
Personally I might just put Tyson ahead of Pinklon Thomas.

I only put the points in for the sake of it. But I'd ask not to get bogged down in the points system, obviously Tyson would be in ahead of most of those 80s guys, and be ranked much higher up - but I'd rather focus on the question of:

Are these guys the proper top 10 for each decade?

Obviously, my last post was made in joking reference to the high placement of my namesake.

But to be serious, it's a good ten for the 80's. I like Michael Spinks, but it grates a little that 2 wins over Larry Holmes is enough to get him in, in a decade which I believe to be underrated. But I honestly can't think of another HW worthy of displacing him.
I'm sure most would agree. I would say that's a pretty good indication that the correct 10 fighters are in that list.

I can't see why Michael Grant Would be included in the 90's and Tommy Morrison not. The 70's looks good to me, but others more knowledgable than me might think differently, same for earlier decades.

I will say this, I defend Witherspoon's high ranking. I think this is a very good way to put a value on longevity.

Crease- I actually did a list very similar to this about 8 years ago, only I gave the champion 12 points. I guess great minds think alike.

Tami Mauriello being #2 for the 1940s really stood out to me. He is a guy that you hardly every hear about. Hard to imagine that if Joe Louis did not exist, that Mauriello would have been the top heavyweight. Hard to believe that Buddy Baer did not make it.

For the 1930s Ernie Schaff was certainly one of the 10 best. Galento was not.

Archie Moore and Harold Johnson were two of the best heavyweights, but Ring only rated them at light heavy. Rex Layne didn't make it; maybe he is at the disadvantage of fighting at the end of the 1940s and the beginning of the 1950s. Hard to bleieve that Willie Pastrano is in the top 10 let alone 6th. Valdes and Baker were always overrated by Ring.

Ring never seemed to like Cleveland Williams. He was often not in their top 10.

Anyway, it is interesting, isn't it?

Great piece of research Crease, would love to see the career total numbers as well. Frazier for instance has 35 and 59 in two decades, which is OK, but he has 94 career, which I'd think would rank higher.

Pretty cool!

Ambling Alp II wrote:Tami Mauriello being #2 for the 1940s really stood out to me. He is a guy that you hardly every hear about. Hard to imagine that if Joe Louis did not exist, that Mauriello would have been the top heavyweight.

Agreed. Mauriello's reputation always struck me as a guy who was always knocking on the door for the Heavyweight title, but was he really that good considering that he wasn't a Champion (the way that Sharkey, Carnera, Baer, Braddock were) granted, as you've already pointed out - he was around during the time of Joe Louis, so it's not exactly a mystery as to why he was never a Champion.
But upon doing this experiment, I now rate Mauriello much more highly than what I did before.

Ambling Alp II wrote:Hard to believe that Buddy Baer did not make it.

Buddy Baer was only ranked in the '40s... He scored 9 pts - and he was ranked 21st for that particular decade. The problem with him was his lack of longevity.

Ambling Alp II wrote:For the 1930s Ernie Schaff was certainly one of the 10 best. Galento was not.

Ernie was really close to getting in the top 10 of the '30s. He scored 19 pts and placed 12th in that decade. It's clear that he probably would have qualified in to the top 10 if not for his untimely death.

Ambling Alp II wrote:Archie Moore and Harold Johnson were two of the best heavyweights, but Ring only rated them at light heavy.

Agreed, Light Heavies who were competing in the Heavyweight division won't get their honest dues, because they came up from another division. It's another flaw in this system.

Ambling Alp II wrote:Rex Layne didn't make it; maybe he is at the disadvantage of fighting at the end of the 1940s and the beginning of the 1950s.

Initially I would have had the same reaction because I too rate Layne as a good fighter. But surprisingly not, Layne didn't score any points at all during the '40s, you can check it yourself on this quick link:
(http://boxrec.com/media/index.php/The_R ... ght--1940s)

Rex ended up scoring 18 pts in the '50s and placed joint 14th - alongside Roland LaStarza.

Ambling Alp II wrote:Hard to bleieve that Willie Pastrano is in the top 10 let alone 6th. Valdes and Baker were always overrated by Ring.

In my estimation I think that you might be being a tad unkind to Pastrano. Granted, he was never going to be considered a top five fighter of his time in the division, but top 10? - Yeah, I'd rate him as an outside bet to get on the outskirts of it.

Ambling Alp II wrote:Ring never seemed to like Cleveland Williams. He was often not in their top 10.

I have to agree with you on that too mate. I definitely would've put Cleveland in my top 10 for the '60s, but I was surprised that he just creeped in at 10th. As I say, I thought he would have qualified for the top 10 much more comfortably than that.

Another fighter that I would say the same about is Greg Page. I probably would've put him in my top five for the 80s, but there were a couple of years that the ring magazine didn't rank him and as such he lost out on valuable points.

Mauriello is also sort of perfectly positioned for this because his career is 1939-1949. If the study had been 1936-1945 he and 1946-1955 he would have fared much worse.

Great minds DO think alike - I've done the same thing with the p4p rankings before.

DaveyMac wrote:Mauriello is also sort of perfectly positioned for this because his career is 1939-1949. If the study had been 1936-1945 he and 1946-1955 he would have fared much worse.

It'd be interesting to do a similiar experiment beginning and ending halfway through the decades.

I'm not sure how informative or interesting this is, but I had some free time today :)

I decided to go through the fighters and tabulate their records against the other rated fighters from the decade that occurred in the decade.
So for instance Joe Louis would get credit for fighting Max Baer in the '30's because they were both ranked, but not for a fight in the '40's because Baer was no longer ranked.

Lots of flaws to this, the most obvious being the ten year choice, if you moved it to mid-decade you'd have different data obviously. Also, in the beginning of the decade lots of guys are fighting guys who were ranked in the last decade and getting no credit for it. Still, I thought it was somewhat interesting.

Here are the totals W-L-D

1920-1929 29 29 0
Jack Dempsey 1 2 0
Jack Sharkey 8 3 0
Gene Tunney 3 0 0
George Godfrey 3 4 0
Harry Wills 0 2 0
Paulino Uzcudun 2 2 0
Jack Renault 3 4 0
Jim Maloney 3 5 0
Johnny Risko 4 6 0
Young Stribling 2 1 0


1930-1939 28 28 0
Max Schmeling 2 3 0
Joe Louis 7 1 0
Primo Carnera 4 3 0
Max Baer 4 4 0
Jack Sharkey 2 5 0
King Levinsky 2 7 0
Tommy Loughran 4 2 0
Tony Galento 1 1 0
James J. Braddock 1 1 0
Lou Nova 1 1 0


1940-1949 32 32 2
Joe Louis 3 0 0
Tami Mauriello 3 4 0
Jimmy Bivins 8 4 1
Jersey Joe Walcott 4 3 0
Elmer Ray 2 2 0
Turkey Thompson 2 2 0
Lee Q. Murray 3 5 0
Lee Savold 1 7 0
Joe Baksi 4 2 0
Melio Bettina 1 1 1
Bruce Woodcock 1 2 0


1950-1959 17 17 0
Rocky Marciano 4 0 0
Ezzard Charles 1 5 0
Floyd Patterson 0 1 0
Nino Valdes 1 4 0
Bob Baker 2 3 0
Willie Pastrano 0 0 0
Eddie Machen 3 1 0
Ingemar Johansson 2 0 0
Clarence Henry 2 0 0
Jersey Joe Walcott 2 3 0

1960-1969 24 24 2
Muhammad Ali 7 0 0
Floyd Patterson 2 4 0
Sonny Liston 5 2 0
Zora Folley 2 3 0
Ernie Terrell 4 2 0
Joe Frazier 2 0 0
Jimmy Ellis 1 0 0
George Chuvalo 0 5 0
Eddie Machen 0 5 1
Cleveland Williams 1 3 1

1970-1979 32 32 1
Muhammad Ali 11 2 0
George Foreman 4 2 0
Joe Frazier 2 4 0
Ken Norton 3 5 0
Ron Lyle 2 5 0
Larry Holmes 3 0 0
Jimmy Young 3 3 1
Jerry Quarry 2 4 0
Oscar Bonavena 0 2 0
Earnie Shavers 2 5 0


1980-1989 17 17 4
Larry Holmes 2 3 0
Tim Witherspoon 1 2 0
Pinklon Thomas 2 2 1
Mike Tyson 4 0 0
Gerrie Coetzee 1 2 1
Greg Page 1 2 0
Mike Weaver 1 2 1
Michael Dokes 1 1 1
Michael Spinks 2 1 0
Trevor Berbick 2 2 0


1990-1999 16 16 2
Evander Holyfield 6 4 1
Lennox Lewis 3 0 1
Michael Moorer 1 2 0
Riddick Bowe 2 1 0
Mike Tyson 2 2 0
George Foreman 1 1 0
Ray Mercer 1 2 0
Razor Ruddock 0 3 0
Tim Witherspoon 0 1 0
Michael Grant 0 0 0


2000-2009 16 16 2
Wladimir Klitschko 5 0 0
Chris Byrd 1 2 0
Vitali Klitschko 1 2 0
Lennox Lewis 2 1 0
Hasim Rahman 1 4 1
John Ruiz 1 1 0
James Toney 0 2 1
Oleg Maskaev 1 1 0
Ruslan Chagaev 1 1 0
Samuel Peter 3 2 0


The fighters who were ranked in more than one decade had the following career totals, Muhammad Ali (18-2), Joe Louis (10-1), Jack Sharkey (10-8), Mike Tyson (6-2), Jersey Joe Walcott (6-6), Lennox Lewis (5-1-1), George Foreman (5-3), Larry Holmes (5-3), Eddie Machen (3-6-1), Floyd Patterson (2-5), Tim Witherspoon (1-3).

Willie Pastrano and Michael Grant are the only two fighters to NOT fight anyone in the decade who made Crease's list.

The most wins in a decade is 11 by '70's Muhammad Ali.
The most undefeated wins in a decade is 7 by '60's Muhammad Ali.

40's Jimmy Bivins and '20's Jack Sharkey both won 8 fights.

Undefeated with three or more fights in a decade are

20's Gene Tunney 3
40's Joe Louis 3
50's Rocky Marciano 4
60's Muhammad Ali 7
70's Larry Holmes 3
80's Mike Tyson 4
90's Lennox Lewis 3
00's Wladimir Klitschko 5

30's King Levinsky and 40's Lee Savold both lost 7 fights in their decade.
Jack Sharkey lost 8 over all.

Fighters who got shut out

20's Harry Wills (0-2)
50's Willie Pastrano (0-0)
50's Floyd Patterson (0-1) he only fought the first Johannson fight in the '50's
60's George Chuvalo (0-5)
60's Eddie Machen (0-5-1)
70's Oscar Bonavena (0-2)
90's Razor Ruddock (0-3)
90's Tim Witherspoon (0-1)
90's Michael Grant (0-0)
00's James Toney (0-2-1)* *Toney had wins over Hasim Rahman and John Ruiz turned into NC's for failed drug tests in the '00's. I didn't count them at all but if you counted them as wins he'd be 2-2-1.

Wow, that is a lot of information to chew on!

One thing that seems clear is that sometime what seems like a big win at the time turns out not to be. ie. the guy you beat later gets beat by a lot of people later.
Michael Grants win over Golota turned out not to be as big of a deal as it seemed at the time.

Still have no idea what Ring saw in Pastrano as a heavyweight.
Little surprised that Joe Baski had such a good record.
Interesting that Machen record was so much better in the 1950s than the 1960s.
Too bad that Ring did not have rankings even earlier.

This thread is off the scale geeky...but i like it.

Got me thinking about something i did as a kid. I worked out the best ye olde 8 divisions for each decade and then did fantasy fights to see which decade was the best. I think the 70s came out on top with Ali, Foster, Monzon, Napoles, Duran etc but itd be fun to do now. May post that if its not been done already.

70s vs 40s would be say ali vs louis, foster vs conn, monzon vs cerdan, napoles vs robinson, duran vs williams etc etc

I think the 80s would be pretty strong tho - Holmes, Spinks, Hagler, Leonard etc

I guess it is "geeky".
However, what Crease started and DaveyMac added to is interesting. There is some thought put into this. If people take a hard look at this, they will find things that will surprise them.

sweetsci wrote:It'd be interesting to do a similiar experiment beginning and ending halfway through the decades.

It could be done easily enough. The glaring problem with it though it that it would have identical problems as the formula which ends at the ninth year of a decade.

Ambling Alp II wrote:I guess it is "geeky".
However, what Crease started and DaveyMac added to is interesting. There is some thought put into this. If people take a hard look at this, they will find things that will surprise them.

Agreed, though shall we say it's more "intellectual" - and try to put up a more positive spin on it?

I agree with you in your above sentence. Boxing at its most basic level allows every fan/pundit to have an opinion on a fighter - and the trouble is everyone's opinion(s) are subjective and will differ from person to person. I stated this in my original post: "My purpose was that I wanted to find the top ten Heavyweights from each decade in the most objective and impartial way as possible" - but to do this we have to look past opinions on fighters and back it up with something.

Personally speaking, I tend to rate boxers better when I know they've fought a high caliber of opposition, and I believe that everyone else pretty much thinks along the same lines, but it raises a multitude of questions:
"Was that challenger a credible opponent" or "Yeah, he had five title defenses but did he defend against his biggest threat" etc...

I'm a strong believer that only when we ask questions and seek research to back up our own opinions on fighters - but oftentimes, research can throw up facts that many of us have never considered before, and show us a "higher truth" (for want of a better phrase) regarding fighters of the past.

In a way, it's a great formula to use for the Heavyweight division, because it's more pure than other weight divisions... Can you imagine trying to draw up something like a Light Welterweight top 10 Rankings, when you consider how much that division has been diluted but the numerous weight-jumpers in our sport. Frankly, it would be impossible to draw up a credible top 10 for some weight divisions because of the afore-mentioned problem.

And definitely props to Mr DaveyMac for his contribution. It was fascinating input.

Great research, interesting results - thanks!

Wanted to touch on something Crease mentioned: "In a way, it's a great formula to use for the Heavyweight division, because it's more pure than other weight divisions... Can you imagine trying to draw up something like a Light Welterweight top 10 Rankings, when you consider how much that division has been diluted but the numerous weight-jumpers in our sport. Frankly, it would be impossible to draw up a credible top 10 for some weight divisions because of the afore-mentioned problem."

The word "diluted" is key.

This is something that is often misunderstood when people talk about weight classes. You will hear about how many "great fighters fought in this weight class" over the years. While it may technically be true, often some of the fighters did not spend much time in the weight class. I remember a duscussion a while aback about featherweights. Someone was pointing out all the great fighters who fought in the featherweight division and how much depth it had. However, if you take a hard look, how often was there ever in any one specific period of time a lot of really good featherweights? Almost never.

Sure the heavyweight division has sucked for a long time. However, for many years, there were a lot of good fighters near the top in the heavyweight division because the weight class is not diluted. It is not a weight class that only includes the fighters of a span of 3-8 pounds.

Ambling Alp II wrote:The word "diluted" is key.

This is something that is often misunderstood when people talk about weight classes. You will hear about how many "great fighters fought in this weight class" over the years. While it may technically be true, often some of the fighters did not spend much time in the weight class. I remember a duscussion a while aback about featherweights. Someone was pointing out all the great fighters who fought in the featherweight division and how much depth it had. However, if you take a hard look, how often was there ever in any one specific period of time a lot of really good featherweights? Almost never.

I whole heartedly agree. There are fighters who have won World Titles at Featherweight - but cannot possibly be considered "great Featherweights" because they may have all but 2/3 fights in the division - and more-than-likely have a perfect record in the division to put even more of a shine on their so-called achievement.

Granted, someone like Humberto Soto (for example) who I'd say is a pretty good fighter, and undeniably did win Featherweight World title - but I would ask;
Should that automatically mean that he's included in any list of great Featherweights from the past? Of course not.
Should he even be ranked at as Featherweight, or was at his best in a different weight class? Perhaps.

All these sorts of questions should be taken in to account. Well, that's only what I believe anyway.

And I've said this a thousand times, jumping up and down weights and winning World Titles by hand-picking your opponents isn't the HOF achievement that promoters make it out to be.

And I'm sick of people bringing up Sugar Ray Robinson & Henry Armstrong as the first guys to really do this and be mega-successful with it. The truth is both of those fighters fought the BEST guys in various weight divisions - they didn't creep between division and tip toe around the better fighters like we are seeing today.



It's a much more honourable and credible achievement to unify a division, like the way that Bernard Hopkins did win he won all four Middleweight titles. And lock out the division by becoming the undisputed number one man.