BoxRec

A while back, someone else had an idea of giving a numerical value to some heavyweights. I thought I would steal this idea and expand on it. I gave every heavyweight that I thought that you could reasonably claim was a "real champion" and rated them. The highest score they could get is 100.
You often hear that you can't compare fighters from vastly different eras, but of course you can. By starting with Sullivan,Corbett,Fitzsimmons and Jeffries you can compare fighters in chronological order. For example, you certainly can tell that Johnson should have much higher score than Burns. Charles and Walcott have to have similar scores. Anyway,after some tweaking, these are the scores that I came up with:

John L. Sullivan 75
James J. Corbett 75
Bob Fitzsimmons 77
James J. Jeffries 83
Marvin Hart 69
Tommy Burns 72
Jack Johnson 90
Jess Willard 65
Jack Dempsey 85
Gene Tunney 84
Max Schmeling 78
Jack Sharkey 75
Primo Carnera 67
Max Baer 77
James Braddock 68
Joe Louis 92
Ezzard Charles 80
Jersey Joe Walcott 79
Rocky Marciano 85
Floyd Patterson 79
Ingemar Johansson 73
Sonny Liston 84
Muhammad Ali 95
Jimmy Ellis 72
Joe Frazier 89
George Foreman 90
Leon Spinks 65
Ken Norton 80
Larry Holmes 88
Michael Spinks 74
Mike Tyson 84
Buster Douglas 71
Evander Holyfield 86
Riddick Bowe 83
Michael Moorer 70
Lennox Lewis 85


This was actaully kind of fun. You can do this as a baseline, and then rate top heavyweight challengers as well.
I may tweak this some more in the future, but this is pretty close to how I currently see it.
John L Sullivan was the hardest fighter to assign a number to; I finally decided just to give him the same rating as Corbett.

Of course I don't expect everyone to agree with all of this; no two people will have the exact same ratings. I just thought this would be an interesting discussion.

Nice evaluation, but some of the figures I don't exactly agree with. Take Holmes for example, are you basing his criteria on his talent and skill or on what he accomplished? Cus if you really figure it, the greatest men Holmes fought and defeated, really, when he was champ was Shavers and Cooney...Witherspoon and Berbick and some others were still green when they fought Holmes, and Holmes never did quite unify the titles and he was dominate in an era when Heavyweights (like our era now) were lackluster. Yet you given him a 88 ranking, higher than Holyfield who was in a greater era, who fought greater opponents and unified the titles and was also the greatest Cruiserweight champion as well (for example).

"...Take Holmes for example, are you basing his criteria on his talent and skill or on what he accomplished..." - HH

Exactly what I was wondering. Are your numbers an evaluation of ability, accomplishment, or a mix of the two?

Because it occurs to me Dempsey would be quite high head-to-head, but would lose ground on accomplishments during his title reign. I'm also interested in your selection of champions. It appears you are only recognising the linear title (Which is the way it should be done, IMO) with one exception - Kenny Norton. Basis?

I know some people rate people on terms like "ability" or "accomplishment". I don't use that train of thought. I consider the two to go hand in hand. If you have (and of course use) great ability, you will accomplish a lot.

As for Holmes, I think he accomplished quite a bit. Yes, Holyfield beat Tyson, who was better than anyone Holmes beat. However, I think the rest of Holmes career outweighes this.
Holmes beat several good fighters easily. As Homocide Henry mentioned the 1980's wasn't a great era in the heavyweight division. However, I would argue that it was that bad and is certainly much better than the current era. And Holmes was very dominaint in most of fights in his prime. In most, he won almost every round.
Also, Holmes beat Shavers before he won the title, won the title from Norton in a great fight, and then was easily the best heavyweight until he started to slow down in 1983.
For me, it's important to note that Holmes was by far the best heavyweight from after the Norton fight until 1983. If he was a little better than everyone else during this period, then I would rank him so high.

Holyfield's loss to Moorer has to go against him. He looked horrible in that fight despite the closeness of the scorecards. Holmes never had any embarrassing losses in his prime; in fact he never lost at all until he was 35. Holyfield actaully didn't look much better in his 2nd fight with Alex Stewart.

Holyfield only beat Bowe once out of three times; I can't imagine Holmes losing to Bowe 2 out of 3. (Of course may you can. This is of course subjective.)

The bottom line is that Holmes was more consistent. (Arguably the most consistent heavyweight ever.) Lets say Holyfield fought every opponent that Holmes did in Holmes' prime. I think Holyfield was better and would have been favored to beat any of Holmes opponents throughout his prime. However, Holyfield would have stumbled somewhere along the line. Norton would have had a chance;two fights against Earnie Shavers would have been risky. It's just a question of when.

I also wanted to mention that I don't consider just title fights when doing these ratings. I do give title fights more weight, I certainly factor in every every fight that a fighter had that is reasonably close to their prime. A longer prime is also a plus.

I don't hold Holmes not unifying the title to be that important. I think you guys are too young to remember this but no one considered Mike Weaver to be the real champion. No one was screaming for a unification fight. Even those of us who didn't like Holmes (which includes myself) knew he was the best. Actaully there was a lot of talk of Holmes having a unification fight with John Tate. However, after Tate lost to Weaver that fizzled out. Remember Holmes had already beaten Weaver.

As for who I considered a "champion" there were some borderline cases. I almost didn't include Norton or Jimmy Ellis. I suppose I could have included Ernie Terrell. This isn't meant entirely to be about champions anyway. You can use this as baseline to rank top heavyweights as well.

For example, you want to know where you should rank Tom Sharkey. You know he wasn't as good as Fitzsimmons ( I gave him a 77) or Jeffries (83), but you think he was better than Marvin Hart (69). I would give Tom Sharkey a score in the low 70's.

Anyway, I think you guys should try doing this yourself. Do the champions first, starting with Sullivan/Corbett/Fitsimmons. Do the top contenders. Do other weight classes.

Interesting reading. I'm not sure about the numbers themselves but the who has higher, who has lower seems about right to me.

The only one who seems too high is Foreman. Before the comeback, George was rarely seen inside a top 10. Whilst his comeback should elevate him I think up at #4 is too high. That's all I can say.

I used to try various exercises like this by naming categories and then marking each out of 10 (or whatever weighting). The problem is in deciding upon the categories.

The only draw back with the numbers system is that it is somewhat unfair on the older fighters. We know how great Holyfield, Foreman and others more modern are because we have witnessed and viewed those guys because they were of our generation...but how can you really evaluate John L. Sullivan when for the most part the majority of his career was under a complerely different set of rules, and theres no film or great documentation on his fights or opponents for that matter?

That's why I like the by era rankings more so than number rankings, because in Sullivan's era you could say the top three heavyweights were Peter Jackson, then Sullivan and then Jem Mace. By numbering, you're trying to give everyone a worth...let's take contenders as an example, not too many people hold Tony Galento up on that high a pedestal but when you take into consideration that it would only be until Joe Louis fought Joe Walcott eight years later would he get knocked down in a fight again.

See what I mean here?

Well, I sort of see what you mean. This isn't meant to rate fighters from the pre-Marquis of Queensbury Rules Days. In my opinion the two eras are too different to compare. This is meant just to rate fighters after Marquis of Quensbury rules became popular.
Mace actually wasn't a rival of Sullivan's, though he was still fighting when Sullivan came a long. He was long past his best by then.

Sullivan is borderline call. He sort of bridged the gap between the bareknuckles days and the gloved era. I was on the fence whether to include him or not. If you don't want to include him, don't.

Peter Jackson had enough major fights with gloves that I think you could give him a rating. You certainly can compare his career with Corbett. If you think he was a little better, give him a little higher score. If not quite as good, give him a little lower score.

Tony Galento ? Well take a hard look at his career. Besides the knockdown of Joe Louis (who btw was knocked down by Buddy Baer in between the Galento and Walcott fights) there isn't much that is impressive. I personally wouldn't rate Galento that high at all. He has to be significantly lower than the champions of the 1930's, even Braddock and Carnera. I would rate him around 60, certainly not much higher.

The great benefit of rating with numbers is that it ultimately helps you compare fighters from vastly different eras.

However, you have to do it in chronological order, atleast to form a baseline to start from. If you don't it's much harder. How do you know what score to give say Holyfield if he is your first guy, and say Tommy Burns if he is your second guy.

So start with, Corbett, Fitzsimmons and Jeffries. Then, compare Hart to Jeffries, gives Hart a score, then Burns to Hart, (given Burns a score)Johnson to Burns (give Johnson a score) and so on. It's much easier to rank two fighters whose careers overlap.

When I did it, my first thought was what score to give the first guys Sullivan and Corbett?

My reasoning for giving Corbett a 75 was because it's halfway between 50 and 100. Since 50 is an average fighter (so he had to be higher than than that) and 100 is a perfect fighter (he had to be lower than that.), 75 seemed about right. I expected to have to change his number after I had rated everyone , but it seems about right, so I didn't.

When you have ranked all of the champions, you can go back and tweak it. However you will probably find that you won't have to tweak it too much.

Than rank any non-champions that you want to. What score should you give Jerry Quarry? Well, he was about as good as Jimmy Ellis, so give him a similar score to Ellis.
What about Sam Langford? Well, he was better than Tommy Burns, but not as good as Jack Johnson. So give him a score in between the two.

Don't worry about any reason why you think this won't work. Just do it. Have fun with this.

douglas?

what about the likes of bebrick, spinks, hasim to name a few..

or is it only champs who had all belts,

sorry, noob question

I just did the guys that I thought that you make a legitimate case for being the "real champion". (Actually I did do Douglas, he got a 71.)
A couple were borderline calls- Ellis and Norton. I decided I might as well rate them.

I guess I could do guys like beltholders like Berbick, Rahman etc. Most would probably be in the low 70's. Actually, I probably should have done Michael Spinks. He is a little difficult becasue he only had 5 fights at heavyweight. He should get a score of about 74. I will edit it and put him in.

What you can do rate any fighter that you want to. He doesn't have to be a champion. It's just best if you do the champions in chronological order to get a good starting point.
I would encourage everyone to do this. (Post them here if you want to). It's kind of fun and makes you think.

Actually I did do Douglas, he got a 71.)

yeah i was wondering why you did him and not others :P

Yeah, nothing I would disagree with too much, besides maybe Holyfield over Lewis.

Its a pretty extensive (and accurate) list, there are no significant heavyweights that you have left out. But I would change a few.

Jack Johnson is too high. (I would have him 86-89).
Jack Dempsey is too low. (I would have him 86-90).
Rocky Marciano is too low. (I would have him 90-94).
Floyd Patterson is too low. (I would have him 80-83).
George Foreman is too high. (I would have him 85-88).
Larry Holmes is too high. (I would have him 84-86).
Mike Tyson is too low. (I would have him 85-87).
Lennox Lewis is too high. (I would have him 81-83).

No doubt, people will disagree with my decisions, but these are just my opinions. For instance, with Rocky Marciano and his "perfect" record, I don't see how you can't give him at least, at 90.

Larry Holmes DIDN'T achieve enough in his career to be measured with the success of Johnson, Dempsey or Frazier.

Ambling Alp wrote:A while back, someone else had an idea of giving a numerical value to some heavyweights.

these are the scores that I came up with:


Muhammad Ali 95

George Foreman 90

Your list is INCOMPLETE , Alp.

Jimmy Young gave Ali a boxing lesson for 15 continuous rounds.

Jimmy Young beat Foreman and knocked him down.

Where would you rate Jimmy Young----at 100 ?

....

I would rate Jimmy Young between 76-79.

Wait a minute now, Gran, my boy was past his best by the time he met up with Young. Still a great effort & a deserving victory, but had that fight taken place three or four years earlier, Young would have left the ring on a stretcher

granberry, where would you rate him? Is he a smidge better than Primo? Or just under? Up there with Buster Douglas? Or not quite?

"The fairy tale world of the fairies on display.

In the real world Ali barely made it down the ring steps after taking a continuous ass-whipping from Jimmy Young for 15 rounds.

And the crowd that came to see their hero Ali booed him loudly as he left the ring.

The real world is tough to take for the inhabitants of the fairy world.

Keep making up fairy tales, irene." - Gran

Good lord, Gran, I am no Ali fan. I was talking about Foreman!