BoxRec

Who do you is the best heavyweight of all time who isn't Muhammed Ali?

Most people will say Joe Louis.

IMO the other 3 shouldn't be on the list. They were all great fighters but they don't quite make the very peak of the division. I know Rocky has his fans, and deservedly so, but I can't put him in the top echelon.

My top tier of champs is:

Ali
Louis
Johnson
Holmes

I think you can perhaps put Dempsey up there too. He's close.

In the 1980s The Ring did a series on the top champs in each division. Their top 5 was

Ali
Johnson
Louis
Tunney
Dempsey

What do you mean by "division"?

Crease wrote:What do you mean by "division"?

each month they looked at a different division. Sorry it might read ambiguously.

For me its Joe Louis, but there really are alot of men you could make the case for. Hypothetically speaking, if Muhammad Ali never existed, it might very well have been George Foreman and Sonny Liston we would be talking about today as being the greatest. You never know. Honorable mentions? Jim Jeffries is a definite, I become more and more convinced as time goes on, that this man might very well have been able to have fought and defeated almost any heavyweight in history.

This thread is an appalling insult to Joe Louis (all the great Heavies, really).

HomicideHenry wrote:For me its Joe Louis, but there really are alot of men you could make the case for. Hypothetically speaking, if Muhammad Ali never existed, it might very well have been George Foreman and Sonny Liston we would be talking about today as being the greatest. You never know. Honorable mentions? Jim Jeffries is a definite, I become more and more convinced as time goes on, that this man might very well have been able to have fought and defeated almost any heavyweight in history.

Jeffries may be THE most under rated today. However in the 50's and 60's I don't believe Jeffries was under rated. For some reason people seem to be losing grip with this reality. And at the same time Primo Carnera's stock has gone up. I suspect it may have something to do with amount of phramaceutical waste polluting our water supplies.

I actually rank Joe Louis as the greatest heavyweight and have Ali second.

In a way, Joe Louis is the greatest heavyweight of all-time with Muhammad Ali nowithstanding.

Yes, Louis, behind Ali, is the second greatest Heavyweight. Most who have Louis #1 have no objectivity.

I Feel Fine wrote:Yes, Louis, behind Ali, is the second greatest Heavyweight. Most who have Louis #1 have no objectivity.

Oh, please

No. 1 Gene Tunney
No. 2 Jack Dempsey
No. 3 Rocky Marciano
No. 4 Joe Louis
No. 5 Joe Frazier

Ali finishes somewhere below.

I Feel Fine wrote:Yes, Louis, behind Ali, is the second greatest Heavyweight. Most who have Louis #1 have no objectivity.

That's such a ridiculous statement, I don't know where to begin. So only "objective" fans can have Ali at #1?? I have no problem with an argument for Ali at #1 but you can make an equally strong case for the Brown Bomber.

Cap wrote:No. 1 Gene Tunney
No. 2 Jack Dempsey
No. 3 Rocky Marciano
No. 4 Joe Louis
No. 5 Joe Frazier

Ali finishes somewhere below.

Just to make this clear I have Ali as #1 with Louis in second, i'm just intrested what you base this list on in order to get Tunney, Dempsey and Marciano in the top 3, they were all good champions and all but i just want to know how you got them before Louis, Ali, Holmes, Johnson, Foreman etc.

I personally dont have Gene Tunney even in my top 10 heavyweight list, let alone a top five one. You could make a better argument for Tunney being a top 3, maybe even the #1 175 pounder there ever was, than to say he was one of the greatest heavyweights ever...[[remembers seeing Bert Sugar put Tunney inside the top 5, I believe, on his heavyweight list and it made me lose all respect for him]].

dempseyfire wrote:

I Feel Fine wrote:Yes, Louis, behind Ali, is the second greatest Heavyweight. Most who have Louis #1 have no objectivity.

That's such a ridiculous statement, I don't know where to begin. So only "objective" fans can have Ali at #1?? I have no problem with an argument for Ali at #1 but you can make an equally strong case for the Brown Bomber.

I said "most." Read more carefully.

Still, don't shoot the messenger, I'm simply reporting what the situation seems to be. Most Louis fans give Louis little scrutiny, hence they are not objective.

That said, no, I don't think you can make an "equally" strong case for Louis. That's not to say that there is no case for him, however.

I don't take exception (not a lot, anyway) to the argument Louis #1 rankers lack objectivity, myself. I object to the subtext that most people who have Ali ranked #1 don't suffer from the same problem, if anything, more acutely.

After the thousandth viewing of Through The Eyes Of The World (Starry-eyed propaganda at it's worst), When We Were Kings (History? Or His-Story) or any of the other, almost literally countless books, films, docos & the like (Of which, Ali specials must outnumber their Louis counter-parts 100-1 or more), who is anyone to say most people who rank Louis #1 have zero objectivity, as so many people who have ranked Ali #1 have viewed so many excess pro-Ali works, their eyes are left spinning like pinwheels?

Marciano is better than Ali anyway...

Ezzard wrote:Most people will say Joe Louis.

IMO the other 3 shouldn't be on the list. They were all great fighters but they don't quite make the very peak of the division. I know Rocky has his fans, and deservedly so, but I can't put him in the top echelon.

My top tier of champs is:

Ali
Louis
Johnson
Holmes

I think you can perhaps put Dempsey up there too. He's close.

In the 1980s The Ring did a series on the top champs in each division. Their top 5 was

Ali
Johnson
Louis
Tunney
Dempsey

Louis beat a lot of good fighters. Some people called it a "bum of the month" tour. They were not bums. Joe just made them look like it.

gee another top 10 heavy convo....

Goodnight, Irene wrote:I don't take exception (not a lot, anyway) to the argument Louis #1 rankers lack objectivity, myself. I object to the subtext that most people who have Ali ranked #1 don't suffer from the same problem, if anything, more acutely.

After the thousandth viewing of Through The Eyes Of The World (Starry-eyed propaganda at it's worst), When We Were Kings (History? Or His-Story) or any of the other, almost literally countless books, films, docos & the like (Of which, Ali specials must outnumber their Louis counter-parts 100-1 or more), who is anyone to say most people who rank Louis #1 have zero objectivity, as so many people who have ranked Ali #1 have viewed so many excess pro-Ali works, their eyes are left spinning like pinwheels?

I didn't say that either.

I haven't seen any Ali documentaries that were any more or less biased than any documentaries I've ever seen about Louis.

And while its true that not everyone in the "bum of the month club" was a bum, its still not exactly murderers row. Even Schmeling and Walcott, who are great Heavyweight opponents, weren't exactly unbeatable. Forget Ali, who on Louis' list, title defenses or not, would you favor to beat Liston or Foreman? You're telling me Frazier or Holmes wouldn't have the consistency to possibly score 25 defenses in Louis' era? And are title defenses the only measure of who the better fighter is?

As for Marciano; shouldn't even be in the discussion.

By the way, samtheassassinatkins, its "Muhammad" not "Muhammed."

By the way, samtheassassinatkins, its "Muhammad" not "Muhammed."

Might as well be, considering Ali's such a martyr

Who has called him a martyr? Most people who aren't ignorant just think that he is a great person who was a great boxer and did a lot for the sport.

And while its true that not everyone in the "bum of the month club" was a bum, its still not exactly murderers row. Even Schmeling and Walcott, who are great Heavyweight opponents, weren't exactly unbeatable. Forget Ali, who on Louis' list, title defenses or not, would you favor to beat Liston or Foreman? You're telling me Frazier or Holmes wouldn't have the consistency to possibly score 25 defenses in Louis' era? And are title defenses the only measure of who the better fighter is?

While that may be true, it's an argument to me that doesn't hold much water. You can name alot of heavyweights, champions or not, who may very well have done the same as Louis done; but it doesn't in any way take away from what Louis done. Had he NOT been in WW2, imagine how many more defenses he may have had. Who else was there really out there to have defeated him? Elmer Ray, Turkey Thompson, Buddy Knox? Possibly, but I honestly doubt it.

The rub is this: there has NEVER been a greater finisher in heavyweight history than Joe Louis, not Foreman, not Ali, not Marciano, not even Dempsey was a better finisher than Louis was. Throw in, as well, his historical importance, his social significances. Though I dont agree with that cock sucker Bert Sugar alot of the time, I do believe one thing he did say, and that there was NEVER a champion more beloved or reveered than Joe Louis was.

On the flipside, though, if you are to hold it against Louis on his opponents, let's bring up Larry Holmes who you mentioned. You honestly think that Louis couldn't have gone 25 or more title defenses during Holmes era? It's not like Witherspoon or Berbick or even Cooney and Shavers were all that special, not unless you are seeing something in Alfredo Evangelista and Tex Cobb that I ain't.

It can be argued that MOST of Louis' opponents, whom he defended the title against, could have defeated the majority of the men Holmes did. I can invision Galento thrashing about Scott Frank, and I can see Arturo Gudoy defeating Scott LeDoux...hell I'll even go as far as to say Johnny Paycheck could have single handedly defeated Marvis Frazier.

See it can go both ways.

Brute wrote: Louis beat a lot of good fighters. Some people called it a "bum of the month" tour. They were not bums. Joe just made them look like it.

They got the nerve to say I ain't beat nobody
I just make em look like nobody
Ya'll must've fogot!