606v2 10 Greatest fighters of all time

First topic message reminder :

Good Evening

From those who knew me from the old 606 knew I enjoyed some may say self aggrandising lists. Just watched Ringside and the debate on the 100 greatest boxers, and gave me the idea to ask what the members of 606v2 what would they choose as the 10 greatest fighters of all time.

I havent been around the forum much, so please tell me if this has done before and we can soon put this to bed, but If it hasnt I thought I'd leave the thread open until the 30th June and publish official rankings at the end (if approval from the admin and mod team) using a points system, similar to what Union has done with the current rankings.

I'll include my picks and please feel free if you wish to, to justify your places.

Here we go

1) Sam Langford (No belts, but reading Clay's book puts a firm believer he was No 1)
2) Sugar Ray Robinson
3) Harry Greb
4) Bob Fitzsimmons
5) Henry Armstrong
6) Ezzard Charles
7) Eder Jofre
8) Muhammad Ali
9) Joe Louis
10) Roberto Duran

Awful to compile leaving the likes of Burley, Leonard out, Pep, Moore, Sandy Saddler another fave of mine.

But I'll stick with that as long as no one jibes me.

All the best

Rodders

Why not have George Dixon in their for historical impact or Corbett or pretty much any well known great boxer.

Because I bought intp the PR around those guys.

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:Holmes is a strange one too Hammer....... I love Larry he was like a family constant growing up.........All the way from 8 -16 my real formative years he was ever present.....

But his opposition was somewhat lacking and he avoided Page and probably Pinklon......

Yet he's still top 5........

General feeling amongst many is that you have Ali and Louis as the top two, with a mixed bag behind them, all interchangeable. But the more time passes, the more I find myself unable to have anyone other than Larry at number three.

I know that there are some on here who put Lennox ahead of Holmes, but the way Holmes, carrying a shed load of extra timber, with badly reduced footwork and more than a decade past his best, acquitted himself against McCall and Mercer, one man who flattened Lewis and the other being unlucky to not get at least a draw against him (and this was a near-prime Lewis on both occasions, too) kind of emphasises to me how much of an achievement it was for Holmes to turn back as many challengers as he did, even if they weren't always from the highest bracket.

If you look outside of Ali and Louis, there are Heavyweights who beat fighters as good, or better, than the ones Holmes beat, and ones who reigned for a considerable amount of time, but none of them combine those things as well as Holmes. I'd find it hard to have him lower than three these days.

There can't really be too much between Holmes and Lewis for me- both had decent length reigns-and a good no.of world title fight wins , Larry a couple more, but not enough to be significant. Quality of opposition - not too much in it, though you could argue that Lewis biggest names were may be past their peak, whilst for Larry, some of the big names of his era of missing from his resume. Lewis losses to Rahman and McCall are probably worse than Larry losing to a blown up LHW in Spinks, but he did avenge those loses. Lewis unified the belts which is in his favour, whilst Holmes added to the problem by lending credibility to the IBF. Head to Head is probably even money. If Larry is no.3, then Lewis must surely be no.4 ? If you have them a few places apart Chris, I'd like to hear why.

Bit late with my reply, hh, but better late than never I suppose.

I'd have Lewis around the number 7 or 8 mark, personally, so 4 or 5 spots behind Larry.

Holmes and Lewis did indeed have a relatively similar amount of wins in world title fights, the difference being that Holmes never had his run interrupted by being chopped down by pretty poor opposition once, never mind twice. Lennox's die-hard fans might say that in Heavyweight boxing it only takes one punch to change a fight, and that is true of course, but the fact is that, if you're looking at any Heavyweight with aspirations of being called an all-time great one, Lewis is basically alone in being on the end of two such ignominious defeats in or around his peak years. That tells me that putting it all down to bad luck is a bit fanciful, and it's a serious, serious black mark against him when you compare him to the very best across the eras.

Take a look at how an old, washed up Holmes was able to handle McCall for ten rounds before simply running out of gas. Demonstrates that Lewis really had no business losing to that calibre of fighter, even if he wasn't at his absolute zenith in 1994.

Holmes wasn't averse to the odd struggle in fights he was expected to cruise, of course. He made the fights against Weaver and Snipes (arguably the second Shavers one as well, although you can forgive anyone for being poleaxed by Earnie) harder work that they should have been. But ultimately he still won thanks to his powers of recovery and stamina being superior to Lewis'. These kind of traits, as well as seeing the way an badly shop worn Holmes acquitted himself against the likes of Mercer and McCall, two fighters who a prime Lewis failed to shine against, make me believe that Holmes might just stack up better than Lewis against the other greats on a head to head basis.

Larry doesn't get a total pass for the Spinks losses, but they were no way near as bad as those two Lewis defeats, regardless of Spinks being a converted Light-Heavy. Spinks might not have been 'great' at Heavyweight like he was at 175, but those two wins over Holmes (albeit the second one was maybe a bit dodgy) along with his blow out of Cooney show that he was at least a capable Heavyweight, and more importantly Holmes had seen better days by 1985 / 1986. Lewis can't offer up that excuse, and nor can he argue that his defeats were controversial, as he was put away inside-schedule on both occasions.

Lewis does claw back some brownie points for at least going to the trouble of unifying the belts, mind you, and as you say opposition beaten by the pair is largely comparable - you could probably argue it either way. But I'd always give Holmes a relatively decisive edge over Lennox for his all-round consistency and longevity at the highest level, along with the fact that I believe Holmes simply proved himself the marginally 'better' fighter in general if you took records out of the equation.