Fritzie brought that streak to a juddering halt, snapping off five of the last six rounds with an aggressive punching performance against a man that would spend the rest of his career boxing as a middleweight. It is in ten parts—ten fighters to a part—published by Boxing.com in ascending order from number 100 to number 1. In 1994 when he stood ring-center and allowed heavyweight champion Michael Moorer to beat the crap out of him for ten rounds, we shook ourselves out of the dream he had passed across our eyes and told one another that this was enough, time to pack it in Big George—so when George instead chucked out one of those torque-less right hands, more a man passing bread across the table than a trained fighter throwing a punch, and Moorer collapsed to the canvas we were stunned, less so when he could raise no further than his knees by the count of ten. Like some of my posts re Duran…Hagler….Hearns…and .....leonard…  I say it sounds better the way I tell it . Ali was a heavyweight that had not only power but amazing speed and he could figure out a person’s distance for throwing a punches. !”, Joe gave us a hell of a fight ....beat the ‘greatest’...and knocked him on his ass ...at the end ...when it counts…. He first ran into Chocolate, or rather Chocolate ran into him, in August of 1930, his fifty-six fight unbeaten streak on the line. Many consider Langford to be the best Canadian boxer of all-time, but the question of “what if” will always surround his impressive career. Willie Pastrano, 63-13-8 The Top Twelve Top 12 Reasons Why Muhammad Ali Is The Greatest. The film frame showing above seems to belie Nicolino’s reputation of being intocable! Holding the world heavyweight title from 1926 to 1928 and the American light heavyweight title twice between 1922 and 1923, Tunney was a force to be reckoned with. 100 Greatest Fighters of All Time Part Two: 90-81 It is a pound-for-pound list. In the history of the sport, aside Joe Louis (born – May 13, 1914; died – April 112, 1981), never has there been any heavyweight boxer to make 25 successful defenses. Locche was brilliant. He will always be remembered as one of the bravest boxers in history. It was realized six months later when he rematched Zapata and stopped him in three glittering rounds. He also held the super featherweight title. His talents and achievements make him deserving of recognition as one of the greatest fighters of all time. Here he … Zivic beat him out of sight, LaMotta getting as few as two of the fifteen rounds on some cards. O’Brien’s record, then, is to be respected. IN making your consideration consider that Zivic had already met Burley three times, only held the title for two defenses, Burley was never his #1 contender and that he therefore didn’t have to pay *any* money to avoid fighting him. Fighting 298 times in his 13-year career — third-most of any boxer in history — Greb battled the best opposition he could come across throughout the 1910s and 1920s. Riddick “Big Daddy” Bowe (42-1-0-1)1. Considered by many to be the greatest lightweight boxer of all-time, Joe Gans was the first black man to ever win the lightweight title. In just three years, the boxer defended his title three times. Other fighters might have shoe-shined their way to the title shot behind this impressive display. As well as enjoying a reputation as an accurate puncher, Herman was credited for years as the best body puncher and infighter that the bantamweight division has ever produced. Finding consistently against him would leave him languishing just outside. In part it is down to the way Zivic vetted his opponents: he didn’t. Argentine Carlos Monzon is best known for holding the undisputed world middleweight championship for 7 years. 1) Muhammad Ali – The greatest heavyweight champion boxer of all time. Joe Louis. Either by sharing the bed, or seeing the person fight. In his most notable fight, Johnson dominated James. Lists take courage because there is no such thing as the perfect list. He was seemingly unstoppable, defeating legends such as Jake LaMotta, Carmen Basilio, Gene Fullmer, Randy Turpin, Carl “Bobo” Olson, Henry Armstrong, Rocky Graziano, and Kid Gavilan. The Panamanian held world championships in four different weight classes: lightweight, welterweight, light middleweight, and middleweight. I can only make decisions on someone’s merit based on my own experience. (Photo by Hulton Archive – Stringer/Getty Images). (Photo by Andrew D. Bernstein/Getty Images). But when he became Welterweight champion, did he not buy Burley’s contract so that he would not have to defend his title against him? Interesting point about Fritzie Zivic not ducking any one, including black fighters. The comment accompanying the video of the Chang’s fight above refers to Lopez as having “the look of a man who would like to be elsewhere”...I wonder if that was before the bell rang to start the contest or after the ferocious onslaught commenced in the second round. These Are The Twenty Five Best Hitters In MLB History. Karl Hughes says: January 2, 2018 at 2:24 pm. 94. Never realized that Fritzie kept his left so low. Still…Matt….I could never have put together a better article….It was well written…and lots and lots of evidence ..facts . When these two schools of thought clash it’s rarely pretty. Jeff Chandler, 33-2-2 Leonard was named “Boxer of the Decade” in the 1980s, earning more than $100 million in purses over the course of his career. I’m not saying, mind, that he should be among the top 10 pound-for-pounders, but I would have him somewhere between #40 and #50. Saddler was only knocked out once, in his second professional fight. BN Staff. 11 Comments. It was an impressive result and the Johnson draw was perhaps even more so. Zivic ducked no one. This, is how I have it: #50 – Michael Moorer (52-4-1) Michael Moorer rustled up just 22-0 at light-heayweight and he squeezed the usual quota of sharpening stones into his formative years. He was the tenth. When he lost his title to the superb Joe Lynch in 1921, he dusted himself off, sailed for the United Kingdom and knocked out the great flyweight Jimmy Wilde in seventeen fantastic rounds (Wilde: “he was the better boxer”). Foreman coming back 10 years later at 37 years old and nearly 300lbs and securing a title shot with Holyfield a scant 5 years later was at the age of 42 was a miracle. Instead “The Korean Hawk” opened up the face of future light-flyweight strapholder and countryman, Jong-Kwan Chung, stopping him in six, and then knocked down and outpointed former linear world champion, Amado Ursua. I’ll say that again: Zivic may have fought the highest level of competition in the history of boxing. As we move through the tiers you will see he is usurped by men who have MORE wins against BETTER opposition, had longer more dominant reigns, and achieved more across the board in a p4p sense: to whit, locks. Please keep it clean and civil! After a valiant effort against Holyfield(who should make the top 100), Foreman would keep plugging away until at the age of 45 he would knock out Michael Moorer to become the oldest heavyweight champion of all time besting the old record of 38 by Joe Walcott. Foreman defended his title twice before his first professional loss, which came to Muhammad Ali at “The Rumble in the Jungle” in 1974. Samart Payakaroon, 21-2 Though the fighter lost to the first two of those opponents, he bested Duran to defend his WBC junior middleweight title. I still say Hagler beat leonard.. In 1915, he defeated Britton to win the world welterweight title. It should never be otherwise - it’s the same reason heavyweights are so rarely the p4p #1 or even p4p top ten (five in the last twenty years I believe, would be about right). The world heavyweight champion from 1919 to 1926, Jack Dempsey defined heavyweight boxing in the late 1910s and early 1920s. Lewis won the British featherweight title when he was just 18 years old, and he added the European crown four months later. Duran’s formidable punching power earned him the nickname of “Manos de Piedra,” or “Hands of Stone.” Voted as the best lightweight of the 20th century by the Associated Press, Duran is considered by many to be the greatest lightweight boxer ever. Despite becoming mostly blind in his left eye, Greb defended his title six times over three years before finally surrendering it to Tiger Flowers. He holds the record for the most wins in unified title fights in bantamweight history, with six. Lennox Lewis was ...along with Riddick Bowe…when HW became very ...very large .....not just 200 pound boxers. Nunn was starting to puff; the workrate necessary to keep the slippery Toney in his place was proving too much. This extraordinary feat of his came in November, 1986, when he, 20 years and four months, knocked out Trevor Berbick in the second round. Approx Reading Time: 23 minutes . Fans adored his tremendous heart, and he’s widely regarded as one of the top-1o heavyweight boxers of all-time. he was obviously traumatised by their olympic final and his stoppage loss with the big gloves and head gear that he wanted nothing to do with LL forever after! But we are not picking and choosing times and places in the construction of this list; if a fight was fought under a version of the Marquis of Queensberry rules we are interested in it. Still calling out each of the heavyweight strapholders whenever someone waves a microphone in his general direction, that same braggadocios birthed one of the most beautiful moments of the 1990s when, clearly being outboxed by superb IBF middleweight titlist Michael Nunn, Toney returned to his corner and told them there that he was going to win by knockout. His good showing earned him a title shot against Williams and the two boxed a desperately close twenty-round fight just before his twentieth birthday, which was ruled a draw. Watch carefully as Ali, still in possession of some of the fastest feet in the division’s history, bounces from rope to rope and the attack dog Frazier moves with him, never more than a half step behind and usually in perfect tandem. At the age of 74, the best heavyweights of all time died in 2016. Hearns was a part of some incredible fights, facing opponents like Sugar Ray Leonard, Marvin Hagler, and Roberto Duran. Boxing magazine 'The Pugilist' have posted one fans top 50 boxers of all time and Sugar Ray Robinson leads Muhammad Ali as the top two. He holds records for the most total successful defenses of world titles (tied with Omar Narvaez with 27), most title fight victories (31), most fighters beaten for the title (31), and most title fights (37). That’s the dull stuff out of the way – now let me introduce you the fifty greatest light-heavyweights of all time. Tyson holds the record as the youngest heavyweight champion ever. Eusebio Pedroza, 42-6-1-1 Marciano is one of very few fighters to retire without a loss and the only heavyweight to do so. This was a smaller, older, past-prime welterweight taking on one of the strongest middles in history, ceding every single conceivable style advantage in existence and giving him nightmares. The omnipresent pressure, the ever buzzing boxing arena, the hustle of the crowds, the thudding of boxing gloves when it hit the opponent, and the grave sighs that end with the final count down all these simply put together gave boxing a world-class piece of … Leonard was 1 of the most versatile boxers the game has ever seen, from he speed, his ring generalship&toughness. Similar things could be said of Eddie Booker, who narrowly missed out on this list and who was unbeaten in forty-one fights coming into his 1939 eight rounder with Zivic. Buster Mathis, Manuel Ramos, Jerry Quarry and Jimmy Ellis all followed before 1970 was out and then Frazier painted his first legitimate masterpiece by breaking a helpless Bob Foster into two clean pieces in two scintillating rounds. The first black heavyweight champion, Jack Johnson is one of the most iconic figures in sports history. Foreman was a steam locomotive that burned propane and weapons grade plutonium, but he could be outboxed and outthought. #96 Philadelphia Jack O’Brien (93-8-14; 53-8 Newspaper Decisions). Two-time world featherweight champion Willie Pep is widely considered one of the quickest and most durable fighters in the history of boxing. Better yet, who are the one-hundred greatest fighters in the history of boxing? Armstrong had lost one fight in the last fifty-eight, down at lightweight to the rampant Lou Ambers, but it was Zivic who called time on the Armstrong party, stopping him for the first time since his pro debut. (Photo by Carl Van Vechten/Wikimedia Commons). Ali finished his career with a 56-5 record with 37 KOs. It’s been centuries since boxing got recognition as a sport and produced some of the greatest boxers in history. Jack Johnson was the first African American heavyweight champion and opened the way for other African American boxers. Nicknamed “The Pittsburgh Windmill,” Harry Greb was a freak of nature. Although he had to deal with racism, he became one of the greatest boxers of his time. You have started World War Three. For every argument there is a counter-argument, for every father championing the fighters of his generation there is a son championing those of his own. He lost I believe two other fights to Charley Burley. For every fan telling you that they “don’t make ‘em like they used to” there are two telling you that “modern nutrition” is the key to making a great fighter. When the Japanese shook his head at the end of the ninth you don’t feel the typical disgust of the fight fan in the face of quittage but rather a little sorry for him. Yuri “Yuri Ebihara” Arbachakov, 23-1 I nevertheless maintain that Smokin’ Joe (who coincidentally happens to be one of my favorite boxers) is too low at #92. If they’re not there, they’re unlikely to be anywhere…nor should they be. So what is the justification for ranking him so highly? But hopefully we can have fun whilst we disagree. Boxing historian Bert Sugar listed Lewis at number 33 in his list of the 100 greatest fighters of all-time, while Mike Tyson described Ted as "probably the greatest … Mayweather Jr. has the highest plus-minus ratio in recorded boxing history, making him the most accurate puncher since the existence of CompuBox. If we feel comments are offensive, the post will be deleted and continuing offenders will be blocked from the site. Now going into any ratings, I think you can only find one Korean fighter (a lightweight) who is in the top ten. In boxing there are just the fights being fought today and the fights being fought tomorrow. It’s just too many people have tried to kill. Such was his display that some papers, including The New York Sun, had O’Brien shading the reigning heavyweight champion but the overall picture is a mixed one. British boxer Ted “Kid” Lewis was a two-time World Welterweight Championship titleholder and is widely regarded as one of the greatest boxers in history. man in the face until he was no longer able to continue with the fight. I disagree with Foreman being below Frazier, which should be obvious why, however, while I have Lewis in my personal heavyweight ranking ahead of Foreman and Frazier, I don’t have a problem that Frazier is listed ahead of Lewis, and this has to do with the weight difference between the two. Dempsey won won the World Heavyweight Title by shattering Jess Willard’s jaw. Eric - it’s easy for you to visualize people knocking out Lewis because Rahman did it, but you can’t visualise Charles or Walcott out-boxing Foreman even though Young did it? I would never make a list like this. If they were in the same ring today, it would be like a middleweight fighting a jr. welterweight, and I think both Foreman and Frazier respectively are better pound for pound. I think part 2 has more potential to “spark debate” than part 1. Like being said, the top ten list of greatest heavyweight boxers is very controversial in terms of the ranking of the superstars. The most telling difference is the art Charles shows in baiting that hook.