Greatest, and worst boxing heavyweight champions revealed

that's a pretty fucked up list at least according to the ones I used to see when I was a kid. The top guys are about right but it used to be Primo Carnera was unanimously the worst heavyweight champ ever all the way up to the time of Leon Spinks. Max Baer is known for lots of talent so he shouldn't be at the bottom. Liston was a guy lots of people really thought was the greatest big man ever before Ali beat him. Well, at least they didn't put a bunch of euros at the top and they didn't do the hair splitting necessary to list every champion of every sanctioning body that ever existed.
 
mozfonky said:
that's a pretty fucked up list at least according to the ones I used to see when I was a kid. The top guys are about right but it used to be Primo Carnera was unanimously the worst heavyweight champ ever all the way up to the time of Leon Spinks. Max Baer is known for lots of talent so he shouldn't be at the bottom. Liston was a guy lots of people really thought was the greatest big man ever before Ali beat him. Well, at least they didn't put a bunch of euros at the top and they didn't do the hair splitting necessary to list every champion of every sanctioning body that ever existed.
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If you read the criteria, the ranking makes more sense. Baer and the very bottom guys had 0 successful title defenses. Carnera is ranked higher than him because he had 1 title defense. Liston is ranked as the best guy with 1 title defense. And I think the only differentiator for guys with the same numbers of title defenses, is how much money they made during their reign--at least that's how I read the author's methodology. An interesting and different way of looking at things.
 
Breakfast Bar said:
If you read the criteria, the ranking makes more sense. Baer and the very bottom guys had 0 successful title defenses. Carnera is ranked higher than him because he had 1 title defense. Liston is ranked as the best guy with 1 title defense. And I think the only differentiator for guys with the same numbers of title defenses, is how much money they made during their reign--at least that's how I read the author's methodology. An interesting and different way of looking at things.
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I think the guy writing this said as much and said it would be "adjusted for inflation", which I think is very faulty to use as a criteria. Comparing boxers across eras by using their earnings and factoring in inflation only works if those boxers earnings relied on the same revenue streams over the eras. The price of a loaf of bread from 1937 can be compared to the price of a loaf of bread from 2017 using inflation. Or a jug of milk, a piece of steak of the same size, and things like that. They're all the same thing. But the sources of revenue for the boxers from 70, 80, 90, 100, etc., years ago were completely different than what they are for the more modern times. You can't just say this guy earned this much in 1917 and say it equals to this much in 1987, 1997, 2007 or 2017. It's completely different. Back then the fighters relied almost entirely on what they drew at the gate with live attendance since even the film rights they held back then were extremely devalued due to the laws in place after the Johnson-Jeffries fight. They didn't have domestic or international television rights to sell. They didn't have the PPV market to dip into. They didn't have event sponsorship plastered all over the canvas. Nor were they showing personal sponsorship on their trunks. They didn't have closed circuit revenue to grab from. Amongst other things. "Adjusted for inflation" simply doesn't work as any sort of criteria due to all the differences.
 
mozfonky said:
that's a pretty fucked up list at least according to the ones I used to see when I was a kid. The top guys are about right but it used to be Primo Carnera was unanimously the worst heavyweight champ ever all the way up to the time of Leon Spinks. Max Baer is known for lots of talent so he shouldn't be at the bottom. Liston was a guy lots of people really thought was the greatest big man ever before Ali beat him. Well, at least they didn't put a bunch of euros at the top and they didn't do the hair splitting necessary to list every champion of every sanctioning body that ever existed.
Click to expand...
Yeah pretty shitty list tbh. the worst hw champs are clearly spinks and primo
 
LOL it's not a list of who had the most talent or who someone else listed when you were a kid. It's a list of who had the most successful defenses as champion which as George Foreman said, is the champion's "job" (= making as much money as possible and not losing the title). But what does George Foreman know?
 
stupid list a list based on number of title title defense?
 
The list excludes Lennox Lewis. Total garbage.
 
lol, they excluded Lewis because of all the titles, yet Tyson is on there. Holyfield is on there. Evander was WBA, WBC and IBF champ.

Well if we add one more then guys can't be great anymore, I guess.
 
How can you have Bruce Seldon and not Rahman? Or did I miss him?
 
The list does not exclude Lennox Lewis. He is an exception, discussed in the postscript. The organizational chaos is also discussed and factored into the conclusions.
LOL the list is based on objective facts (successful title defenses as a measure of championship quality) not just fan opinions.
 
Ranking champs based on one single criteria has got to be overly simplistic.
 
fucking stupid list

it tries to make up for the fact it left Lewis off by saying it wasnt about the belts, but misses the fact entirely by not even following the lineal title in the 90s, and decides to put Bruce Seldon on the list

Yeah right, fuck off
 
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