The Ten Greatest Heavyweight Boxing Champions of all Time: #10 – #6

This coming weekend’s Deontay Wilder-Tyson Fury championship battle is the most anticipated heavyweight boxing match in more than a generation. So in honor of the big fight, Martial Arts World Report brings you our list of the top 10 heavyweight boxing champions of all time (minus Wilder, Fury and other current heavyweights whose careers are still being written).

In compiling this list, we should make it clear this is not an ordering of who would beat who. Boxers, at least the heavyweights, like athletes in other sports, have gotten bigger, stronger and faster over the years, not to mention their being able to learn from the accrued knowledge of previous generations. So trying to compare a 185 lb. Jack Dempsey from the year 1920 to a 250 lb Lennox Lewis from the year 2000 on the basis of who would win a fight between them isn’t really fair, any more than it would be fair to ask who’d win a fight between Lewis and the 400 lb. cyborg who will probably be champion in the year 2100. Instead, we’ve chosen to compare just how dominant fighters were within their own eras – and how tough those eras were in terms of competition – to see who stands as the best.

One other note before we get to the top 10 regards a couple of honorable mentions: Mike Tyson and Sonny Liston. At the peak of their careers each was considered the most feared and impressive heavyweight people had ever seen. But the simple fact is, longevity counts. It’s not the only factor but it is a factor in determining just who is the greatest ever. Liston only made one defense of his title before quickly losing it to Muhammad Ali while the entire memorable part of Tyson’s career lasted a mere five years before he was knocked out by James “Buster” Douglas (along with various personal problems) and was never the same again. For a brief period both fighters were as impressive as any heavyweights ever were. But as we said, longevity counts so neither one quite made the cut.

10. James J. Jeffries.

The last champion of the 19th century, Jeffries is the most difficult fighter to rate among the great heavyweights. He only fought a little over 20 fights in his career (the exact number of official matches is not quite agreed upon as record keeping was far from exact back then – sources list his record as anywhere from 18-1-2 to 21-1-2 with a couple of possible no contest bouts thrown in) and there’s very little film of his fights. Also the nature of boxing was quite different in his era with bouts sometimes going 25 rounds or more, not to mention there being far less worldwide competition. Nonetheless, Jeffries 20+ fight career was impressive. He held the heavyweight title for five years defending it 7 times. His only career defeat came when he returned from a six year retirement, well past his prime, to lose to Jack Johnson. But given the small number of bouts he engaged in and the paucity of competition in the era, it’s hard to rate him higher than 10th.

9. Evander Holyfield

If we took into account the early part of Holyfield’s career as a cruiserweight, he might rate a little higher on our list. But since this is a list of the top heavyweights and not the top pound-for-pound fighters, we’re only considering what he did in this division. And Holyfield’s accomplishments as a heavyweight were not inconsiderable. He won portions of the heavyweight championship on four occasions from 1990 to 2000. And even though the value of championships has become diminished in recent years with a plethora of “world titles” now available, Holyfield held the undisputed championship on one occasion and the major part of the heavyweight championship, what most people recognized as the legitimate title, on another occasion. He defeated a number of hall of fame heavyweights, though admittedly many of them were past their prime. But while he did manage some impressive victories, like a rematch win over then unbeaten Riddick Bowe, as well as handing Tyson only the second and third losses of his career, persistent rumors of steroid use also diminish his accomplishments in the eyes of some.

8. Lennox Lewis

The most dominant heavyweight of his era, Lewis defeated his main rival for heavyweight supremacy in the 1990s, Holyfield, by decision once and should have gotten a 2nd decision victory over him in a controversial draw that virtually everyone but the judges had the Englishman winning. Lewis was the first of the new era of “superheavyweights” standing 6’5″ and weighing in the neighborhood of 250 lbs. His style wasn’t always inspiring as he sometimes failed to dominate foes in the impressive fashion of a Tyson. But it was usually effective carrying him to a 41-2-1 career record with 32 knockouts. Though Lewis did avenge the only two losses of his career, defeating both Oliver McCall and Hasim Rahman in rematches, he can’t be rated any higher than 8th simply because, while champion and still close to his prime, he suffered not one but two shocking knockout losses to these fighters who were considered far from great.

7. George Foreman

No heavyweight, save perhaps his rival Muhammad Ali, had a better second act to their career than Foreman. His first act was pretty good as well. Foreman won the heavyweight title in 1973 destroying one hall of famer in champion Joe Frazier to win the title in two rounds, then going on to defend the belt by overwhelming another hall of fame fighter, Ken Norton, in just two rounds. Starting his career at 40-0 with 37 knockouts, the young Foreman was considered as dominating as Tyson or Liston in his prime before being knocked out by Ali in 1974. After another loss to Jimmy Young in 1977, Foreman quit fighting and if that had been the end of his story, he might well be left off this list. But a full 10 years after he retired, Foreman returned to the ring. As a rotund figure fighting into his 40s, Foreman began knocking out a parade of faceless unknowns. After suffering a couple of setbacks, he finally gained a shocking upset knockout of Michael Moorer in 1994 for part of the heavyweight crown, what was regarded as the “lineal” heavyweight championship, the same one he’d won 20 years earlier, making him the oldest fighter to ever win the title. But while he did have some tremendously impressive performances in the prime of his career, the boxing deficiencies seen in his losses to Ali and Young also can’t be ignored leaving him in seventh place on our list.

6. Jack Dempsey

Though in looking purely at the numbers, Dempsey might rank a little lower on this list than sixth place, the heavyweight crown has historically been the most valued title in all of sports and its holders, at least the greatest of them, have frequently possessed a symbolic meaning in their era beyond mere accomplishments in the ring. After Babe Ruth, Dempsey was the most celebrated athlete of the roaring twenties, a fighter of nearly mythical proportions. That can’t be completely discounted when taking his greatness into account. His accomplishments inside the ring were also noteworthy. At the height of his career, from 1917 to 1923, he was nearly unbeatable with a 4 round decision loss, in a bout regarded by some as little more than an exhibition, the only blemish on his record during this period. He won the title with a devastating third round stoppage of the much larger Jess Willard and defended it five times (some consider a 4 round exhibition win over Jimmy Darcy a sixth defense), four by knockout, before leaving the ring for three years. Though he’d lose the title on his return to Gene Tunney, he was still widely regarded as the greatest heavyweight of his era. Nonetheless, he didn’t have that many title defenses and some of his biggest wins were against smaller light heavyweights. But the main argument against putting Dempsey any higher on this list is the fact that, as champion, he never defended his crown against any of the leading black heavyweights of the day, several of whom were probably far tougher than most of the men he did defend it against. Though Dempsey reportedly agreed to fight one of these boxers, Harry Wills, the bout was canceled as the boxing establishment refused to allow black fighters a chance at the title in this era. Perhaps Dempsey could have defeated Wills and the other leading black heavyweights of the day but the fact that he never fought what was possibly his toughest competition has to keep him from ranking any higher.

Click here to find out who are the top five heavyweight boxing champions of all time.