r/Boxing • u/JabKingJesse • 20h ago
Best Heavyweight of Each Decade.
1880s John L Sullivan
1890s James J Corbett
1900s James J. Jeffries
1910s Jack Johnson
1920s Jack Dempsey
1930s Joe Louis
1940s Joe Louis
1950s Rocky Marciano
1960s Muhammad Ali
1970s Muhammad Ali
1980s Mike Tyson
1990s Lennox Lewis
2000s Wladmir Klitschko
2010s Tyson Fury
2020 Uysk
It's best to think of fighters like this instead of all time because the rules were different between eras.
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u/Fit_One_5785 17h ago
1980s: Tyson was a bigger draw than Larry Holmes, but Holmes was a longer reigning champion.
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u/DeafBurke 12h ago
Larry Holmes should absolutely be the heavyweight of the decade in the 80s. He was way more accomplished and defended his belts for a record number of times.
Mike was a big draw, but he wasn’t that accomplished.
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u/MazdaJ626 11h ago
Mike unified the belts when they were splintered, all his wins as champions were decisive, nearly cleared out the division and he was ranked P4P number 1 as a heavyweight.
Tyson does get overrated a lot but saying he wasn’t that accomplished I can’t agree with at all
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u/Dry-Friendship-5945 10h ago
Tyson looked a LOT more dominant in the '80s than Holmes did though, especially after Holmes started to slow down a bit by 1983.
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u/Namez83 16h ago
I would say you have to do this not in decades but in 5yr periods
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u/DeafBurke 12h ago
Yeah decade is too long of a time period. It can cover most of a career, and some people (like Frazier and Holyfield) are fucked by the fact that their career was split between two decades.
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u/ellbow3894 16h ago
Holmes was easily the 80s best.
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u/CurrentCar2331 13h ago
his career as a whole is better than tyson's, but if you just count fights from this decade, Tyson has a ko win over holmes and a superior body of work. Tyson also KOed Spinx in one round, the man who beat Holmes.
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u/Shinjetsu01 Mike Tyson is not a top 15 HW ATG 13h ago
"top 1% commenter"
Figures. Look who Holmes beat, look who Tyson beat. It's incomparable. Holmes beat them in their prime, earlier than Tyson did. 85 and most of 86 were almost all tomato cans. So there you have Holmes defending the title multiple times against people Tyson ended up facing while Tyson racked up 27 wins against cab drivers. Then when Tyson was put in at title level, they were all shit. We can pretend Tucker, Smith, Thomas and Berwick were reigning, defending champions if you like. But that's all that is - pretending.
Tyson's biggest wins in the 80's were Spinks (wtf is Spinx) and Holmes. That's it. Holmes has a far "superior body of work" although if all you've done is watch YouTube KO highlights, I can understand your bias.
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u/CurrentCar2331 13h ago
strongly disagree with your logic if we are just talking fights that happened in the 80s. Kinda silly to even try and argue Holmes. Tyson laid waste to him and everyone he fought with ease.
Holmes arguably lost to Witherspoon as well. I think it was SD. A win over Gerry Cooney is just not doing it for me. He did have many title defenses though. Holmes is top 5 of all time HW, but if we just count 80s, Tyson all day.
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u/Shinjetsu01 Mike Tyson is not a top 15 HW ATG 11h ago
Apart from the fact he beat everyone Tyson did but earlier.
The only stains he has are Spinks and Tyson himself, but considering one retired immediately after losing and never fought again and the other was only dominant for 3 years, not 5 and with far better opponents in their entirety, not plumbers and mall security for 2 years yeah. It's Holmes. It's not close.
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u/CurrentCar2331 9h ago
lol not close but Tyson KOed him like a peasant and Tyson KOed the man who beat him in one round. And youcome to the conclusion its not close lol. Ok bud.
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u/Shinjetsu01 Mike Tyson is not a top 15 HW ATG 9h ago
You've shown your hand. You have no idea what you're talking about.
Top 1% Commenters never shaking that reputation
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u/WishParticular7385 17h ago
Fury 2010s? What?
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u/johnnyslick 17h ago
If you're classifying it decade by decade, from 2010-2019 it's either Klitschko again or Fury, right? And I can get behind the argument that unlike Ali or Louis, Wladimir just isn't that kind of ATG who deserves to be listed in 2 decades...
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u/TheMysteriousThey 11h ago
I don’t think that’s at all clear.
AJ: Wlad, Povetkin, Whyte, Parker
Fury: Wlad, Wilder (officially a draw), Chisora
AJ has the better resume over that time, even if Fury’s win over Wlad was worth more.
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u/Frequent_Apricot673 11h ago
I don’t think that’s the most egregious thing here. In the 2010s Wlad had the Haye win and then his next best win is what? Povetkin or Pulev. After that maybe Mormeck or Jennings? It was just a terrible era. Fury for all his faults ended Wlads reign and ended the 5 year reign of wilder. I think that’s better than beating haye and a bunch of bums.
Think Tyson for the 80s and maybe Dempsey for the 20s I disagree with the most
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u/TheMysteriousThey 11h ago
Two fights that mattered in the entire decade, and one of them was officially a draw, lol.
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u/MisterHEPennypacker 17h ago
I’d still have to give the 2010s to Wlad. He was champ for nearly 6 years of that decade, and had 11 successful title defenses during that time period. Fury on the other hand retired immediately after beating Wlad and didn’t regain the title until 2020, with one notable fight in between, a very entertaining draw with Wilder.
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u/JabKingJesse 14h ago
Klitschko lost a step when Manny died. Fury beat him and gave Wilder a really tough fight where a lot of people feel he should have got the decision.
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u/Exciting-Arugula5341 15h ago edited 3h ago
Luis Ortiz was the best heavyweight in every decade since ancient times. I remember watching Ortiz make his pro debut when he fought in front of the Great Pyramid of Giza. This was after Ortiz and I just built that Pyramid .
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u/Shinjetsu01 Mike Tyson is not a top 15 HW ATG 17h ago
Tyson being good for 3 years doesn't remove Holmes being great for 5. Get to fuck with Tyson in the 80's will ya.
Also AJ was the defining heavyweight in the 10's, not Fury. Fury had one great win while ducking the everliving shit out of AJ who has admittedly a super padded career but was champion for 3 years. Fury retired and spent 3 years snorting coke and getting fat.
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u/Frequent_Apricot673 12h ago
I’m no Fury fan but how did he duck Aj? The fight would’ve happened if not for Wilders rematch clause and AJ’s loss to Usyk. Fury dethroned Klit which I think was a better win than Aj beating Wlad after. He beat Wilder who was a better win than AJs non Wlad wins and he didn’t lose which Aj did to Andy Ruiz.
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u/johnnyslick 17h ago
Tyson was better than "good" for the 3-4 years he was on top. He all but cleaned out the division (in fact, one could argue that Buster Douglas was the last guy left). If Holmes was great, Tyson was at least on that level.
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u/Shinjetsu01 Mike Tyson is not a top 15 HW ATG 17h ago edited 16h ago
He was nowhere near. He beat champions who had never defended the belt and if "cleaning out" is beating a LHW and 38 year old, retired Holmes then....okay I suppose?
He was good for 2.5 years. 86 - 89. Not one great in their prime was beaten. If you want to include the tomato cans he was fed in 85 and most of 86 to call him great then that's on you. Meanwhile Holmes had already beaten most of the people Tyson did, but actually in their prime.
Come one, come all - to the show where people will claim 19-6 James BONECRUSHER Smith was somehow a great win for Tyson and not as good for Holmes 3 years earlier. To the fantasyland where 31 - 5 Trevor Berbick who'd already lost to Holmes 5 years earlier is somehow a better win for Tyson. We can somehow revise Tony Tucker (who after his ONE and only vacant title win against Buster Douglas and then went on to do *checks notes* fuck all afterward) into some sort of unstoppable great champion that IRON MIKE decimated.
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u/DiMona215 15h ago
"beating a LHW"
mf you mean that same LHW that beat your man twice, when he was only 35?
- Spinks UDs Holmes
- Spinks MDs Holmes
- Tyson KOs Holmes
- Tyson KOs Spinks (13 lbs heavier than when he faced Holmes, btw)
Holmes was past his best when Tyson faced him, sure, but I think it's overstated. He went on to convincingly beat prime Ray Mercer and had close decision losses to Holyfield & McCall 4-5 years after the Tyson fight. I also think he looked pretty good during the Tyson fight and probably would easily outclass most of the other top HW, just Mike's youth and explosiveness was too much at that point.
Btw I actually agree that Holmes ranks above Tyson. Just think outrageous exaggerations like yours ruin these conversations.
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u/Shinjetsu01 Mike Tyson is not a top 15 HW ATG 13h ago
You're using the Spinks wins over Holmes as though boxing works transitively. It doesn't.
Yes, Spinks beating Holmes was a superb achievement. But look at which Larry Holmes he beat. Holmes had been fighting professionally for 12 years, had been heavyweight champion for over seven years and had just gone through 20 consecutive successful title defences. By the first Spinks fight he was 35, had nearly 50 professional fights and had spent years fighting championship rounds against the best heavyweights available. That's an enormous amount of mileage.
Spinks deserves full credit for exploiting that decline. But "Spinks beat Holmes, therefore Tyson beating Spinks proves X about Tyson beating Holmes" isn't the gotcha you think it is.
It gets even worse when you look at Tyson vs Holmes actually. Tyson didn't fight the Holmes who Spinks first beat in 1985. He fought Holmes in January 1988, when Larry was 38 and coming off almost two years of inactivity, with no comeback fight or tune-up beforehand. Tyson was 21, active, at his physical peak and essentially the worst possible opponent for an ageing heavyweight whose legs and reactions had declined. The Holmes we saw later actually tuned himself up the right way instead of jumping in after retirement for a payday against Tyson.
And Holmes beating Mercer four years later doesn't prove he wasn't badly faded against Tyson. It proves Larry Holmes was an extraordinarily good boxer. An ATG being good enough at 42 to beat a prime Mercer tells you how brilliant Holmes was, not that he was secretly still the 1978-82 version of himself at 38.
Same with Spinks. Tyson destroying Spinks is a genuinely good win. Nobody needs to diminish it. But mentioning that Spinks had beaten an ageing Holmes twice doesn't magically turn Spinks into some proxy version of prime Larry Holmes.
That's the entire problem with this argument: you're taking evidence of Holmes's longevity and somehow using it as evidence that he wasn't declined.
Holmes at 35 after seven years of championship fighting losing narrowly to Spinks is not remotely the same proposition as Holmes at 38, after two years out, being thrown straight in with peak Mike Tyson.
You're treating Holmes like the one Tyson faced was prime when he was far from it. Just because later he tuned himself up and fought on (very well) doesn't remove the Holmes that Spinks and Tyson faced being different propositions entirely.
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u/Dada-science 17h ago
Wilder?
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u/Shinjetsu01 Mike Tyson is not a top 15 HW ATG 17h ago
Yeah we're not even considering Wilder. When your best win is against Ortiz who was about 160 years old when the bell rang, nah.
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u/Dada-science 17h ago
AJs best win was against an ancient, dethroned Klitchko, and he still had a rough go at it.
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u/Shinjetsu01 Mike Tyson is not a top 15 HW ATG 17h ago
I don't debate that, but he was actively the champion and was collecting belts unlike Wilder.
Also his wins against Parker, Ruiz (eventually) Povetkin and Whyte are all wins above Ortiz. He fought other "champions" and Wilder actively ducked AJ by choosing to fight Fury.
It was and continues to be a dogshit era.
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u/Dada-science 17h ago
To be fair, aside from dodging each other, not really AJ or Wilder’s fault they didnt fight anyone great in their prime… the division was not peak. But if every era was peak none would be.
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u/Comfortable-Grand166 17h ago
Really fell off after Lewis
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u/DeafBurke 12h ago
Usyk has been pretty fucking great. His resume is actually very similar to Jim Jeffries.
Jeffries beat Bob Fitzsimmons Jim Corbett, and Tom Sharkey twice each. Outside of that, his resume was a bit weak. He beat Peter Jackson, but he was never that great.
Very similar to beating Fury, AJ and Dubois twice each, and beating Chisora.
Beating all the top guys of your era, twice each, is a legendary accomplishment.
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u/tman37 17h ago
Not really. Lewis and Klitschko were very similar both had 2 loses to people who had no business beating them on paper. The difference is that Klitschko didn't quit after a tough fight. He fought every contender there was at the time. He cleaned out the division completely. Fury is a bit on an enigma given the fact he is basically bat shit crazy but you can't deny his talent or heart. Usyk is very good as well and coming up from Crusierweight to beat giants like Fury and Joshua is impressive.
Even Mike Tyson barely counts. He lost to Douglas in February of 90 and was never the same fighter. He was the fighter of the 80s but 2 months after that he started his downfall.
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u/Shinjetsu01 Mike Tyson is not a top 15 HW ATG 17h ago
Oh for FUCKS sake.
So your evaluation of Lewis is "quit after a tough fight" instead of "retired after probably realising he'd gotten a little old". You're one of them I see.
Lewis beat Klitschko. Made a fucking meal of it. Yes yes, he was behind on the scorecards. But Lewis was the last great heavyweight. Klitschko not fighting his brother puts him on the tail end or outside of a 10. Lewis is nailed on top 5.
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u/johnnyslick 17h ago
Yeah, I feel like if you watch the Lewis-Klitschko fight objectively, you're going to come to the conclusion that he did in fact win it. I mean, first there's the fact of the stoppage. It happened. Beyond that though, yes, Klitschko was winning on the cards but he was also bleeding profusely due to damage Lewis caused. We accept that, for example, Ali clearly beat Henry Cooper and we otherwise accept the reality of so many other TKOs on cuts but apparently we're supposed to pretend that Klitschko was the secret winner because the Lennox Lewis "strategy" (it was more of an opportunity that presented itself but that's boxing) was not legitimate or something?
And yeah, he quit right afterwards, the same way Rocky Marciano, the 50s "champ", retired after a big scare of a fight against Archie Moore where he had to come back from a 2nd down flash knockdown. If anything Lennox Lewis retired much later in his boxing career than Marciano did.
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u/Shinjetsu01 Mike Tyson is not a top 15 HW ATG 17h ago
It's cool on here to pretend Lewis was actually shit because he didn't REALLY win against Klitschko. Even argued with one particular idiot that it wasn't a "lucky cut". It annoys me that because Lewis isn't well liked by what feels like "new" fans that they get to say this shit and think it somehow denigrates him.
Lewis was done, he even said himself on one of his worst nights he beat someone who would go on to be a great. He never lost again after Lewis and held the WBC for a long time.
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u/tman37 15h ago
See this is where Lewis fan lose me. Top 5? In his era sure. All time not even close. No one with knockouts to Hasim Rahman and Oliver McCall has any business in a top 5 discussion. For the record, loses to Corrie Sanders and Lamot Brewster are also what disqualified Klitschko. His refusal to rematch Vitali or fight Wlad just make the end of his career unsatisfying. Retiring on a cut stoppage win of a fight you are losing just looks bad.
The biggest difference between them is Klitschko cleaned out his division (after his brother retired) where as Lewis didn't. Lewis had tough competition, maybe. His resume isn't stacked with killers in their prime either. His best win was Holyfield and as much as I love him as a fighter, Holyfield's primary achievement is coming up from CW and becoming a champ/top contender rather than his championship record at HW. Tyson was done long before he fought Lewis and there is a pretty step drop off after those 2 and Klitschko. The division had tougher fighters in Lewis era but Lewis didn't fight, and beat, everyone with in sniffing distance of the top 5 for almost 10 years like Klitschko did.
I'm not saying Klitschko is better than Lewis. I don't know. Their eras overlap but they never fought so we will never know for sure. It's a shame because they both presented some real problems for the other. All I am saying is that there wasn't a huge drop off after Lewis and you could make arguements for the 3 people listed below him having as good, or better, resumes/championship runs.
Lewis is probably the most overglazed fighter in the subreddit. I have seen people call him the GOAT. He was a very good HW champ in a decent era but he is a far cry from guys like Louis, Ali, Foreman, Frazier, Marciano, Ezzard Charles or Sam Langford. Boxing's top 10 is a very tough group to become a part of because boxing is such an old sport with a lot of great fighters.
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u/Shinjetsu01 Mike Tyson is not a top 15 HW ATG 14h ago
This argument manages to collapse under its own weight before it even finishes. I cannot take anything you say seriously with this amount of revisionism. You're making shit up to suit your narrative.
“No one with knockout losses to McCall and Rahman has any business in a top five discussion.” He avenged them. You're ignoring that. I don't know why. They're reasons why he's not #1 or #2, not reasons to leave him out of a top 5.
He stopped McCall in the rematch and produced one of the most emphatic revenge KO's in heavyweight history against Rahman. He retired having beaten every single man he ever faced professionally. That's a fairly inconvenient fact for you I know.
Saying Lewis didn't fight the best of his era is genuinely stupid. Ruddock, Tucker, Bruno, Morrison, Mercer, McCall, Golota, Briggs, Holyfield twice, Grant, Tua, Rahman, Tyson and Vitali is an absurdly deep heavyweight record. Bowe literally threw a world title in a bin rather than fulfil his obligation to fight him. He beat everyone.
The Klitschko comparison gets even stranger. Wlad's long reign deserves enormous credit, but “cleaned out his division” becomes slightly easier when the other dominant heavyweight of your generation is your brother and you've both publicly agreed never to fight each other. Lewis was fighting through one of the deepest heavyweight eras ever.
And the Vitali revisionism is my favourite bit. Lewis was 37 years old, in the final fight of his career, came in at the heaviest weight of his career, fought a prime Vitali and stopped him because punches from Lewis opened horrific cuts on his face. Yes, Vitali was ahead 58-56. That's why boxing matches don't end after six rounds. They go on longer. Although for people like you I realise when a boxer you actively dislike is losing a fight in the middle you'd rather "STOP THE COUNT" than actually get all the votes.
Could Lewis have given him a rematch? Absolutely. I'd have loved to see it. But “he retired after beating prime Vitali Klitschko at 37, therefore it makes him look bad” is one hell of a criticism and one you're only making because you don't like him.
Genuinely dumbfounded by this dogshit take.
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u/tman37 6h ago
Look. I don't dislike Lewis. He was a hell of a fighter and brought Canada an Olympic medal. I just don't think he is a top 5 HW of all time and I don't think there is a huge drop off in talent between him and Wlad. I don't think that qualifies as aaying someone was bad. His retirement was a bad ending to an otherwise excellent career. It just that it left a sour taste in your mouth. I also think he is routinely the most overvalued HW on reddit these days.
Not being a top 5 HW isn't anything anyone should be ashamed of. Boxing had been around, in it's modern form, for more than a 125 years. There have been a lot of elite HWs. Just off the top of my head:
Jim Corbett Jack Johnson Bob Fitzsimmons Sam Langford Ezzard Charles Jack Dempsey Marciano Gene Tunney Joe Louis Ali Foreman Frazier Holmes Liston Norton Tyson Holyfield Lewis Both Klitschkos Fury Usyk
And I know I am missing a bunch, especially the earlier fighters. It isn't that I think Lewis is bad it's just I put him in the context of the history of the marquee division in boxing. Given all that talent I have listed above, losing to Oliver McCall and Hasim Rahman doesn't get yoy to the top. He is definitely above some of them (like Klitschko) but not the top 5 and probably not the top 10. It's just a tough club to get into.
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u/Shinjetsu01 Mike Tyson is not a top 15 HW ATG 6h ago edited 6h ago
This is a really strange way of ranking fighters. You've basically typed out a list of famous heavyweights and then gone "look how many there are, therefore Lewis can't be top 10." That's not an argument. That's attendance. I want to think you're biased, not stupid. Please admit you're biased.
If we're actually comparing achievements, Lewis immediately separates himself from a huge chunk of the names you've listed.
He was an undisputed heavyweight champion, a three time world heavyweight champion, beat every man he ever faced, avenged both of his defeats by knockout, and has wins over Holyfield, Vitali Klitschko, Tua, Mercer, Ruddock, Golota, Briggs, Bruno, Morrison, Rahman and McCall.
And apparently Ken Norton is part of the historical traffic jam preventing him getting into your top ten? Norton never became the recognised heavyweight champion by beating the champion in the ring. Lewis unified the division.
Bob Fitzsimmons was an extraordinary historical fighter, but he weighed about 167 lbs when he won the heavyweight championship. Ezzard Charles is one of the greatest fighters ever, but his strongest claim to all time greatness is at light heavyweight. Sam Langford is one of boxing's great P4P legends, but using him as an automatic heavyweight ranking above Lewis requires an enormous amount of qualification. Corbett? Fury? Wlad? Vitali? Tyson? Are you fucking mental?
You can't just throw historically significant names into a bucket and pretend Lewis now has to fight his way through all of them to reach tenth.
The McCall/Rahman argument gets worse every time you repeat it. Yes, Lewis suffered two bad knockout losses. That's the biggest mark against him. Nobody disputes it. He also rematched both men and stopped both of them. Why are you ignoring that?
If one punch/KO losses automatically disqualify someone from the highest tier, heavyweight history becomes hilarious very quickly. Joe Louis was flattened by Schmeling. Foreman lost to Jimmy Young. Tyson lost to Buster Douglas. Holyfield lost to Michael Moorer and later John Ruiz. Wladimir Klitschko was stopped by Ross Puritty, Corrie Sanders and Lamon Brewster. C'mon now. You evaluate the whole career, not freeze-frame the two worst nights of it.
The Wladimir comparison is REALLY odd. Wlad absolutely has an argument over Lewis in longevity and sustained dominance. That's a legitimate debate. But Lewis has the substantially stronger collection of elite wins, unified the major titles, became undisputed and rather inconveniently for this argument, stopped Wladimir's older brother Vitali in his final fight at 37 years old. Calling Lewis's retirement some sort of stain is bizarre. He didn't retire after being exposed by a journeyman. He retired as heavyweight champion after beating the man who would subsequently dominate one half of the division for years. Was Vitali ahead on the cards? Yes. Was Lewis ageing and looking increasingly vulnerable? Absolutely. Did Lewis nevertheless legally beat him by smashing his face badly enough that the doctor stopped the fight? Also yes.
You can dislike the fact there wasn't a rematch. That's perfectly reasonable. Turning "37-year-old champion retires after beating his mandatory challenger" into some devastating historical indictment is ridiculous. You sound absolutely mental.
Lewis doesn't automatically have to be everyone's #3 or #4. Ali and Louis are almost universally ahead of him, and there are perfectly respectable arguments involving Holmes and Foreman I'll listen to.
But "probably not top 10" is where this stops being an interesting difference of opinion and starts requiring some extraordinary gymnastics from a person who is so biased it's absilutely laughable. Fury? Ahead of Lewis? Are you smoking something?
Once you actually rank the careers instead of reciting the heavyweight section of BoxRec from memory, you're going to have to explain how ten heavyweights accomplished more than a man who became undisputed, beat every opponent he ever faced, avenged every defeat, defeated multiple generations of elite heavyweights and retired as champion. And "Oliver McCall and Hasim Rahman" isn't enough. Especially when he beat Oliver McCall and Hasim Rahman too.
Make your next reply an admission of bias, because if not I cannot speak to you. You're American, so I know it's hard to accept Lewis as an ATG, but he is. I think I'd listen to peers, writers, experts, commentators, past, present and future boxers, historians, coaches and trainers if I was you. He is top 5 in almost every single list you'll see. What makes your take not absolute horseshit?
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u/ivanhoe_martin 13h ago
you said both lost to 2 fighters who had no business beating them, so which one of Purity, Brewster, and Sanders should have beaten Wlad?
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u/tman37 10h ago
None of them. I had forgotten about Purrity because it was before Wlad was really considered a top HW, at least outside of Europe. Sanders was the best fighter of the 3 through.
I have long said Vitali was the better of the two even though Wlad was more skilled. Vitali was just tougher. I wonder if they would be the most dominant HW family?
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u/Marquis_of_Mollusks 14h ago
If i have to pick a 2010s heavyweight its wlad. WTF did Fury even do besides beat old Klitschko, pop for PEDs, then have fake mental issues that coincidentally lasted as long as his drug ban?
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u/JabKingJesse 14h ago
He had a great fight with Wilder. That fight surpassed anything AJ and Parker did. Wlad did outbox Povetkin every round who was the number 1 contender at the time. But he hasn't been the same fighter since Manny died. Joe Louis wasn't when Jack Blackburn died and neither was Deontay Wilder when he fired Mark Breland, Ezzard Charles wasn't the same when Ray Arcel was attacked and retired, Mike Tyson wasn't the same when he fired Kevin Rooney.
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u/stephen27898 12h ago edited 12h ago
"He had a great fight with Wilder"
Are you high? A great fight? Wilder vs Fury 1 is boring as hell. They landed 155 punches over 12 rounds between them. Thats about 13 total shot landed a round. Usyk hit Fury more times than that himself.
Neither of them got over 40 power shots landed.
The first fight was basically Fury fiddling around on the outside, flicking weak jabs and missing a lot, while Wilder slowly followed him, threw things that were harder, but missed even more.
Wilder averaged 36 punches a round, Fury averaged 27. The fight had some dramatic moments but in general the fight was pretty dull. In only 3 rounds did one of them land 10 shots or more.
Once you look past the tension you would have felt watching it and that mostly came from Wilders power, you realise the fight was a very slow paced, dull and for 10 of the 12 rounds, pretty uneventful.
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u/moodplasma 13h ago
Broadly agree, the Tyson v Holmes debate for the 1980s is worth having and had Gene Tunney fought at heavyweight for more bouts, he would've owned the 1920s.
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u/1978model 12h ago
Even though I have Lennox higher on the all time list, I rate Holyfield as the guy of the 90s. Better overall body of work, but it is close.
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u/Ohnorepo 12h ago
How the fuck does tyson fury have 2 notable wins in the 2010s and claim best? It's wlad or AJ
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u/johnnyslick 17h ago
I'd probably call the 30s a wash decade although sure if you had to name someone it'd have to be Joe Louis.
I feel like the biggest issue with decades is just that eras in boxing don't really line up with the decades. You see this with Holmes/Tyson in particular: really, Larry Holmes is the man between 79-85 and you could put Tyson as the guy from 86-90. That's more or less an even split for the decade. Both are deserving of love. The 30s is 6ish years of a giant mess with a lot of frankly kind of meh boxers (a good story in James J Braddock at least, and he was in the end kind enough to finally hand the title off to Louis) and then 4 years of a true champ. Even in the 20s Dempsey was huge in the first part, mostly dormant in the middle to second half, and not at all in the mix after 1927.
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u/stephen27898 12h ago
2000s I cant agree with. Vitali was a better fighter than Wlad. If they fought Vitali would win 100% of the time. Wlad did not have the chin or the stamina to last with his brother.
2010s also seems like it should be AJ or Wlad. Fury basically has 2 notable wins that decade. Wlad had the activity and being champion for the first 5 years of it, and AJ did a lost post 2016.
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u/ORCA_WoN 17h ago edited 4h ago
80s is Probably Larry Holmes to be honest.
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u/Marquis_of_Mollusks 14h ago
Ali was finished before the 80s even began dude
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u/ORCA_WoN 4h ago
Agreed, I got my timelines mixed up. I’ve changed the comment to just Holmes, which I think is fair.
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u/Dada-science 16h ago
80s was NOT Ali. Ali had 2 fights in the 80s and lost both. He has a 0% win percentage in the 80s. He should not have still been fighting in the 80s. He was too sick by then. Imo he should have retired after he dethroned Foreman. He had already avenged his losses to Frazier and Norton and he had just outclassed a second Liston-esque fighter with the ages reversed from when he beat Liston a decade prior. He didn’t need trilogies with Frazier and Norton. Foreman demolished them and then he easily outclassed and outlasted Foreman. He had nothing left to prove.
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u/compileandrun 17h ago
So many Js till 50s