My top 25 heavyweights of all time ... and there’s no place for Joshua
25 EARNIE SHAVERS
THE biggest puncher never to win a world title. his championship challenges were against Muhammad Ali, who he hurt badly in the second round, and Larry holmes, who he knocked down in the seventh. Both recovered to win hard-fought decisions but that these two took on a man who scored 70 KOs in his 76 victories is a reminder of how the greats were willing to fight each other during the golden age of heavyweight boxing.
24 RIDDICK BOWE
THE former undisputed world champion fought an epic trilogy with evander holyfield in which he won the first and third bouts and lost the one in between on the wild night when a para-glider crash-landed in the open ring in the car park at Caesars Palace on the Vegas Strip.
That was Big Daddy’s only defeat but the record disguises how he ducked Lennox Lewis by chucking his belt into a London dustbin and threw away what might have been a great career by putting huge eating above heavy training.
23 KEN NORTON
ELEVATED to world champion after he beat Jimmy Young in a final eliminator and then Leon Spinks preferred to relinquish the belt rather than fight the man who put up three immense performances against Ali. he won their first fight, lost the second on a controversial decision and was beaten by the Greatest on a split decision in the third.
22 EZZARD CHARLES
DESCRIBED by Ali as ‘the only boxer with the skills to have given me trouble in my prime’, Charles is widely remembered as one of the most technically gifted prize-fighters in ring history and came the closest to beating rocky Marciano in the second of their two huge fights in New York’s Yankee Stadium.
Won his world heavyweight title against the formidable Jersey Joe Walcott and lost it to Joe Louis as he fought every other top-rated boxer across three divisions.
21 JAMES J BRADDOCK
ANOTHER three-division world champion who came out of retirement and, from virtually nowhere, took the title from the highly regarded Max Baer. For that upset he was dubbed by fabled writer Damon runyan as the Cinderella Man, which was the title of a major movie about his feat. it took Joe Louis to relieve him of the title two years later.
20 WLADIMIR KLITSCHKO
AS brother Vitali waited in vain for Lewis to come out of retirement for a rematch, Wladimir went on to establish the record for the most cumulative days as world champion — 4,382 — over his two lengthy reigns. Between them the siblings, whose mother forbade them to fight each other, presided over the Klitschko era of heavyweight boxing.
19 VITALI KLITSCHKO
TOUGHER, harder-punching and better elder brother of Wladimir who looked to be on his way to beating Lewis in Los Angeles when his eye was cut to the bone and doctors refused to let him bleed to death. Now engaged in the biggest fight of his life as Mayor of Kyiv.
18 BOB FITZSIMMONS
CORNISH-BORN Bob became an Australian and then American hero as the first boxer to win world titles at three weights. A huge achievement in the early 1900s when there were fewer extra categories between the classic weight divisions, as he was the lightest of all heavyweight champions at 167lb ( 12 stone). renowned for knocking out James J Corbett and the only man to defeat John L Sullivan.
17 GENE TUNNEY
THIS thinking man’s boxer brought a clever defensive method to his winning of the light-heavy and then heavyweight titles. he gained his fame by defeating the great Jack Dempsey twice, the second time with the help of one of the most infamous long counts in ring history.
16 JAMES J JEFFRIES
AN all-round athlete who came within a fraction of running the 100 yards in 10 0 seconds and high-jumped d over 6ft, Jeffries invented the he style of fighting behind a solid olid left jab and counter-punching ching with immense power.
A dominant champion, he was nicknamed the Great White hope when he came out of a six-year retirement in an attempt to answer the clamour from America’s so-called ‘moral majority’ for one of their own to dethrone the first African-American heavyweight champion. But Jack Johnson knocked him out in the 15th round in 1910.
15 TYSON FURY
FOLLOWED up his dramatic conquest of the long-reigning, if ageing, Wladimir Klitschko with his off-the-canvas trilogy against massive puncher Deontay Wilder, which made him a two-time world champion. he will climb sharply in the rankings if he defeats Oleksandr usyk to become the undisputed Gypsy King of the ring, although usyk would storm into the top 25 should he win. As would Anthony Joshua if he were to beat the winner of those two later this year to become a threetime world champion.
14 EVANDER HOLYFIELD
The undisputed world cruiserweight champion who became the only four-time world heavyweight champion. had a piece of ear bitten off (above) while demolishing a fading Mike Tyson. Proved himself to be very much the real Deal, as he was dubbed, by maximising his boxer-fighter talents in his epic trilogy with Bowe.
13 SONNY LISTON
A MONSTROUS force who intimidated all opponents — including the much-loved Floyd Patterson twice in winning and retaining
the world title — until the impudent Ali bewildered and destroyed him. First mentally, then physically.
12 JAMES J CORBETT
RENOWNED as the only man to beat John L Sullivan, albeit when the Boston Strong Boy came out of retirement to face the new champion on the block. enjoyed a career of just 36 pro fights but nearly all against the rest of the best in big-money fights before becoming a film star.
11 LENNOX LEWIS
OUR very own three-time worldtitle holder and most definitely a distinguished citizen of Britain, to which he pledged his allegiance after winning olympic gold under the Canadian flag. And still, two decades on, the last undisputed world heavyweight champion. He will remain so until Fury and usyk resolve which of them is the first undisputed champ of the four-belt era — hopefully in May.
10 MIKE TYSON
THE biggest punch ever made Iron Mike the youngest world heavyweight champion and intimidated all- comers during his prime. But it has tended to distract from his exceptional speed of hand and foot and his high ring intelligence. As did the crimes which put one of the sport’s most controversial characters behind bars.
9 JACK DEMPSEY
THE Manassa Mauler was a matinee idol. while his punching power allied to progressive new technical skills brought world title fame in the ring, his mass popularity broke box office records, including the first million-dollar gate.
8 GEORGE FOREMAN
DESTROYED all-comers except Ali but including Frazier. while making his final comeback, Big George became the oldest ever world heavyweight champion at 46 years and 169 days.
7 JACK JOHNSON
WHITE America’s nightmare changed the face of boxing and sparked race riots the length and breadth of the US when he became the first black world heavyweight champion by defeating James J Jeffries in the Fight of the 20th Century. He compounded that perceived affront to the prejudiced majority by marrying a white woman and keeping his title for eight years despite trumped- up criminal convictions.
6 JOE FRAZIER
THE warrior’s warrior inflicted Ali’s first defeat when knocking him down late in that Fight of the Century at a Madison Square Garden packed with Hollywood and political celebrities. only Foreman at his zenith was too much for Smokin’ Joe to handle.
5 ROCKY MARCIANO
THE only world heavyweight champion to retire unbeaten stood but 5ft 10in tall and weighed a mere 188lb (13st 6lb) but possessed extraordinary punching power — not least when rupturing the arms of bigger opponents to bring down their guard so he could then knock them out. A method adopted later by Mexican legend Canelo Alvarez.
4 JOHN L SULLIVAN
THE last bare-knuckle and the first gloved world champion, the Boston Strong Boy won more than 400 fights (almost all by knockout) across the two codes. This huge cult figure and sport’s first millionaire would have hung up his gloves undefeated had he not come out of retirement to satisfy public demand for him to fight rising star James J Corbett.
3 LARRY HOLMES
Too often dismissed as just Ali’s chief sparring partner, the easton Assassin possessed the best-ever jab and was such a comprehensive boxer that he held the world title from 1978 to 1985 and (reluctantly) inflicted the only Ko of the Greatest’s career.
2 JOE LOUIS
THE hardest part of answering this question is choosing between two legends with the most powerful claims to be no 1. More than one distinguished ring historian hedges his bets and declares that the two giants must be tied in first place. That is a cop-out. not to examine the case for Joe Louis would be a dereliction of duty.
The Brown Bomber was a cult figure in his own right. one who narrowed the racial divisions in American society. with his ring intelligence and knockout power, he racked up an unequalled 25 consecutive defences of the world heavyweight title and reigned as undisputed heavyweight champion for 11 and a half years.
1 MUHAMMAD ALI
ALI, nee Cassius Clay, was a three- time champion and involved in several of the most fabled fights in history. But when push comes to shove, that neglects his impact on American culture and world opinion, on everything from the Vietnam war to the emergence of the Black Muslims.
It also ignores the fact he is not only the supreme boxer but the outstanding athlete in the annals of world sport. The even bigger picture — beyond the slaying of the Liston monster, the Fight of the Century against Frazier and Rumble in the Jungle with Foreman — portrays a phenomenal champion not only in gloves but of civil rights. Known as the Greatest and with good reason.
Do you agree with Jeff’s selections? Have your say by emailing boxing@dailymail.co.uk