El Duque,
Your right about Bowe and Lewis. I guess i mixed it up, i never really was a huge fan of either, I just thought Bowe was worth mentioning.
Spinks only having five heavyweight fights does surprise me, I guess I only really can remember the fights against Holmes and Cooney particularly well as heavyweight fights butI do remember that he was very good in those fights. I dont think the fact that heonly had such a few fights precludes him from being aheavyweight great.
On the first Bruno fight, I dont think Tyson was as bad as you say. IN fact I thought he was in pretty good form so to speak. Bruno, coming in at the same odds as Ali was in his fight against Liston, actually fought well and did exactly what Ali would do Tyson in dancing around and sticking out the jab. Difference being that Ali would be 10 times quicker and better and could actually take a punch. He'd have tore Tyson apart by the sixth and would have won via TKO, using the infamous Ali wind up punch.
Others,
the Ali video story i had not heard of. I have a new found respect for Marciano and you may have almost turned me with that one. At the very least, I'd like to move Marciano up to 2nd on my list.
On my ranking of Tyson so high, I guess I was swayed by popular opinion,as I cant stand the man and think he is overated butdo acknowledge hehas probably proved me wrong. I was actually the one person who picked thefirst Holyfield upset. It was such a certainty that Ieven tried to put $100 at centrebet but was to slow.
The reason I did not include Frazier was simply because of the way Foreman destroyed him. Probably a little harsh, I guess.
Just other points which i am sure are correct but which El Duque or others may correct my memory,
George Foreman for his title reign was considered a fraud and not ranked with Lewis and others at the time, yet if you trace back the title, his title was the real World Championship since other champions only got the belt through politics.
Evander Holyfield is probably the undisputed greatest Cruiserweight of all time as he fought about 30 fights as a cruiserweight before winning the World heavyweight championship.
On pound for pound fighters, Sugar Ray Leonard must be seriously considered. His victory over Hagler was sensational and despite Haglers protests clearly stamped him as the dominant pound for pound fighter of his era.
On the same note, our own Jeff Fenech was as awesome as anyone when campaining as a featherweight or lower. He never really should have fought above that weight.
The one thing that needs to be remembered about the early heavyweights (Pre Ali) is that they were all undisputed champions and they did not duck fighters like they do now.
Just on a slightly different topic, off the top of my head only, how about a list of the top 10 pound for pound Australian Boxers of all time.
1. Jeff Fenech
2. Johnny Famechon
3. Young Griffo
4. Les Darcy
5. Lionel Rose
6. Jeff Harding
7. Peter Jackson
To be honest, I cant think of any others right now. I know Lester Ellis and Barry Michael were world champions but I would hate to rate either an all time great. Can anyone else fill in some blanks.
