Quote Originally Posted by BIG H View Post
This is quite interesting - not relevant to teh criteria of this thread, but anyway....

Heavyweight Fighter of Century as chosen by a five-member panel for The Associated Press in 1999:

1. Muhammad Ali, 56-5, 37 KO's; Career: 1960-81, 19 years active.
2. Joe Louis, 68-3, 54 KO's; Career: 1934-51, 14 years active.
3. Rocky Marciano, 49-0, 43 KO's; Career: 1947-55, 9 years active.
4. Jack Dempsey, 61-6-8, 50 KO's, 6 ND; Career: 1914-27, 11 years active.
5. Jack Johnson, 78-13-11, 49 KO's, 18 ND; Career: 1897-1938, 30 years active.
6 Larry Holmes, 67-6, 43 KO's; Career: 1973-99, 23 years active.
7. Sonny Liston, 50-4, 39 KO's; Career: 1953-70, 17 years active.
8. Joe Frazier, 32-4-1, 27 KO's; Career: 1965-81, 13 years active.
9. Sam Langford, 167-38-37, 117 KO's, 48 ND; Career: 1902-26, 25 years active.
10 Jersey Joe Walcott, 53-18-1, 33 KO's; Career: 1930-53, 20 years active.
The AP gets a lot of stuff wrong and not just in boxing, so forgive me for disagreeing with them but
#1 Joe Louis
#2 Rocky Marciano
#3 Ali

...Dempsey defended his title how many times? Jack Johnson I get, but Dempsey? #4?!?! Langford never even won the title and Walcott wasn't all that impressive as a champion either. Liston had a short reign at the top too.

Now plenty of people may disagree with me based on who fought who and eras and size, strength, speed, skill etc...but Louis and Marciano DOMINATED their eras...I reckon you can put Holmes in that fold as well but Louis was champ for a long time and his record of successful title defenses as heavyweight champion still stands. If you want to talk about fighter x vs fighter y then that's a different story and Ali is probably rated higher, but still Louis is up there.