Sure to cause debate (but then that’s half the fun), boxing brain Teddy Atlas has listed his top 10 greatest ever heavyweights. During an episode of his regular podcast, ‘The Fight,’ the trainer / writer / commentator / boxing expert broke it down.
In typical passionate Atlas style, there is plenty of shouting and a lot of emotion involved here (check out the episode on YouTube), but Teddy has always loved boxing from the depth of his heart, and he always will. As such, Atlas’ list is well worth reading.
Here it is, in reverse order:
10: Lennox Lewis – “He came back from being KO’d and that means a lot,” Atlas says in his video, perhaps anticipating the response some fans may have to Lewis being placed so high, this after he was KO’d by Oliver McCall and Hasim Rahman during his career.
9: Larry Holmes – “He perhaps had the best jab in heavyweight history,” Atlas says of Holmes. “And he came that close to being the second undefeated heavyweight champ.”
8: Jack Dempsey – “Bring your arguments, I don’t care!” Atlas says. “Dempsey was involved in some of the biggest fights in the biggest times.”
7: Gene Tunney – “Who had ever seen a fighter who read books, novels in training camp!” Teddy says of intellectual Tunney. “He was smart, and he was tough. He moved and boxed. Tunney got dropped by Dempsey but he showed the heart of a champion [in getting up to win].”
6: Atlas does what Atlas does, as in doing things his way, with him leaving the 6th spot open! “Call in, have your input,” he said upon being live on air. Now we take the step to the outer limits – the top 5!”
5: George Foreman – “He was a man who had two lives, who showed us what reincarnation is actually like without dying!” Atlas says of the recently departed Foreman. “How special was he!”
4: Rocky Marciano – “He is underrated,” Teddy says of Marciano. “We know he could punch, we know he was tough – but there was a genius to him. Against the great Jersey Joe Walcott, he was behind, he could only win by knockout. Round 13 comes, and time for genius. You start with one hand and you throw the other. Rocky hit him with a shot he didn’t see.”
3: Jack Johnson – “The first black heavyweight champion, and what a fighter, what a person, what a man. He mixed offence with defence, he had great footwork and power.”
2: Muhammad Ali – “A pretty damn good spot, but maybe not good enough for some of you,” Teddy says of his ranking of Ali. “The first heavyweight ever to exhibit the speed of a lightweight. And he had a great chin, that we didn’t know he had in his first coming.”
1: Joe Louis – “What this man had to deal with on that night at Yankee Stadium, when he fought the one guy who beat him,” Teddy says of Louis, referring to the second Max Schmeling fight. “And that one guy was from Germany, and the man who was running that country at the time – a devil, a dangerous force. He [Louis] was the baddest man on the planet before they even used that term.”
At the end of his presentation, having had some feedback regarding who should take the NO6 spot on his list, Atlas says the following:
“To fill in that spot, not at number six, but everyone goes up one notch, and at number 10, it would be Sonny Liston. He was that great, he was that damned good, “Atlas says. “Unfortunately his life was that damned screwed up. But yeah, he was good. He could fight, he could punch.”
A very good, passionately compiled top 10 of the greatest heavyweight kings who ever lived, do you agree?
