The Ring's Boxing Fantasy Fight Tournament Nomination Thread: Heavyweight Edition

[King P]

Been pondering this for a while, and think we should try it out. A lot of boxing fans love to talk about fantasy fights, and who would beat who if they fought. So I say we make a tournament out of it, NCAA bracket style. Hopefully we can get some good discussions/debates out of this.

We'll start off with the Heavyweight Division, since that's the most notable and most absolute division (no worries about in between weights and shyt).

Just pick 15-20 Heavyweight fighters (Past or Present) you would like to nominate for the tournament. As long as they fought at Heavyweight, they are eligible. At the end of the week, the nominees will be chosen and the tournament will begin. The seeding will be determined before the start of the tournament. I would like to have at least 32 different picks. A 64 man tournament would be great, but I'll settle for 32.

With that being said, let the nomination process begin. Posters may now make their picks.

 

[Newzz]

1) Muhammad Ali
2) Larry Holmes
3) George Forman
4) Evander Holyfield
5) Joe Frazier
6) Lennox Lewis
7) Mike Tyson
8) Sonny Liston
9) Wladamir Klitschko
10) Vitali Klitschko
11) Riddikk Bowe
12) Floyd Patterson
13) Ken Norton
14) Michael Spinks


It has to be an even number in order to make a true tournament, so I chose 14 as the number instead of 15. That's 7 matchups of 14 Heavyweight fighters.

OH, and I chose all my heavyweights from within the last 50 years. You had to have fought at latest by the year 1964 in order to make my cut.

 

[King P]

1) Muhammad Ali
2) Joe Louis
3) Rocky Marciano
4) Mike Tyson
5) George Foreman
6) Larry Holmes
7) Riddikk Bowe
8) Joe Frazier
9) Earnie Shavers
10) Vitali Klitschko
11) Wladimir Klitschko
12) Ray Mercer
13) Evander Holyfield
14) Ike Ibeabuchi
15) David Tua

 

[LauderdaleBoss]

1. Ali
2. Louis
3. Tyson
4. Holyfield
5. Holmes
6. Foreman
7. Lewis
8. Frazier
9. Vitali K
10. M. Spinks
11. Ibeabuchi
12. Bowe
13. Norton
14. Wladimir K

edit
15. Liston
16. Marciano
17. Bryd
18. Moorer
19. Shavers
20. Young

 

[patscorpio]

Muhammad Ali
Jack Johnson
Jack Dempsey
Joe Louis
Joe Frazier
George Foreman
Jimmy Young
Larry Holmes
Mike Tyson
Evander Holyfield
Wladimir Klitschko
Lennox Lewis
Andrew Golota
Vitali Klitschko
Michael Moorer

 

[InvictusAeternusEternus]

Tyson
Ali
Frazier
Brown Bomber
Norton
Ernie
Foreman
Holmes
Dempsey
Ike Ibeabuchi
Holyfield
Jimmy Young
Wladimir
Vitali
Lennox

Wild Cards

Archie Moore
Floyd Patterson
Sonny Liston
Wilder (I know he aint done shyt yet but I got faith)
Tua

 

[Jello Biafra]

1.Jack Johnson
2. Joe Louis
3. Ezzard Charles
4. Floyd Patterson
5. Sonny Liston
6. Muhammad Ali
7. Joe Frazier
8. Ken Norton
9. George Foreman
10. Larry Holmes
11. Mike Tyson
12. Evander Holyfield
13. Riddikk Bowe
14. Lennox Lewis
15. Vitali Klitschko
16. Wlad Klitschko
17. Ike Ibeabuchi
18. Michael Moorer
19. David Tua
20. Rocky Marciano

 

[L68]

can john ruiz be included in this please? his swag was off the charts

 

[King P]

can john ruiz be included in this please? his swag was off the charts

fukk Ruiz

You can nominate him yourself if you wanna

 

[L68]

okay i nominate him

 

[Yuzo]

the problems with these kinds of things is that heavyweights from the past fought with different size gloves. joe louis fought in six ounce gloves. jack johnson fought in 4 ounce gloves. jack sharkey said after a couple rounds of fighting the horse hair padding in the gloves would be packed in and spread out so much that you would be hitting and getting hit with a pure fist. that was a era of fighters getting their ears ripped off by punches and other kinds of things like that. you either dont include them or you got to make some kind of special rules to regulate that factor.

 

[Jello Biafra]

the problems with these kinds of things is that heavyweights from the past fought with different size gloves. joe louis fought in six ounce gloves. jack johnson fought in 4 ounce gloves. jack sharkey said after a couple rounds of fighting the horse hair padding in the gloves would be packed in and spread out so much that you would be hitting and getting hit with a pure fist. that was a era of fighters getting their ears ripped off by punches and other kinds of things like that. you either dont include them or you got to make some kind of special rules to regulate that factor.

You are overthinking this, bruh.
Just factor in physical attributes/skills, career achievements, strength of opposition, career longevity, domination of era and shyt like that to determine who you think would win in a hypothetical match.

 

[Yuzo]

when fighters are put in a head 2 head match up you got to think about these things if you want to be realistic. jack johnson in his 4 ounce gloves is a factor. joe louis letting off all those short quick 6-7 punch combos in his little 6 ounce gloves is a different fighter stylistically you throw him in a pair of bigger softer ten ounce gloves. 10 ounce gloves were sparring gloves in his era. you could do it how you want to. but you have to have a cut off point somewhere. you might as well throw all the old bareknuckle fighters in if not. ali and frazier fought each other in 8 ounce gloves i would set the cut off point to at least that so you dont have ridiculous type of match ups of like you would have throwing jack johnson in with a heavyweight from the modern era. jack johnson vs john ruiz. think of how that would even look.

 

[WhodatWhoadi]

Im going with newzz 14,also since this is "fantasy" Im going to add Teofilo Stevenson..3x Olympic Heavyweight Gold Medalist, 6'5 bout 230 had power AND can box beautifully.

1.Ali
2.Teofilo Stevenson
3.Joe Louis
4.Jack Dempsey
5.Evander Holyfield
6.Joe Frazier
7.Mike Tyson
8.George Foreman
9.Ken Norton
10.Lennox Lewis
11.Larry Holmes
12.David Tua
13.Wladmir Klitschko
14.Vitali Klitschko

Thought about...
Riddikk Bowe
Ray Mercer
Jerry Quarry
Ike Ibeabuchi
Tommy Morrison

 

[H.I.M.]

Ali's going to (and should) come out on top anyway.

But here's my 16

Ali
Louis
Foreman
Frazier
Holyfield
Marciano
Tyson
Holmes
Lennox
Liston
Norton
Wlad
Bowe
Johnson (Jack)
Dempsey
Ibeabuchi

The 1st 16 seeds should look about in that exact order

And since we're aiming for a 32 man tourney, the next 16 should be...

Walcott
Patterson
Spinks (Mike)
Charles (Ezzard)
Quarry
Vitali
Witherspoon (Tim)
Young (Jimmy)
Baer (Max)
Schmelling
Moorer
Tua
Byrd
Lyle
Johannson
Douglas (Buster)

You could probably swap out some of those last 16 for either Machen, Tunney, Jones Jr., Mercer, Shavers, Tucker or Morrison if you see fit.