re: Who’s your top 10 heavyweight boxers of all time?

Amazing how little respect Bowe gets. He whipped Holyfield twice and only had one loss (questionable loss to Holyfield)

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No Klitschko? I'm a little surprised.

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Only because I hate to watch any of his fights. He was one of the most boring heavyweights to ever watch fight with his jab, grab, get broken up by the ref, rinse and repeat.

I vividly remember Manny Stewart pleading with him in several fights to actually fight his opponent and stop the above mentioned scenario.

His best fight, as far as I'm concerned, was his last against Anthony Joshua where he got KO'd late after both fighters were floored earlier.

The fact Klitschko lost to Ross Purity and Corrie Sanders, both by KO, takes him out of my list.

Yeah ... I think it was Jerry Izenberg, one of the great boxing writers who's still kicking at 94 who said he wished they'd have just stopped and joined hands and walked out of the ring together but of course that wasn't going to happen.

Ali earned the arse-whipping he got by the inexcusable way he acted toward Frazier leading up to that fight and for having the brazen stupidity to bring his side piece with him and introduce her to Marcos, etc., as his wife.

But Joe Frazier's people were full of caca if they thought Ali was going to quit before the last round and if Joe had come out he'd have won. Ali would have died before quitting. He got the reputation of being a pretty boy but that was one of the toughest sumbitches ever to step in a ring, on a field, on a court, anywhere that involves sports.

And Frazier held a grudge to the grave against Eddie Futch for stopping the fight, but if he'd let Joe come out for the 15th round, completely blind and with no defense against Ali, IMO there was a good chance he was going to get hurt bad, and that didn't need to happen, he didn't deserve that.

Ali would have come out for the 15th, but you know he was glad he didn't have to.

And as far as Ali's punching power, he wasn't a fearsome puncher like Liston, Foreman, Shavers, etc., plus his deal wasn't slugging, it was speed and taking people out with an accumulation of punches. Plus he had chronic hand trouble, they had to shoot his hands up with pain killers before fights. But when he got off his toes and planted his feet and bore down, he could hurt you.

He knocked Joe Frazier's mouthpiece into the crowd in Manila, he hit him so hard.

He was swiveling Foreman's head in Zaire.

He farted around for 10 rounds against Ron Lyle, let him lead on points, but when he got serious, he laid into Lyle and just ruined him. Ruined him.

But look up his fight with Oscar Bonavena in 1970, his last fight before his first battle with Frazier. He was pretty comfortably ahead but in the 15th round he gave Bonavena a head fake that he bit on, and then he just plastered him with a left hook that Frazier would have been proud of. It just ruined Bonavena, who wasn't a bad fighter (just clumsy) and went the distance twice in two reasonably competitive fights with Frazier and didn't get knocked out, but Ali was the only man to knock him out.

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The fact Klitschko lost to Ross Purity and Corrie Sanders, both by KO, takes him out of my list.

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You say this but then list Ken Norton and Earnie Shavers? Both who were KOed multiple times by average opponents.

Norton rode that one win over Ali and two other close fights with him ... for some inexplicable reason, Norton was just kryptonite to Ali ... and the fact that he LOOKED like a great fighter with his shirt off to a lot higher ranking on people's ATG lists than he actually merits IMO.

All you had to do was back Norton up and he was useless. Ali and Holmes didn't have the raw firepower to do it. A lot of big punchers including as you noted some who weren't exactly elite did.

I was a big Norton fan back in the day but he perpetually disappointed me ...

Yeah Klitschko was like watching paint dry ...

Johnson doesn’t get a lot of love from modern analysts but he’s still on my list, incredible defensive fighter and had enough size to where with modern training methods he could hang today IMO.