There comes a time on any such list when, although not quite great themselves, the fighters considered are capable of brutalizing even the best?
Entering the top thirty we find that it is men listed here rather than those enshrined within the top twenty that are said to have been some of the toughest opponents for the true immortals of boxing. If you want to read about the man who most tormented the great Sam Langford, you can do so in this installment, not in those covering the absolute quill. The chief nemesis of James J. Corbett, too, is discussed below ? as well as the man who in losing most troubled the giant Lennox Lewis. Jack Dempsey?s destroyer is ranked here, as are the men who became the most dreaded opponents of Muhammad Ali and who very nearly changed history at the expense of Joe Louis.
There comes a time on any such list when, although not quite great themselves, the fighters considered are capable of brutalizing even the best.
This is that time.
#30 Sam McVey (66-13-9; Newspaper Decisions 4-5-3)
Sam McVey was often portrayed in the 1990s as ?the Tyson of his era.? His physical dimensions were not dissimilar to Iron Mike?s standing, as he did, at around 5?10 and carrying as much as 220 lbs. When footage emerged, the comparisons ceased. McVey fought in a fiercely dissimilar fashion to that of Tyson on every single one of the scant frames which have emerged of him. A stalker more akin to Joe Louis or George Foreman, it is stillness, not motion which defines his approach, suddenly attacking with a fast left-jab with combinations, many of them messy, stitched on behind it. Demonstrating the strength of which his build spoke and the patience of a long-haul fighter, he may be, stylistically, something of a bridge between the early gloved era and the modernization of the sport, jabbing in the old-fashioned ?jousting? way but recognizing within himself the power to damage in waves.
And what power. Here comparisons with Tyson are absolutely valid. McVey knocked out fifty-eight opponents at heavyweight and when he couldn?t knock them out, he demonstrated the strength of mind and purpose and the aggression and accuracy to outpoint them, even fighters of such quality as Sam Langford and Joe Jeannette. It is likely that Jeannette holds an edge over him from their torrid and celebrated series of fights, not least because McVey was beaten blind when the two met in the most legendary fight of the era, their second encounter in Paris, won by Jeannette in the forty-ninth round after McVey quit. ?No Mas? it was not – McVey couldn?t see, his eyes beaten nearly to slits. If it were only a matter of heart and will they might be fighting still.
Jack Johnson defeated him on three separate occasions, but McVey was yet to reach twenty and the fact that Johnson never matched McVey, a fighter he purportedly admired greatly and for whose funeral he was glad to pay when McVey died broke and young of pneumonia, is to the determinant of his legacy. Probably Johnson always would have bested McVey though; certainly he was the proven inferior of Sam Langford, and here he lags just behind Joe Jeannette.
#29 Joe Jeannette (83-10-9; Newspaper Decisions 35-16-11)
Joe Jeannette embraced his ironman vernacular early in his career surviving three rounds with Jack Johnson despite being without a win in a recognized professional contest and despite his being outweighed by around twenty pounds. Little more than a greenhorn middleweight, Jeannette had to watch as Johnson butchered the more experienced and bigger Walter Johnson over three before stepping into the ring with the world?s best heavyweight himself; only Jeannette, miraculously, was able to hold his own.
His mix of excellence and toughness would lead him to the foot of the pinnacle of heavyweight boxing, but no higher. Johnson would beat him more than once before Jeannette came to anything like his peak but the two never met in the ring upon Johnson?s lifting the title. At least once and possibly twice documents were signed for a battle between the two on US soil but by that point the champion was such a divisive figure in American life that the fight failed to come off; meanwhile Johnson was steadfast and consistent in refusing to meet Jeannette for big paydays in either Australia or France.
It was in France that Jeannette really made his legend, defeating a man who shared his frustration in both color and opportunity, Sam McVey. McVey was bigger, stronger and a harder puncher than Jeannette but it was Jeannette who proved himself the better man. Three times they met in Paris, twice in decision bouts and once in a controversial fight to the finish. It is the fight to the finish that lays the bedrock of each man?s legend but it was Joe Jeannette who triumphed, despite being dropped over and over again by his nemesis in a fight that led McVey to name him ?inhuman.?
In their first Paris encounter, the referee had reportedly raised Jeannette?s hand in victory before instead naming McVey the winner. In their third fight in Europe, the referee named the fight a draw, a result that even McVey could not understand, being quoted in La Vie au Grand Air as naming his opponent ?better than me.?
?Only two men can now compete with him,? continued the article. ?Jack Johnson and Sam Langford.?
Langford?s indomitable presence throughout Jeannette?s career is the reason he may, arguably, never have been the #1 contender to Johnson?s title, though it should be highlighted that in part this is because Johnson never bothered to meet his #1 contender. It is also probable that after his sensational stoppage of Sam McVey followed by a draw in which he was clearly the better fighter likely made him the most interesting opponent for Johnson at that time.
Despite Johnson?s refusal to put the title on the line against him and despite repeated problems with his right hand, a major reason for the extreme culture of his left, he built a career that sees him on the cusp of the top thirty. He beat both Johnson (DQ2) and Langford (TKO8, W12) during his career, and made himself the number three man of the best heavyweight era prior to the 1970s, in his Parisian contests with Sam McVey. He beat Young Peter Jackson, Sandy Ferguson, Jim Johnson, Jim Barry, Al Kubiak, Bill Tate, Jeff Clark, Georges Carpentier, Tom Cowler and Clay Turner. He lost two disputed decisions to Kid Norfolk in his fourteenth year as a professional but it was Harry Wills who really signalled that the end was as hand, outpointing him cleanly in 1919. When they had met in 1914, a much closer fight had resulted in a draw.
Perhaps the only man to have been avoided by both Jack Johnson (?I regard Jeannette as the next best fighter in the world to myself? ? Kalamazoo Gazette, 1912) and Jack Dempsey (?when a man of Jack?s repute ducks a no-decision bout with a veteran like Jeannette he places himself in a very bad light? ? The Hudson Dispatch, 1918), ?the toughest man in the ring? according to Sam Langford nevertheless finds himself here ranked above many men who did fight for the title.
Justly so.
#28 Max Baer (67-13)
Max Baer derided himself as the owner of a ?ten cent brain,? but this is far from the truth. Baer was remarkably sharp-minded, a gift he retained until the heart-attack that killed him, supposedly telling the hotel receptionist that had offered to procure him ?the house doctor? that he?d rather have ?a people doctor? before informing said doctor ?here I go!? He was one of a kind, and the result was a full notebook for every boxing scribe that ever sought him out.
Where Baer did show signs of a low IQ was in the ring, a place where he was outthought by as wide-ranging a line-up as Tommy Loughran, who outthought everyone, to James Braddock, Ernie Schaaf and Johnny Risko, who really didn?t. Risko?s May 1931 experience seems typical. He rode out the hideous storm of Baer?s traditionally brutal first round, clung on both figuratively and literally in the second, split the middle rounds and ?punched out an edge? (Associated Press) in the final two. Not a great trainer, and easily distracted in the ring (after a poor second round against James Braddock he supposedly asked his corner, ?is that Myrna Loy?? as they attempted to read him the riot), Baer liked to get on top with the violence that lay so inexplicably comfortably with his joyful soul because he just didn?t exhibit the concentration and commitment necessary for an elite-class sportsman.
And yet, here he is, inside the top thirty. Why ? how?
For the same reasons that Benny Leonard lamented his inability to fulfill his potential, which according to the Ghetto Wizard was nothing less than the capacity to become the greatest heavyweight champion in all of history. Boxing.com?s Norman Marcus feels something similar ? I don?t share their point of view, but in the two most crucial areas of heavyweight boxing, Baer is in the absolute elite.
He was never stopped by punches in his prime and when he was stopped for the first time by Joe Louis in 1935 it was to perhaps the best overall hitter in boxing history and it took literally dozens of unanswered power-punches to the face and jaw to convince Baer to quit. His chin is proven iron and only really betrayed him in the final fight of his career. As to power, it is doubtless that he is one of the best pure-punchers in the division?s history.
Despite a training camp more akin to a circus than the Spartan torture chamber preferred by his near-broken trainer Ancil Hoffman, Baer usually rallied after his traditional mid-fight loaf which often included laughter, inactivity and a needlessly wide left-hook seemingly designed to miss ? about that hook, though. Every now and again, Baer would drop it to the body. Every now and again he would throw three jabs, too. He never really forgot where he was, and all those punches were adding up because, simply put, Baer brought a Neanderthal?s voodoo to the ring. Sadly, that voodoo would result in the death of the brave Frankie Campbell, upon whom Baer?s punches extracted the heaviest toll. Not so tragic was Baer?s punishment of the brave Max Schmeling, who crowded the deadly Baer in the second half of the fight. The result was a catastrophe for the German, who had a victory over Joe Louis in his future. Baer rendered the most cerebral fighter of his generation drunk with a predominantly right-handed attack that looks, to modern eyes, akin to butchery. He won the heavyweight title from Primo Carnera in his very next fight after a pitiful training camp that infuriated everyone from New York commissioner Bill Brown (?He?s a bum!?) to Jack Dempsey (?He?s not ready.?), but he won, and very much on his own terms.
But even power and punch resistance aren?t enough to close the gap in boxing. Baer lost his title in his first defense to outsider James J. Braddock and his hunger, intermittent at best, deserted him almost completely. A unique talent in every sense, I think Baer, had he turned professional in 2004, would probably be a good bet to dethrone Wladimir Klitschko ? but only if he could get past Chris Byrd, which he probably wouldn?t. Flawed genius at its best, Baer has too much flaw for the top twenty and too much genius for the top forty.
#27 Bob Fitzsimmons (63-8-4; Newspaper Decisions 6-4-9)
When Max Baer killed Frankie Campbell it very nearly finished him as a fighter. He was dogged by nightmares. Afraid to savage his opponents in the old and grand style he instead held back. He lost four of his next six fights.
?I was never the same fighter,? said Emile Griffith, speaking of his reaction to the tragic death of Bennie Paret. ?After that fight, I did enough to win. I would use my jab all the time. I didn?t want to hurt the other guy.? The same hounds dogged Ezzard Charles.
But not Bob Fitzsimmons. ?Ruby Red? killed Cornelius ?Con? Riordan during sparring with a single right-hand to the jaw in November of 1984. When the legal issues surrounding his death were cleared up, Fitzsimmons celebrated by smashing Al Allich to pieces in three, following that up with a single round blowout of Mike Connors. He was stone-cold. Overmatched, vulnerable to the brilliance of a heavyweight-championship caliber fighter, Fitz spared them no savagery ? the death at his hands of another human being inflicted upon him none of the scars that Charles, Griffith and Baer suffered. Within the squared circle he maintained a strange violence unequalled, part battleship, part trapsmith, part brute.
?I have no idea which fighting style I will adopt,? Fitzsimmons explained. ?I never fight two battles alike. I never go into the ring with any fixed purpose, except that I am going to whip the other man as quick as I can.?
This, the much smaller Fitzsimmons did often and regardless of the class of opposition. He knocked out the world class Peter Maher in a single round ? it was reportedly ?several minutes? before Maher was recovered enough to understand what had happened to him.
Joe Choynski was smashed out in five rounds, Gus Ruhlin in six. Tom Sharkey managed just two when he wasn?t claiming fouls that hadn?t happened; most famous of all, James J. Corbett, both bigger and faster, was destroyed with a single blow to the heart: ?I felt,? stated Corbett in the flood of truth that poured from him upon his eventual recovery, ?as if I would die.?
That punch made Fitzsimmons the undisputed heavyweight Champion of the world and arguably the greatest boxer in the history of the sport.
#26 Vitali Klitschko (45-2)
Statistically, Vitali Klitschko is enormously impressive. His two losses were posted against men in the top fifty at heavyweight, and both were retirements forced by injury, in the case of Chris Byrd after suffering a damaged shoulder, in the case of Lennox Lewis after suffering one of the most hideous cuts in the history of televised boxing.
He was never outpointed, he was never knocked out, he has never been behind on the cards in any fight and he won forty-one of forty-five fights by stoppage, one of the best knockout ratios in the history of boxing. He remained one of the most formidable big men in the world into his forties.
Iron of jaw with an engine powered by the type of will and determination that will make a man a succeed in almost any walk of life (and currently in Ukrainian politics, a career that makes boxing look soft by comparison), six-feet seven inches and weighing in at between 240 and 250 lbs. in shape, still Vitali finds himself outside the top twenty. Why?
In part, it is because Vitali was never the legitimate heavyweight King. Beaten, albeit on a cut, by Lennox Lewis he was never able to meet with the other outstanding heavyweight of his era to establish a new lineage because that other outstanding heavyweight was his brother, Wladimir Klitschko.
The eleven ranked men he dispatched hardly closes this gap in his fistic history, but the manner of his defeat of them might. He utterly outclassed them. Appraising him head to head then, is extremely difficult. On the one hand, he seemed better than most of his competition by distance, and even in the one case where he seemed, perhaps, to be the lesser man in the ring, he provided the great Lennox Lewis with all he could handle for as long as their fight lasted.
Possibly underappreciated on the side of the Atlantic that controls the big money, Vitali has inarguably been misunderstood in the US and the UK both, described as ?robotic? by the usually keen-eyed Donald McRae, boxing mogul Richard Schaefer and (rather endlessly) by former contender David Haye, among many others. Are they blind? Vitali was anything but robotic. He was the opposite of robotic. He was an out-and-out gunslinger, hands low, chin out, eschewing defense in favor of that withering offense, getting by on reactions and guts.
Watch him with Lewis; watch the tiny, nimble steps he takes, trying to shepherd the Champ with a combination of balance and feints ? watch him dip away at the waist to try to bring his fellow giant onto his punches.
But for all that Vitali was and is a man hell-bent on self-determination, he was nevertheless a victim of circumstance, circumstances that resulted in a shared ambition that would deny the completion of his more personal ones, and perhaps of a certain prejudice, if not against his skin-color as some more hysterical commentators have suggested, perhaps of his Eastern roots. Neither the robotic duplicate of the Communist system that birthed him nor the marauding conqueror his sympathizers have suggested, he nevertheless finds a birth here in the mid-twenties, one of the highest rated generational number twos in history.
#25 Riddick Bowe (43-1)
Riddick Bowe and Vitali Klitschko were basically tied on this list until the very moment that I penned Klitschko?s entry. For those who care, it was the fact that Bowe defeated thirteen Ring ranked contenders and Klitschko eleven that finally separated them; it was that close.
Bowe arguably got lucky versus Tony Tubbs in April of 1991 however, scoring a unanimous decision over a fighter many ringsiders felt deserved the nod (I scored it for Bowe, by a narrow margin). For some, this is the first true indication that Bowe would fail to deliver upon his potential as an all-time great, potential that was served nonetheless by the Championship of the world, thrown aloft by Bowe after his defeat of a man with less seeming potential but more storied success, the then 28-0 Evander Holyfield.
In handing The Real Deal his first loss, Bowe flirted closely with immortality, not least because he turned in one of the very greatest displays by a heavyweight ? at 6?5 with a recorded reach of 81?, Bowe?s 235 lbs. make him assuredly that. Those who wish to label the Klitschko brothers and Lennox Lewis the heralding of a new type of elastic but enormous heavies seem to want to ignore Bowe, but it is he, not Lewis or Wladimir, that is representative of a truly exciting prototype in my opinion, for all that it is one too complex for mass-production. Unlike his even larger cousins, Bowe did it all.
He jabbed well against Holyfield on the night he would become a King, but it was on the inside that he excelled. Holyfield was exceptional at this range having studied there with Dwight Muhammad Qawi some years before, but it was Bowe that timed a hurtful sneak uppercut, Bowe that turned his man in a tight circle before hitting over the top, Bowe that stepped back to make room for a crushing hook to the jaw; for all that Holyfield fought brilliantly, Bowe was better. Machines this big that work this cohesively are rare ? Bowe was perfectly capable of doubling the jab and stepping in with a right-uppercut to the body before sniping to the jaw. In the clinch he gave ground and cracked short-arm right-hands to the ear. Holyfield is perhaps the definitive box-puncher post-Liston due to the overall career arc of these two men, but never let it be forgotten that Bowe was better than him for two of the three excellent fights these two exceptional heavies fought.
Growing up, Bowe suffered in the belly of hideous poverty and perhaps once he escaped it the fire went out a little. He developed an eating problem to partner a sometimes questionable attitude to training and began to arrive for fights out of condition, summiting 250 lbs. on one occasion. Only the more serious discipline problems of one Andrew Golota spared him from suffering an additional pair of losses to go with the one Evander Holyfield inflicted upon him. It was 1996, a few short years after Eddie Futch told him and us that the mercurial Bowe could one day be more special than Joe Frazier, and Bowe was instead retired.
That would never happen ? Frazier remains anointed with immortals and Bowe is denied the sun in the shadows of those giants.
But on his best night? Bowe might just have beaten any of them.
#24 Peter Jackson (43-5-3; Newspaper Decisions 8-0-7)
Had ?The Black Prince? been, instead, The White Prince, Muhammad Ali and Joe Louis may have had some company. Jackson was openly ducked by Bob Fitzsimmons and, when he held the title, by James J. Corbett. Most blatantly of all he was ducked by John L. Sullivan, who was the Champion of the world during Jackson?s incredible prime. Legend has it that Sullivan would boorishly hammer a fist upon any bar of his choosing and declare himself ?able to lick any man in the house.? Sullivan presumably drank in white-only establishments. ?I?ll never fight a nigger,? was another one of his favorite little sayings, and Jackson, by Sullivan?s reckoning, was one.
Years later in commenting on the woes inflicted by the color-line long after his retirement he suggested that if ever a white heavyweight was drawing the line, it meant only that there was a dangerous black contender upon him.
The Prince turned professional early in 1882 according to BoxRec, and fought his last fight a little more than seventeen years later, in 1899. He lost his eighth recorded fight, in 1884, and between that time and his first retirement he remained virtually unbeaten. BoxRec lists two losses ? but also notes that these were fights where Jackson had agreed to take the loser?s end of the purse if he failed to stop an overmatched opponent over four rounds.
The two legitimate losses he suffered took place years after alcohol and disease had ravaged him of his best, and three years after his first retirement. Jackson and Sullivan suffered the same fate, ironically, made mortal by booze and inactivity, beaten at last, something no man could ever have hoped to have done, except one the other.
As late as 1892, Jackson was taking out the top men of the era, beating the favored Frank Slavin by knockout in the tenth; the fight, according to The Pittsburgh Dispatch, made Jackson ?one of the greatest fighters in the annals of the prize ring? and reported that The Marquess of Queensberry himself reckoned it the single best display he had ever seen by a heavyweight.
He surely was all of those things. Little wonder Sullivan preferred to see a paler complexion in the furthest corner.
James J. Corbett, to his great credit, did meet with Peter Jackson and the sixty-one round draw (or no contest) that resulted is the stuff of legends. Adam J. Pollack who has written the definitive biography on Corbett is of the opinion that it was Jackson, not Corbett, who was the defining technician of that generation of heavyweights, and Corbett agreed with him. Pollack also points out that Jackson?s training for this fight was hampered by an ankle injury suffered in falling from a carriage or buggy and it seems typical perhaps of Jackson?s luck that he should carry such an ailment into what would unfortunately remain the biggest fight of his career.
Aside from the draw with Corbett and the destruction of Slavin, Jackson crushed Peter Maher in three, broke George Godfrey in nineteen (using gloves weighing just two ounces), took out Joe McAuliffe in twenty-four, Denver Ed Smith in five. He dominated a generation. Capable of mercy and brutality on the same night in the same fight, he was known for never losing his cool in the ring as well as for his endurance, speed and generalship. He would have made as fine a champion as has walked the earth and it is difficult for me to imagine his getting a shot at both Sullivan and Corbett, which he was due, without his holding aloft the greatest prize in sport at one time or the other.
#23 Gene Tunney (65-1-1; Newspaper Decisions 14-0-3)
Gene Tunney announced in April of 1925 that he would be fighting exclusively at heavyweight in pursuit of Champion turned playboy Jack Dempsey. Nine fights remained in a career that saw Tunney retire the undefeated heavyweight King.
That makes Gene difficult to appraise. Retiring as the undefeated undisputed heavyweight boss almost guarantees an elevated spot in and of itself, but nine fights as a dedicated heavy is so very few. Tunney had always had one eye on the richest title however, and for this reason had dabbled in the biggest division for a number of years, most impressively against the ranked Erminio Spalla, who he outclassed but over whom he likely should have been awarded a DQ rather than a TKO. After becoming the only man to dominate a mature Harry Greb in March of ?25, Tunney became the first and last man to stop defensive wizard Tommy Gibbons, two men who extended every elite heavyweight they ever met, before contesting the two fights for which he will be forever defined: the pair of duels with the Manassa Mauler, Jack Dempsey.
Just as Holyfield?s obsession with Tyson seems now to hint at a self-attested destiny, so too does Tunney?s obsession with Dempsey. According to the golf pro Tommy Armour, Tunney used to run backwards down the fairway during a round, throwing punches, muttering ?Dempsey, Dempsey, Dempsey,? stopping on occasion to fire down a hard right-hand. Gene Tunney became the heavyweight Champion of the world in a non-competitive fight with an incumbent all-time great. Dempsey, inactive and his prime firmly behind him, didn?t represent the terrible danger of his hunger-days, but he turned the clock back in the rematch and was still outclassed.
His second defense, against Tom Heeney, is much maligned, but for better or worse, Heeney was the number four heavyweight in the world at the time of their meeting. Tunney then packed up his riches and retired to society life.
People who know the fight game place Tunney as high as the top five; after showing him the consideration that all the fighters on this list have received, that is not something I cannot understand or condone. He hasn?t the depth of r?sum?, and his marquee wins at the weight ? against Greb, Gibbons and Dempsey ? were all against faded versions of those fighters. Despite that, he ranks here just outside the top twenty legitimately, based upon those nevertheless impressive wins, upon his brilliance on film, upon his retiring the undisputed heavyweight Champion of the world.
#22 Ken Norton (42-7-1)
No fighter in the top thirty is more clearly defined by a single win than Ken Norton. His nemesis, of course, was Muhammad Ali and their famous, controversial, enthralling series remains and always will remain Norton?s claim to fame.
Their first fight was a clear win for Norton, 8-4 by my card, a fight that much of his legacy rests upon. Their second was seen to Ali by the judges and by a narrow margin by myself and truth be told only their third and final fight was controversial by my reckoning ? an 8-6-1 victory to Norton as I saw it, but a unanimous decision for Ali on the official markers.
Each one of their fight lacks a defining punch, and aside from the second in which Ali?s spirited performance in the ninth round was crucial, were bereft too of key moments. This is because Norton, if he isn?t knocked out (something George Foreman, Earnie Shavers and Gerry Cooney were all able to do in short order), repeats himself endlessly, but he does so with such insistence that even a ring-general like Ali will find it difficult to capitalize. But Norton?s success against the self-styled Greatest was about more than that. What Norton underlined was Ali?s limited punch selection. He rarely attacked the body and in the third, especially, Norton?s midriff was screaming out for the loving attention of a world-class pugilist ? Ali declined. In the second fight, Ali broke out the left-hook and uppercut in a real sense perhaps for the first and last time in any of his ?great? fights, such was the pressure Norton placed upon him but my sense was Ali won that fight on conditioning rather than speed of punch.
While Ali, at his best, used angles beautifully, his lost elasticity meant that he had become something of a jouster ? using one plane of movement to attack whilst moving. Astonishingly, and against all fistic reason, boxing?s unpredictable mechanics colluded to offer Norton a style advantage.
He worked with it though. He earned it. Max Schmeling ranks one spot above him based upon his wider r?sum?, but it was Norton who duelled the monster in his era to a near standstill, over the course of three fights and twenty-nine rounds.
#21 Max Schmeling (56-10-4)
Max Schmeling?s career underlined the necessity of carrying to the ring a specific plan, something mystifyingly ignored by prospects everywhere for the better part one-hundred years. For his 1929 encounter Paulino Uzcudun he set out to step in with his right-hand, shortening the punch, countering the left as it was drawn. Schmeling used that right to ?cut the Basque?s face to ribbons? (Associated Press), leaving him ?groggy at the finish.?
Much more famous was the plan he hatched for Joe Louis. The Brown Bomber was at the time of their 1936 confrontation anointed the Champion in waiting and was routinely destroying intimidated opposition. Schmeling was unimpressed.
?A good right hand could beat Louis,? he told those closest to him. ?I feel certain when he shoots his left I can cross my right over it and score.?
The essential difference between his plan for Uzcudun and Louis was that Louis should be allowed to throw a punch where Uzcudun was pre-countered. This was an enormous risk and illustrated a fighter of huge heart. Schmeling swallowed so many jabs in the early rounds that he was peering out of a single eye by the time he had dusted Louis in the twelfth. The general astonishment which greeted this result cannot be overstated; in the days following Schmeling?s triumph, as much ink was deployed in a search for the reasoning as would be used fifty years later when Buster Douglas hammered Mike Tyson.
The real answer lay in Schmeling?s brilliance as a pugilist. A genuine eye for weakness combined with one of the hardest right-hands of the era led to victories over Jack Sharkey, Walter Neusel, Mickey Walker, Young Stribling, Steve Hamas, John Risko, Uzcudun, and in Joe Louis earned him perhaps the single greatest victory in the history of heavyweight gloved boxing.
The 100 Greatest Heavyweights of All Time Part One: 100-91 The 100 Greatest Heavyweights of All Time Part Two: 90-81 The 100 Greatest Heavyweights of All Time Part Three: 80-71 The 100 Greatest Heavyweights of All Time Part Four: 70-61 The 100 Greatest Heavyweights of All Time Part Five: 60-51 The 100 Greatest Heavyweights of All Time Part Six: 50-41 The 100 Greatest Heavyweights of All Time Part Seven: 40-31 The 100 Greatest Heavyweights of All Time Part Eight: 30-21
