The Top Heavyweight Boxers

For over a century since 1889, when battling Irish-American John L. Sullivan won the world title in Round 75 of a bareknuckle contest in which he almost lost due to an uncontrollable bout of puking in Round 44, America has been in love with the idea that the heavyweight boxing champion is the world's premier badass. Throughout the 20th century, no other class of athlete was given the mythological treatment accorded to the heavyweight champion of the world. The heavyweight champion could be a superhuman hero to inspire the nation (Jack Dempsey, Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano, later Muhammad Ali) or a subhuman monster bent on destroying the American way of life (Jack Johnson, Max Schmeling, early Muhammad Ali, Mike Tyson), but either way he was almost always a "larger than life" mega-celebrity.

Today: not so much. The rise of mixed martial arts has damaged the boxer's "baddest man on the planet" mystique, but it also coincides with the unforced self-destruction of heavyweight boxing. Compared to today, the talent in the heavyweight division in the '90s was deeper than Prince's stare and the public's interest higher than Willie Nelson on his birthday, but the division's reputation had nonetheless entered a barreling decline. Every headline was a fiasco: Tyson was convicted of rape; ancient George "Michelin Man" Foreman won the title; fresh from jail, the clearly sociopathic and possibly mentally retarded Tyson has the title practically given to him, only for Tyson to bite off Holyfield's ear; Great White Hope Andrew Golota sparks a riot when he repeatedly blasts Riddick Bowe in the balls for no reason; in the rematch Golota is disqualified again due to his irresistible passion for cracking Bowe's nuts; and, finally, boxing's best hope for the future, Ike Ibeabuchi, goes insane and attempts to rape a stripper under the influence of "demons." Eventually the heavyweight division found a credible and well-behaved champion in Lennox Lewis, but unfortunately Lennox was a boring fighter with a propensity for being knocked out by the likes of Hasim Rahman and Oliver McCall.

And, as I said, this was a golden age compared to the heavyweight division as it now stands. Overrun by plodding European heavyweights who fight with the ferocity of goldfish and lazy, over-the-hill Americans with the work ethic and physique of latter-day Brando, boxing's marquee division has never been more boring or irrelevant. Exponentially more people care for the hilarious antics Vh1 drag queen Tiffany "New York" Pollard than who Wladimir Klitschko is fighting, and the few who have ever heard Ruslan Chagaev's name likely believe he's a character portrayed by Sacha Baron Cohen. Nonetheless, there is a small sliver of hope - let's say "Ron Paul marrying Ru Paul" odds - for heavyweight boxing, and in this article I will explore the ten fighters who offer the best chance to save the division, in addition to the hopeless bums who have a better chance of spontaneously transforming into yaks than they do of meaningfully accomplishing anything in boxing.