WITH some York folk still reeling over the non-appearance of former world boxing titan Mike Tyson to the medieval city, questions were raised as to whether Iron Mike should be in the pantheon of prize-fighters.

In a glimpse at the prime cuts amid the sport of kings, Evening Press deputy sports editor Tony Kelly selects his nap hand of heavyweight destroyers.

Dreadlocked head and shoulders above all Brits stands Lennox Lewis. An Olympic super-heavyweight gold medallist for Canada in Seoul, he returned to the land of his birth to turn professional. He gained his first world title in 1993 after beating Tony Tucker. In his third defence he virtually walked into a right hand from Oliver McCall to end his reign.

But Lewis picked himself up and in 1997 not only regained his title from McCall, but also seized two more heavyweight belts in a unification defeat of Evander Holyfield.

Lewis ruled until his retirement in 2004 at the age of 38, a reign graced as much by dignity as by destructive potency.

The only man to retire from the punishing demands of the heavyweight category unbowed by defeat in any fight was Rocky Marciano.

That record alone would qualify him in any the top five. But the credence of his claims was reinforced by the fact that the Brockton-born battler was smaller in stature than most he fought.

Yet there was a withering poundage in his punches leaving many foes to perish in a blizzard of blows. He had 49 fights and won them all, 43 by knockout. And he was one of the few to retire to a prosperous life before he was tragically killed in a plane crash in 1969.

Joe Louis, the man they called the Brown Bomber, was a boxing purist, whose distinguished ring career would have been even more impressive but for being betrayed by his own government.

After beating James T Braddock to take the world title in 1937, Louis truly exploded on to the heavyweight scene with a demolition of Max Schmelling. Louis was cruelly exploited in the Second World War. Besides serving in the US Army, he was a 'champion' advocate of a war bonds scheme. Yet when he retired he was hammered by tax demands which forced him back into the arena that takes no prisoners. He suffered an undignified end.

History has not always served Jack Johnson, the first black man to win the world heavyweight crown, well.

Son of a former slave, Jackson was jailed because boxing was deemed criminal in his home state of Texas.

But he continued to rise, though at first the reigning champion at the time, Jim Jeffries, refused to fight him because he was black. When they did finally meet in 1910, Johnson won in a momentous collision that ended with race riots. The phrase 'great white hope' entered boxing's lexicon as a result of Johnson's controversial reign, which finally ended in Cuba to Jess Willard in 1915. It may not have felt like it, and he may not have admitted to it, but Johnson was a pioneering force.

But there is one man who bestrides boxing like a colossus. Cassius Clay, aka the Louisville Lip, won the world crown in 1964 beating the ursine Sonny Liston.

Soon after, Clay changed his name to Muhammad Ali as a testament to his devotion to Islam. That, allied to his seemingly arrogant image, stirred up so much rancour that when he refused to be inducted to the US army, he was stripped of his title robbing the world of 'The Greatest' for three years when he would have been at his peak.

But Ali would not be eclipsed, nor silenced.

Never has there been a classier, more graceful heavyweight.

Speed and stealth, guile and courage combined to ensure he became the first man to win the world title three times, sharing in two of the modern era's most spine-tingling duels - the 'Thriller in Manilla' against Joe Frazier, the 'Rumble in the Jungle' with George Foreman.

The saddest sight was not Ali losing to future champion Trevor Berbick in his last fight in 1981, but his descent into the ravages of Parkinson's Disease. Ali, however, remains an icon, a figure of adoration. He was 'The Greatest' heavyweight and remains the 'greatest' living sportsman.

Updated: 10:37 Tuesday, December 06, 2005