Contrast Holmes' reign with Klitschko's.

Exactly.

The boxing magazines of Holmes' era dismissed the heavyweight division as being absolutely devoid of talent other than Holmes himself. With the exception of Tim Witherspoon, it was devoid of talent, and Holmes didn't beat Witherspoon convincingly. Tyson's era was also condemned as being the worst by contemporaneous boxing publications and "The Bum of the Month Club" speaks for itself, not to mention Marciano's era was weaker by far and so was Liston's era and Patterson's era.

IMO the current group of heavyweights is about the 3rd best ever. And I'll bet nobody is going to argue that the division is going to improve in the future. It's mainly that past heavyweights aren't as scrutinized as closely as present heavyweights. Sort of like how people think the music of the 70s was great because they remember Stairway to Heaven but they forget that Muscrat Love was the chart topper.

 

holmes is better, its unbroken.

wlad and Vits reigns are broken by weaklings at various points. Holmes would never have lost to such weak opponents, in fact he wouldn't have faced a 37 year old retiree nevercontender or a guy who fought at middleweight, let alone lose to them.

 

The thread's asking for a comparison between the contiguous title reigns of Wlad and Holmes - now (respectively) 17 and 16 successive wins, not about their entire career or other title reigns within it.

And Holmes faced his share of weak opponents too - in fact the division at the time was apparently criticised in very much the way todays is.

 

Holmes never unified the title. If I remember right Holmes was just the IBF titlist and he didn't fight opponents from any and every corner of the globe either. IMO, his era was weaker than the current era.

 

he was WBC champion then dropped it over a dispute of fighting a mandatory. He then was named the IBF Champion which was at the time a newly created org.

 

Good job IB. However, let's not just "knock off" defenses and let them fight each other in a fantasy match-up starting with the original title holders up until their latest defense.

Ken Norton vs. Chris Byrd

Alfredo Evangelista vs. Calvin Brock

Ossie Ocasio vs. Ray Austin

Mike Weaver vs. Lamon Brewster

Earnie Shavers II vs. Sultan Ibragimov

Lorenzo Zanon vs. Tony Thompson

Leroy Jones vs. Hasim Rahman

Scott LeDoux vs. Ruslan Chagaev

Muhammad Ali vs. Eddie Chambers

Trevor Berbick vs. Samuel Peter

Leon Spinks vs. David Haye

Reynaldo Snipes vs. Jean-Marc Mormeck

Gerry Cooney vs. Tony Thompson II

Tex Cobb vs. Marisuz Wach

Lucien Rodriguez vs. Francesco Pianeta

Tim Witherspoon vs. Alexander Povetkin

Scott Frank vs. Alex Leapai

Wlad
13

Larry
4

 

If this thread is about what I think it's about...

 

Dispute? Greg Page was his mandatory and he dropped the WBC belt so he could face 10-0 Marvis Frazier instead.

 

Holmes would Beat Wlads ass

 

yes for more money. I already covered that part. Holmes cared about the green more than anything.

 

this is the worst Era in heavyweight history fighters dont know how to box anymore

and most heavyweights are out of shape

and smaller fighters dont know how to bob and weave

And big dudes dont know the basics of boxing