Greatest HW accomplishment in history

Uh, half of what you said makes no sense whatsoever, try working on sentence construction. But no, you've proven you have no clue about boxing. The era's only bad to morons like you who don't understand contenders today would tear through contenders of yesteryear. Povetkin has shown he's more than decent. And 32 is much closer to prime than 45, whatever the year is.

 

Right now this is #1, yes. But if Vitali came back, at age 45 (vs Ali's 32), and beat Fury, coming off one of the all time great win streaks over Wlad(twice) and WBC champ (clear #2 of the younger guys), that would be a greater achievement than Ali's win over Foreman.

Foreman's resume would be about what Fury's would be (not as good, imo, but comparable). Foreman's best two wins going into the fight (and really, only truly notable wins) were Frazier and Norton. Wlad deserves a higher ranking than either so Fury' biggest two wins would be better than Foremans. Add in beating the WBC champ and I think its hand's down for Fury being above Foreman at the time of the Ali fight. Certainly, only the modern era haters would say Foreman had a clearly better resume than the hypothetical Fury.

So Vitali would beat 1. a guy with an equal or better resume than Foreman and 2. do it much further past his prime than Ali did.

Except by making magical rules than no one in the present today can compare to people from the past, I just don't see an argument that a Vitali win wouldn't supplant Ali Foreman as the greatest in hw boxing history.

 

An old Wlad who was still dominant champ at the time of his dethroning. Calling Wlad "old" is like calling Frazier and Norton "chinny". True, but not necessarily too impactful on their ATG standings. Wlad, old or young, deserves a vastly higher ATG ranking than Norton, and somewhat higher than Frazier. Meanwhile the WBC belt winner will himself be the equivalent of a Norton (i.e. the clear "best of the rest", just without the signature victory Norton had. Povetkin, or even Wilder, if he won, would have a much better resume than Norton among fellow contenders. The only issue is they don't have a win over an ATG. Norton therefore is a more impressive win for Ali than Povetkin or Wilder would be for Fury, but not by much. Certainly not enough to make up the huge difference between beating Wlad twice vs beating Frazier once.

 

I don't necessarily disagree that Ali is GOAT. But that's not what the point of the thread is. Those accomplishments aren't really "boxing achievements". Fury, or Vitali's, would be singularly boxing achievements.

Also, Vitali retired to help lead a democracy movement in his native county, plagued by war and violence. His non boxing achievements are very much in line with Ali's.

 

Sure, longest total time as a champ, second longest in consecutive time, second most successful defenses, third most consecutive, and it was all because of a "criminally weak" era. Whatever. Modern day contenders would tear through the smaller men of the past.

Of course he didn't fight his brother. Lewis wasn't in his era, it was the prior era (Lewis era 92-2003, Klitschko era 2004-2015).

The boards are populated by "golden oldies" like you who are incapable of accepting modern fighters. But I suspect more than half of them would rate Wlad above Frazier. Wlad was (arguably) his era's best fighter. Frazier was #3 for his era. Anytime you're putting someone that much lower for their era above someone that much higher, it stinks of bias.

 

Do you even understand that your logic is completely circular? Frazier era was great because he was great but was third best, while Wlad's era is bad because he was dominant and isn't as good? It's irrelevant to you because you're impervious to logic and in the bag for the Golden Oldies.

Wlad's loses are a credit to him. They would have destroyed lesser fighters. He had the strength of mind to improve himself and become an ATG.

 

I'd agree with that in a way, but I meant over a more limited time frame. That streak mostly defines Louis's HW career. Vitali's prospective achievement would be a single fight, Fury's a string of several fights. Neither encapsulates their entire career the way Louis's streak does. I'd call that more of a career achievement, but you certainly have a defensible point.