How does wlad do in place of Holmes?

The style is more important than who hit harder than who.

 

More like the landscape descended into the worst state of its entire existence. And he still had to implement an illegal form of non-boxing in order to stay afloat.
Every former champ .... hell , even former contenders would have went through Wlads reign and looked very impressive doing it. Wlad done it by wiping his ass all over the sports prestige.

Look at the champs he beat- Byrd twice. Haye and Sultan.. LOL

 

Not sure about that, I mean the current contenders couldn't go through Wlad's reign. I'm not sure every former champion would either.

And as for that HW division being bad, look at today. We have Parker fighting Hughie for a vacant belt. The WBA being a complete joke. Joshua going against a man who hasn't won in two years for a unification and Wilder who is feasting on unranked opposition protecting his unbeaten record. Not to mention the former world champion going on a drug, alcohol and food binge untile he's 400 pounds snorting his brains out. This era is dire.

 

yeh that previous comment I think came through after severe delay from the early 19th century. Thats some slow internet.

 

He'd be getting Wlad from the Mercer fight not the Fury fight. Norton would be outgunned in every department. It's a poor match up for him.

 

Yeah , but we're not talking about this era. I thought this era was looking up but it has wilted a bit over the last year.
Its still better than it was during the naughties.
Wilder is clearly better than Peter and i would say better than Haye , Sultan , old Briggs and old Maskaev too. Chaggy was probably better than him.
The guy he just beat - Washington - is the same level as Wlad title challengers Brock , Austin , Pianeta etc.

And that just Wilder . Nobody is even in the same post code as AJ and Fury. We all saw how light years more advanced Fury was over Klitschko.

 

Norton wasn't the ghost of Ray Mercer and ydksab

 

When you make a statement about an era being the worst ever, you are comparing it to every era ever surely?

Skill wise the era of Wlad wasn't bad at all, the only thing it needed was strict rule enforcement when it came to excessive clinching. Remember when Khan fought Peterson and instead of in fighting he pushed him off with his elbows until he got a deduction and threatened with a DQ? That's all it needed.

I think Joshua will be the real deal, if Wlad beats him I'd be amazed, genuinely amazed. As for Fury he night never come back at the world level so it's hard to say. He could just go down as a man who caught a faded champion in his way out.

 

In my opinion the era of Wlad was terrible skillwise

 

The same happened to Wlad in the Brewster fight. Unlike Khan who only lost a close dec loss , Wlad got blown out brutally when he was stopped from holding and clinching.
It happened again against a very limited pudding fisted Jennings. He ended up losing 4-5 rounds in the fight. Germany was paramount to his success where he could illegally foul to beat the band without consequence.

Another example like the Khan -Pattersn one is Porter vs Broner.. Porter was brought in to lose that fight but Broner could do nothing but hold on every time Porter came in.
Even though Broner was the A side , the rules were still implemented and he lost points and ended up losing the fight.
Wlads career would have looked a lot different had he not been allowed to get away with such an insane amount of illegal foul play.
He would never of had to resort to all that cheating if he was a truly great fighter.

 

I don't really believe any era is terrible skill wise. The best always rose to the top and the rest are always gonna fill up the rankings.

 

Here's the thing though, the clinching made him unbeatable. As long as he can clinch it takes a physically superior man to beat him. You either have to be quicker than him, rangier than him or stronger than him. Very few men fit those categories.

We'll never know how he'd have adapted because she was able to go for a decade doing it. Who was the first man who forced the excessive clinching? Peter? If he'd have lost that fight on points because of deductions and knockdowns we'd have had to see a new strategy and who knows what that would have been.

But the way he fought, a man like Rocky Marciano is never gonna beat him.

 

He was trying to clinch Sanders instead of fighting back , moving or utilizing traditional defence and thats why he was spread out in a crumpled heap.. He could never fight fire with fire . Even a guy like Jesse Furgeson could take him out in a clean fair fought fight.

In these fantasy scenarios you have to take away his cheat tactics as it wouldn't have been tolerated. Thats why i don't think he'd be a factor if you put him into Larry's shoes.
Larry wasn't well liked back then.... Imagine if he 'fought' like Wlad

 

Fall down and not get up?

 

Sanders was too quick for him. That counter left down the pipe completely took Wlad by surprise.

However in fantasy scenarios there doesn't exist many counter punching southpaw types.

I don't remove his clinching because that would change his style into something we can't objectively gauge. I mean would Ali have ever beaten Frazier without being allowed to clinch? Would Jack Johnson ever have been champion without clinching?

I hate clinching me, it's the worst "move" in boxing and should cost a man the round. The only excuse is holding on to avoid being knocked out imo.

I can't rewrite history but I'd love a strict rule change to be enforced.