Better world title opposition: Wlad or Lewis?

The devil in the details here is the state of the opposition when either fighter faced them.

Wlad popped a lot of cherries, and a lot of Lewis' opponents were on the slide when he beat them.

That said, to me Lewis' list of names is pushed over the top by the weight of the Vitali win which was superb imho. If you don't rate Vitali that much, then Wlad's list is better.

Edit: you forgot Puritty, Sanders, Wolfgramm, Jefferson, Shufford, Botha, Mercer, Rahman and McCline on Wlad's list.

 

Lewis had the better opposition , but it's not Wladimir's fault , he fought in a weak era and he
had no competition at all.
Lewis fought Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield when they were far away from their primes , he lives from his win
against Vitali Klitschko.
Without Vitali Klitschko , their resumes are pretty even.

 

I think if you just match each fighter on one list against the other, Wlad's ends up in the plus. But Vitali is the best win and Wlad never beat Joshua or Fury.

 

I think the WBO reign should count. But, OK, your thread, your rules.

What would be interesting would be to organize the lists in order of strength and determine who would win h2h between the respective #1, #2 etc fighters AT THE TIME that Lewis and Wlad fought them. I actually suspect the lists as they are presented by you here, would come out more even that people think.

 

Mercer and Ruddock weren't title fights either.

 

Yeah but you excluded most of Wlad's

 

It is not even close. Clearly Lewis has the better wins. He also avenged all his losses.
No credible journalist or magazine has ver ranked Wlad above Lewis. I could not care less when some Wlad fans on ESB Classic want to make a debate where there is no debate.

 

Amen, Brother!