Ranking and Analyzing the Resumes of the top 8 Active Heavyweights

Part 1: I thought we needed an in depth look at the (very healthy) state of the resumes of the best HW’s out there right now. The Big 3 really belong in their own class, though Povetkin follows close behind, and then there are another 4 whose achievements put them above their peers.

This is fairly similar to my ranking for top active HW’s. Part of that is luck, and part of that is because I am fairly resume focused in how I rank active HW’s. (Also, I am leaving fighters like Adamek, who would be ranked above people like Pulev, because he is clearly no longer even a top 20 HW). Ortiz is the only one lower on this list than he would be where I rank him as an active fighter, and Whyte, Parker and Pulev are the only ones higher.

I will rank and analyze and compare the resume’s of the fighters ranked immediately next to each other, above and below.

1 Tyson Fury (above Anthony Joshua, #2). This is easily the closest call on this list, for me. It really depends on what matters more to you, quality or quantity. For me, in most situations I rank quality above quantity. If a fighter is clearly at a certain level, then I care less about raw numbers of toppish fighters they have faced, and more about how they performed at the very highest level. Its why I have Vitali ranked at least as high as Wlad on the ATG lists. By this metric, for the reasons detailed below, Fury should rank above AJ. For those who prefer the other metric, AJ should rank above Fury. A fight by fight comparison, below

Best performance: Wlad, for both. But Fury won a fairly easy decision against a reigning Wlad, who hadn’t lost in over ten years, in Wlad’s back yard. AJ beat a Wlad who hadn’t fought in a year and a half and hadn’t won in 2 years. And he nearly got KTFO in doing it. Fury’s win is handily better than AJ’s, and all the rationalizations I’ve read to the contrary just seem agenda driven and laden with tortured excuses because they prefer AJ or because they (rightly) just like the AJ fight much better than the Fury one. Wlad AJ was an ATG fight, and Fury Wlad was most certainly not, but that fact doesn’t mean Fury Wlad wasn’t a more impressive win for the winner.

2nd best performance: Draw for Fury against Wilder, win for AJ against Povetkin. A draw, that more people thought he won than vice versa, against Wilder as a champ, in his prime, as an underdog in his opponents backyard, is a better achievement than a competitive win against a 39 year old Sasha in your own backyard.

3rd best performance: Win over Chisora II by Fury, Win over Parker by AJ. Slight edge to AJ. I actually think that version of Chisora may well have beat that version of Parker, at least in the UK. But Parker held a belt and probably a slightly better resume than Chisora at that time. That said, AJ struggled with Parker much more than Fury did with Del Boy, making any advantage to AJ fairly slight.

4th best performance: Win over Chisora I for Fury, win over Whyte by AJ. Solid advantage to AJ. Both were pre prime fights by all four fighters, and both saw the winner having moments of struggle against the loser. And I’d give Whyte at best a slight advantage over Chisora in terms of having him on his resume. But I rate two matches against the same opponent much less that two fights against two different fighters, so long as those fighters are of a similar level, so solid advantage to AJ.

5th Best performance: Win over Cunningham for Fury, win over Takam for AJ. Slight to solid advantage for AJ. Both were fringe top 10-15 HW’s at the time of the matchup. AJ struggled less against Takam than Fury did against Cunningham, though, so advantage AJ.

Other factors and final analysis: AJ’s resume against non named top 25ish opposition goes much deeper than Fury’s. Solid advantage to AJ. Plus he has been a long reigning belt holder. But, none of that makes up the distance Fury put between the two of them in his top two performances. I don’t mind people ranking AJ first on resume, there is a very legitimate argument for it, but to deny there is a legitimate argument that Fury is #1, which I see all too often, is not only irrational, but it is likely at odds with the criteria one uses on other fighters, particularly when we get to Wilder.

2 AJ (above Deontay Wilder, #3). I rank AJ over Wilder for fairly similar reasons I rank Fury over AJ, although there is no question that it is a much easier call and that there is more data on both sides to justify that conclusion.

Best performance: Win against Wlad for AJ, Draw against Fury for Wilder. A win against an old Wlad is better than a draw that more people thought he lost than vice versa against a Fury who still had some questions about fitness. That said, it’s not night and day. Fury was MUCH closer to being fully prime than Wlad. Very solid but not enormous advantage for AJ.

2nd best performance: Win against Povetkin for AJ, win against Ortiz for Wilder. Povetkin has a better resume than Ortiz. But both were legit top 5 opponents, and many believe Ortiz is the better fighter by the eye test. Both Wilder and AJ had meaningful struggles against their respective opponents, though Wilder struggled more substantially. I’ll give AJ a slight advantage based on resume and in fight struggles, though there is an excellent chance Ortiz may well have been the better win, we will just probably never know for sure.

3rd best performance: Win against Parker for AJ, win against Stiverne I for Wilder. Both were wins over belt holders. Both were consensus top 5 HW’s at the time. In retrospect, both of them look a little less formidable based on later events. Neither had the best resume, although I’d give the edge to Parker. Wilder had an easier time with Stiverne than AJ did with Parker, so I’ll call it even.

4th best performance: Win against Whyte for AJ, win against Washington for Wilder. Very clear advantage for AJ. Whyte wasn’t regarded as a top 5 HW at the time, but subsequently has become one. I rated Washington a top 12 HW at the time, but he has wilted a bit since. Whyte hurt AJ once, but I had Wilder losing all four of the rounds before Washington got ko’d. To be fair, Washington is really no better or no worse than any of Scott, Duhaupas, or Spilzka, as wins for Wilder, I just chose Washington this time.

5th Best performance. Win over Martin for AJ, win over Scott for Wilder. Slight advantage AJ. H2H Scott v Martin is a pick em fight. Scott has the better resume, but Martin has a belt (albeit arguably the least deserved major belt in HW history). Both fights were easy wins and had detractors wrongly claiming a fix.

Other factors and final analysis. All told, meaningful edge for AJ through the above analysis. AJ has other top 15ish wins against Big Dom and Takam, which are a bit better (though in the same league) as Spilzka and Duhaupas. Wilders got more top 50ish wins because of all the unambitious matchmaking he’s had throughout the years. And way more sub top 50 HW and sub top 50 wins than AJ. All told, the latter advantages don’t make up for the substantial lead AJ built up from looking at the more meaningful top 5-7 wins. But, their overall resume difference is also not nearly as night and day as the impassioned Wilder haters or AJ fans would like to believe.

 

Part 2:
3 Wilder (above Alexander Povetkin #4). I expect this to raise the most hackles, in light of how hated Wilder is on this board. But honestly, I’m kinda hoping I get to get into an argument about this, because this is a very easy call to make, empirically. There is little in the way of rational argument supportive of ranking Sasha above Wilder by this point. Most of it sounds about as credible as the arguments Wilder lovers and AJ haters use to rank Wilder above AJ. Let’s go through it.

Best performance. Draw vs Fury for Wilder, a. Win over Chagaev AND b. win over Chambers for Povetkin. A draw against a primish Fury, yes even one where more people thought he lost than vice versa, is vastly, vastly better than any single win Povetkin ever had. The fairest thing is to use Sasha’s two best performances combined as the matchpoint. Chambers and Chagaev were two, fairly consensus top 5 HW’s at the time. Unlike Fury, who is already in the realm of top 30 ATG (I’ll have a thread touching on that later) neither Chageav or Chambers will ever be mistaken for even a top 50 ATG (top 100 is about the most you can argue). Povetkin got good wins against both of them, though both matches were competitive. Combined, they are still not as significant as Wilder’s draw against Fury. You may hate the result, but it is what it is.

2nd best performance. Win vs Ortiz by Wilder, win against Byrd by Sasha. Honestly, the Byrd, Donald, Takam, and Huck wins by Povetkin are all interchangeable and at about the same level. None of them were a clear, undeniable top 10 HW at the time. All of them had an argument that they were fringe top 10, even though Huck never fought at HW before or since. Meanwhile, Ortiz was a consensus top 5 HW Some people believe that Ortiz is, himself, a better HW than Povetkin is. That may or may not be true H2H, clearly not in resume, but regardless, Ortiz is a vastly better win than a win over (possibly shot) Byrd, or any of the other three.

3rd best performance. Win over Stiverne I by Wilder, win over Takam by Sasha. Slight advantage to Wilder. I’d probably favor Takam H2H against that Stiverne, and resume they are also close, but as is consistent with the Martin and Parker analysis above, I’d give Stiverne the edge due to his belt and the fact Wilder had an easier time with Stiverne than Povetkin did with Takam, since everything else is close enough.

4th best performance. Win over Washington by Wilder, win over Huck by Sasha. Slight edge to Sasha. Huck was arguably a CW ATG. But its impossible to say how much success he would have had at HW. Unlike Usyk or even Haye, his success in the CW division wasn’t great enough to mean an “automatic” top 10 HW entry, and he had no other HW fight to prove himself. Washington was at least fringe top 15 HW. I think its fair to say that Huck’s success in the CW division gives him a slight advantage over Washington, all told. And both Wilder and Pov struggled in their fights, with Povetkin getting a controversial decision and Wilder getting the ko after losing all prior rounds on my scorecard. Very debatable about which win should count more on the ledger, though.

5th best performance. Win over Scott for Wilder, win over Donald for Sasha. Even. Both easily won. Donald had a better resume than Scott, but was more past prime. Both were probably fringe top 12-15 HW’s at the time.

Other factors and final analysis. Overwhelming advantage for Wilder in the above 5. Way bigger advantage than any of the prior fighters had had over the higher ranked one. I actually was gentler to Sasha than I could have been in that analysis. Now, Sasha beat many more top 50ish HW’s than Wilder did. By my count, you can safely add another 12 HW’s that I didn’t mention above onto Povetkin’s CV. Only 6ish for Wilder. But that doesn’t REMOTELY make up for the huge advantage Wilder has in the more meaningful fights. Also, by the same token, Wilder beat more sub top 100 HW’s. Not to mention the fact that Povetkin has two losses, which Wilder has yet to experience (though I personally think he will get a loss if/when he rematches Fury or faces AJ). There is a similar gap between Wilder and AJ in lower quality fight CV, and a less dramatic gap in the top end fights. So unless you really want to argue that Povetkin should be ranked above Wilder, who should be ranked above AJ and Fury, which is kinda nuts imo, there’s just not much of an argument that Povetkin has as good a resume as Wilder.

4 Povetkin (above Dillian Whyte #5). This is probably the biggest chasm between resumes of any of these fighters, and doesn’t require as much detail. None of the fighters from this point on have as extensive a resume as the ones noted above, so we can use less detail.

Best performance. Win over Chagaev for Povetkin, win over Parker for Whyte. Both wins against former belt holders still in their prime, and still considered top 5 hws. Chagaev (at least, for now) has a better resume than Parker. But Whyte fought Parker closer in time to when Parker was champ, and Parker gave a much better account of himself in his loss to the dominant champ (AJ) than Chagaev did (Wlad). Sasha and Whyte both won fairly close fights against their respective opponents. I’d call this about even.

2nd best performance. Win over Chambers for Povetkin, win over Chisora II for Whyte. Solid edge to Povetkin. Chambers was a fringe top 5 at the time, while Chisora was a fringe top 10. Sasha beat Chambers somewhat easier than Whyte beat Chisora.

3rd best performance. Win over Byrd for Sasha, win over Chisora I for Whyte. Solid advantage Sasha. Both wins were against fringe top 10 opponents. Byrd was the much easier win and the much better name, and Whyte fought Del Boy twice, per my disfavoring rematches, advantage Sasha.

Other factors and final analysis. Really, Whyte’s next best win was probably Browne, who was at best a fringe top 15-20ish HW. After that, Helenius, maybe top 25ish. Not much depth after that. Not too much to chose from looking at their top 3 matches, but after that it’s a total imbalance to Povetkin, giving him an overall solid edge, and not worth any more time describing.

5 Whyte (over #6 Ortiz). I’d give Ortiz at least a 70% chance of beating Whyte, but by resume Whyte has him beat, thought not by nearly as much as I had thought before I actually analyzed their resume in depth.

Best performance. Win over Parker for Whyte, win over Jennings for Ortiz. Slight edge to Ortiz. The Jennings win has really gotten artificially devalued over the years. Over half this forum thought Jennings would destroy Wilder at the time. He had arguably given Wlad his best fight in 10 years. He was basically a consensus top 5 HW. Then he went away for a few years, the division heated up, and people forgot about him. Anyway, h2h I see Jennings Parker as a 50/50 fight, hopefully we get to see it sometime. Neither has a really great win on their resume. Parker’s (very close) win over Takam might edge out Jennings (very close) win over Perez (who drew with Takam, though most thought he lost). Both were competitive in loses against dominant HW champs though, in Parker’s AJ and Jennings Wlad. Ultimately, Ortiz beat Jennings a LOT easier than Whyte beat Parker, so I’ll give Ortiz the edge.

2nd best performance. Win over Chisora II for Whyte, win over Scott for Ortiz. Even. Scott was a fringe top 15 as opposed to Chisora’s fringe top 10. Ortiz has MUCH less trouble with Scott than Whyte had against Chisora, though.

3rd best performance. Win over Chisora I for Whyte, win over Thompson for Ortiz. Even. Chisora was fringe top 10, Thompson probably only fringe top 15-20 by then. But again, Ortiz won much easier, and I give less credit for rematches as opposed to different fighters of a same level.

Other factors and final analysis. Very close at the very top of their resume, actually slightly in favor of Ortiz. But Browne and Helenius are VASTLY better than Ortiz’s 4th and 5th best wins. Cojanu? Kauffman? Allen? Kaufmann might be a top 40ish HW, but the others are well outside of the top 50. Honestly, its actually much closer than I had been thinking, but ultimately the depth of Whyte’s top 15-30ish wins gives him an edge over Ortiz, since his top fight advantage is very slim. It’s actually very debatable, though.

 

Part 3:

6 Ortiz (over #7 Pulev) They are closer in resume than they are in level, I think Whyte would have a better chance H2H against Ortiz than Pulev.

Best performance. Win over Jennings for Ortiz, win over Chisora for Pulev. Solid advantage to Ortiz. Jennings was top 5, Chisora fringe top 10. And Ortiz had an easier time with Jennings than Pulev with Chisora.

2nd best performance. Win over Scott for Ortiz, win over Thompson for Pulev. Even to slight advantage Ortiz. Both fringe top 10-15 HW’s at the time of the match. Ortiz didn’t lose a round to Scott and got several kd’s, though, while I had Thompson ahead of Pulev until the last 4 or 5 rounds of their fight.

3rd best performance. Win over Thompson for Ortiz, win over Dimitrenko for Pulev. Slight advantage to Ortiz. Both fringe top 15-20 HW’s at the time. Dimitrenko maybe slightly better but, again, I had Pulev losing until the last 4 rounds and Ortiz completely dominated Thompson.

Other factors and final analysis. Pulev had two other top 25ish HW’s on his ledger in Ustinov and Hughie Fury. But Fury himself has never beaten a top 40 opponent, so its hard to say how good he is, and Ustinov was more of a fringe top 25 guy. After that, apart from a few (completely shot) high level names on Pulev’s resume, their CV is largely indistinguishable. All told, the two extra top 25ish wins for Pulev don’t even out the substantial difference at the very top level, so edge it to Ortiz. Pulev, Ortiz, and Whyte could really very easily be ranked in any order by resume, however, they are all very close to each other.

7 Pulev (over #8 Parker).

Best performance: Pulev’s win over Chisora, Parker’s win over Takam. Slight advantage Pulev. Both Chisora and Takam were fringe top 10 hw’s. Both won fairly close fights, though Pulev won easier despite the scores. And Chisora beat Takam. So, edge it to Pulev.

2nd best performance: Pulev over Thompson, Parker over Hughie Fury(?). A problem with Parker is two of his 4 best wins were against guys who look to be top 20ish, but have never themselves beaten a top 30 HW (in Hughie and Ruiz). Maybe his resume will look better down the line (maybe worse), but its tough to say they are any more than top 20ish HW’s at this time. And he struggled a lot with both of them. His win over Hughie made Pulev’s over Thompson look easy. Solid edge to Pulev.

3rd best performance: Pulev over Dimitrenko, Parker over Dimitrenko. Even. Pulev beat the more prime Dimitrenko, but Parker had a much easier time, and Dimitrenko later showed he clearly wasn’t shot.

Other factors and final analysis. Parker’s win over Ruiz was about the same as Pulev’s win over Hughie, and they largely wash out even after that, with a bit more depth for Pulev. All told, Pulev edges Parker out at this time, but Parker has a lot more time to improve his resume than Pulev.

After Parker at 8, there is a bit of a bigger gap, and it is harder to sort the toppish fighters by resume. Miller, Jennings, Dominic B, Adam Kownacki are all up there. I rate Miller higher than 8 on my actual active fighter list, above both Pulev and Parker, but on resume is not quite at that level yet.

Anyway, long series of posts, but I’ve been intrigued working through it, its been fun and helped me crystalize my own rankings on the top HW resume’s.

 

Those would be great fights. Jennings Parker would be real good too. Parker doesn't seem to be afraid to fight anyone, is always competitive, and I think his resume will improve over time, although he'll take some losses along the way.

 

Maybe. Pulev has never beat someone remotely as powerful as Ortiz though. And the size advantage is only about an inch of height and barely any weight. But resume wise, they are about a wash, and the "eye" test is really less reliable than resume when it comes to predicting wins. So while I'd personally have Ortiz a very solid favorite, I certainly wouldn't be shocked by a Pulev win. Unfortunately, I can't see that fight ever happening, so we'll never know for sure.

 

Tschagajew? Walajew?

I think you mean Chagaev for the former? In which case, Chagaevs best two wins, by light years, were a MD win over Valuev and a SD win over Ruiz. Neither was remotely as good as even a past prime Wlad. And Fury won that handily, unlike Chagaev against either of those fighters. The rest of Furys resume was (much) better than the rest of Chagaevs resume. Plus, few would argue Chagaev is remotely in the same ATG category Fury is. A draw with Fury is just about as undeniably better than a win over Chagaev as it gets.

But sure, people can find a way to rationalize anything, when they have a big enough bias for it. I like how you have your own take on things, I respect it and sometimes you are right on. But in this case not so much.

 

I can, did, and laid out a rational reason to do so. You can disagree, and have rational reasons to do so, but it's annoying when people assume it's an open and shut case with no room for debate. It's not.

 

Most of your reply just doesn't make sense. Like I said. You have your own takes. Which generally run very far afield from what others think. And often far from any cogent rational analysis, as per most of the above.