Worked for Ali. Question was simple , his signature win, not his best or worst performance. Fact is Povetkin was an Olympic gold medalist, undefeated, seen as a genuine rival & has chiselled out a HW legacy of his own. Hug fest yes. Worked for the likes of Ali, Bhop & Ward tho .. Byrd is his #2 win. Both he & Sasha are gifted HWs who would stack up in any era. Wlad is going into the HOF.. a forum thread won't change that
I agree somewhat with you Lance. He reigned ten years from 2004-2015 which makes up for needing that signature win to define him as a champ. His long reign defines him and we could argue all day about clenching and this or that but at the end of the day who else has reigned in the Heavyweight division that long?
He deserves to be in the HOF & I cannot see how even biased officiating & his physical advantages & competition could plausibly deny him beiong a top 10 ever HW. But "Signature win" is not properly defined merely by quality & record of the opposition. It cannot be a "best win" (unless somehow all other wins they somehow cheated even more, lol!) if they won because of constant rule breaking. Just because they got away with it should not effect our rational assessment of the performance. The same applies to Ali Bhop Ward or whomever wins with & by substantial or continual cheating! If you create a thread about it you will see the vast majority recognize it. You have to win fairly, not just technically, to qualify as what is essentially defined as a great, career defining victory.
When one thinks about it, what was Holmes' signature win? Mike Tyson's signature win? Lennox? What was Oscar's signature win? Hopkin's sig win? There's a lot of fan pressure to place some win as their signature, whatever that really means. I prefer to look at overall body of work. A single fight doesn't tell the tale.
Tyson’s was Spinks. Lennox was Holyfield & Tyson. (More Tyson’s name than anything) Oscars was Chávez (More Chávez name) Bhop reigned off and on forever. Much like Klitschko he doesn’t need one. (Pavlik) Though a few guys have multiple. Ali for example had Liston, Trilogy win with Frazier and Foreman.
It should be Povetkin, but the absurd fouling there completely ruined it for me. I'd go with Pulev. Peter, Haye, Chagaev, Byrd, Povetkin, Ibragimov, are also highly merited
He has a good number of solid wins but none that I would call career defining by themselves. As far as opponent and outcome maybe Chagaev? A solid unbeaten champ (stripped because of pure politics, didn't lose the belt in the ring) and he stepped on the gas enough to get the stoppage. Povetkin is almost certainly the best opponent he defeated and he absolutely manhandled him, dropping him a ton of times and winning every round but the holding made it unwatchable (to some a summation of Wlads career). Brewster was half blind for the rematch wasn't he? Why is that fight mentioned? I don't rate Iggy and the fight was unwatchable. Haye is probably next after Chagaev and Povetkin, the result is just sort of meh for the buildup. Byrd is arguably the most accomplished name but he was just tailor made for Wlad.
Peter 1- completing the comeback, Bryrd 2 - total dominance, where others failed, Haye - toetal beatdown, Pulev - classic ktfo.