Do we just not care that much about title defense streaks?

I allways wondered why Joe Louis is only former world champ while for example Tim Witherspoon is 2 time champion.

maybe Joe Louis should be 26 times world champion as that is amount that he won when title was on the line.

 

Title defense streaks are okay, but quality of opposition is more meaningful. Look at Crawford for example. He had a few defenses at 140, and even unified, but his opposition was god awful. Crawford probably has the weakest resume of any undefeated boxer claiming to be pound for pound #1.

 

To me, it's all about taking the best possible fights. A defence against Jo Jo Dan etc means nothing.

 

In most cases being a multiple time champ means you also lost the title multiple times.

 

What if Jo Jo Dan deserved his title shot? Being unknown or unpopular should NOT be a criteria for being passed on a title shot IMO.

 

Agreed

 

We care about quality of opposition.
Someone like Usyk, if he beats Joshua again and then Fury once or twice will have a better HW legacy than Wlad Kltischko who had 10 years of dominance

 

Exactly.

And Usyk in just three fights at HW already has a better HW legacy than Deontay Wilder... And that's even if you completely ignore his CW feats.

 

Josh Taylor gonna be ruling 140 for a while with quality defences.

 

Casual take

 

Why?
Wlad's good wins:
Haye
Povetkin
Chagaev
Pulev
Ibragimov
Byrd
Peter
Brewster

I'd say Joshua is a better win than all of them except maybe Povetkin (I felt Wlad should have got DQed in that fight), I'd place Joshua at the same level as Povetkin. Now, another win vs AJ + 2 wins vs Fury would definitely create a better resume than Wlad's.
Fury would be a much much better win than anyone on Wlad's resume.

 

The reason is that promoters have discovered a very profitable secret. Let's say you're managing a talented/expensive fighter.

You could find another talented/expensive fighter OR you could find an OK/cheap fighter who's a weight class or two higher. Now you're only paying one big purse but you're putting on a competitive fight with a big star.

Tank vs Barrios was the apotheosis of this. These good vs big fights are like nicotine gum or methadone, it's something but you'd prefer the real thing.

I have a lot of respect for those who achieve consistency in the chaos of boxing. If everyone was like GRJ and Fury there'd be no boxing for them to come back to grace with their talents.

 

Firstly I’ll apologize for calling you a casual, sorry. Onto why I believe that Wlad’s legacy would still be far greater:

It is impossible to accurately rate contenders across generations. We don’t know how good contenders were in Wlad’s day vs now.

We have seen WAY more fighters beat #1 and #2 (nearly too many to list) than we’ve seen reign for nine plus years.

At HW only three people have reigned for nine plus years:

Wlad
Louis
Ali

On the other hand every great champion besides Holmes and Wlad (who beat all the best except his brother) has beat the best couple fighters besides themselves.

 

It's alright I'm just not as high on Wlad as some other people. He was an amazing boxer but I just believe his era lacked the quality.

I don't know.
Maybe I dont appreciate Wlad as much as some because he was so dominant and convincingly beat everyone he fought but for me he lacks a real standout win. He's beaten everyone there was to beat, beat everyone ranked in top 10 except his brother.

I believe if he and Vitali fought and Wlad emerged victorious, I'd definitely rate him as one of the very very best. We know they were offered $100m each to fight but wouldn't because they didn't want their mother to watch them fight. I think Vitali would have beaten his brother though

I'm also a huge Usyk fan, it's hard to not be. He's just a rare breed who fights everyone doesn't matter the circumstancez, home or away and with odds stacked against him

 

Usyk was already kinda old so he moved up after doing everything at Cruiser lol
It's not that hard to see