Matt Skelton v Dillian Whyte

Right, so he very reasonably won a decision, was rewarded with a number 10 ranking, then enhanced his status by beating other ranked fighters.

How is it you want rankings to work?

 

That's not representative of a "flaw" though.

Andy Ruiz was the former number 10 who was removed in favour of Whyte. Whyte won a narrow fight against Chisora; Ruiz lost a narrow fight against Parker. The number 10 spot was then very reasonably (there is room for disagreement and i'm sure you disagree) given to Whyte. It was the number 10 spot; the fighter in question will lose his ranking as soon as he loses, but Whyte went on a winning streak which included other ranked men. Therefore he was ranked higher and not lower. Also, Ruiz and Whyte cannot both be number ten.

Winning is winning.

By which point Whyte had defeated Oscar Rivas, who i am sure you believe is awful or something, and was (I think) days away from beating Mariusz Wach.

He received a close decision victory; was given a precarious ranking as a result - went on a winning streak - became higher ranked.

None of this is difficult or controversial and Skelton didn't recreate it. In fact he lost to fighters worse than Rivas and worse than Wach.

 

Well what you said was that they were "flawed" so in response to that I had to illustrate that no flaw was present in this case. At the very least they were reasonable.

As my example also illustrates, whatever the "fine line" seeing Whyte ranked ten (and there are two because if Ruiz/Parker had been a reasonable draw he wouldn't have made it either maybe), Whyte went on to enhance his standing by doing winning against decent fighters (fighters better than Skelton by my eye).

You spent a couple of posts saying stuff like:

Like it mattered (which is confusing given how often you've said you don't care about rankings since!) and I thought it would be worth clearing that up.

Skelton wouldn't lose to Whyte because Whyte was ranked and Skelton couldn't beat a ranked fighter though. He would lose because he was:

1 - Slow. Slower than Whyte.
2- Technically atrocious. More atrocious than Whyte.
3 - Because he lost to every good fighter he ever met (see above), and Whyte is clearly at least "good".
4 - Because he is stylistically made for Whyte.

I think this is a more compelling argument than Skelton might beat Whyte because Whyte isn't that good, and Skelton isn't that good either.

 

Whyte isn't on the British level, by definition. He's beaten fighters who are among the ten or twelve best in the world, more than once. That, specifically, is how you remove yourself from British level. Ther is literally no other way to do it.

His record isn't sterling - I think it's 3-2 - but it's better than Andy Ruiz at 1-2 and directly comparable with Wilder's which is 3-2-1. British level fighters are fighters that have these kind of records against guys who aren't good enough to contest fights much above British title level, and who, when they do, lose them.

You are incorrect to label Whyte "British level" under any possible reasonable definition. Whyte's record at British level is about 5-0, 7-0 if you want to count Chisora as "British level" which I assume you do, around 6-0 if you want to remove the first Chisora win

I'm sorry Unforgiven, I enjoy your posts as a rule, but this is ****ing nonsense.

 

Yeah, British level is quite good, but there's clearly distance between British level and world champion

Whyte traversed that while beating the crap out of every British level fighter he ran across. He's unbeaten at British level, has a decent record at world level and cannot under any circumstances be reasonably denoted British level.

 

Probably in part this is because there's not a lot of guys who are otherwise. If we exclude AJ, Usyk, Wilder and Fury, the "top flight heavies" are:

Andy Ruiz. 1-2 at world level.
Luis Ortiz. Ancient. Arguably hasn't won a fight that really matters since 2015.
Joe Joyce. No wins at world level.
Michael Hunter. A genuine ducker whose best result is a draw.
Joseph Parker. Very mixed bag from Chisora up.

Of these, Whyte is probably the highest rated by most sources. He is not a member of the elite group - as I said at the start of this mess, he's third class - but clearly, clearly to be ranked alongside these.

A top six heavyweight in the entire world, beyond all argument. Definitively not British level.