Wladimir Klitscko - ATG?

Yes.

 

Yep.

 

His longevity as a champion and wins over ranked opposition pretty much consolidate that he is an ATG.

to answer the other question, yes I would favor him over some ATG’s. He had some weaknesses that a few of them could have exposed but he’s a tough fight for just about anybody

 

He's an ATG for sure but i don't think he makes top 5 Louis, Ali, Holmes, Lewis, Marciano, etc. And his blowout loss to Sanders, is probably one of the worst ever defeats for a Heavyweight champion of his stature. Even though to be fair he rebounded well from it. But i don't know for me he doesn't have the "Aura" of some of the names i mentioned. I would never go back and watch a Wladimir Klitschko fight, he just never did it for me personality wise or with his fights inside the ring.

 

I have him all-time just inside the top ten.

So yes.

Unless you think there have not been ten ATG Has.

 

He was a dominant champ in his era. Obviously an ATG. I don't see how anybody can claim otherwise.

 

Absolutely. Once Manny got him programmed correctly he rarely lost a round until the inevitable physical decline. At the time he lost to Fury he had dominated the division for something around 8% of its MdQ existence. Depending on the day I put him in the neighborhood of #8.

 

Yeah he has an argument for as high as 4 or 5 all time. That's not where I'd put him, but it would be in the top 10. He has a long reign that is one of the most dominant of all time. He's a h2h nightmare for most of the champions before him. He didn't have an iron chin but unless I'm mistaken he never took an actual 10 count in his career. Lots of ATG's that have been knocked out in more brutal fashion.

All that said, I'm not a fan of his haha. But he deserves to be ranked quite highly both for resume and H2H upside. But if I'm ranking my favorite hw belt holders, and therefore taking things like entertainment value and personality into account, he's probably not even top 20. Down there between Bonecrusher Smith and Jimmy Ellis.

 

Is Wlad HOF,? Certainly
Is ATG? .... sure, but only marginally. A "fringe" ATG, barely making somewhere between10th -15th at the best

I can't understand why somebody would rate Wlad higher than 10th ATG:

- He ruled over a very weak HW era, facing mediocre opposition.
-His main boxing "skill" was his almost "unfair" physical advantage; ubersize and brute force; somehow denying what is the essence of boxing: skill, sweet science.
- His boxing style was boring, stiff and predictable. I can't hardly think about some marquee fight in his resume, but sure Wlad had a ton of Snoozefests.
- His “dominance” is questionable: He was never undisputed champion.
- He got beaten by a bunch of journeymen during his "prime", being knocked out and knocked down many times, and he didn’t avenge his defeats.

So, is Wlad an ATG? … I would say yes, but a very mediocre one, if such thing is possible

 

Not quite sure myself. All-time great Heavyweight? Yeah possibly, depending on how far down the list you can go in a single division before you close off that bracket (Wladimir wouldn't make my top ten, for instance). But that's not saying much as I don't think Heavyweight has been anywhere near the division the likes of Light-Heavy, Welter or Lightweight etc. have been over the decades.

I seem to be in a dwindling minority on this, but I think Wladimir's getting a little overrated these days, and the extent of his dominance quite exaggerated.

First days as a world title holder in 2000, last in 2015, so yes fantastic longevity, but for how much of that span was he really the best Heavyweight in the world, or really looked dominant at all? 2000-2004 were still the Lewis years, and he was getting splattered by Sanders and Brewster during that period too. 2005-2007 might just have been the worst three-year stretch in Heavyweight history if you look at the assortment of second-raters who were passing around the titles and some of the abysmal championship contests they served up, and though Wlad was in all likelihood a cut above them, he still wasn't getting particularly great reviews around this time or stamping any proper dominance over the division.

He was probably at his best 2008-2012, and to be fair he did finally unify some titles during this period and start to establish a real gulf in class between him and his challengers. But with Vitali back on the scene during these years I could never quite shake the feeling that there was another Heavyweight out there who would have been just that little bit too durable, big, technical and nasty for Wladimir, and that had it not been for their surname preventing it the illusion of Wladimir being the best Heavyweight in the world might well have been smashed.

Still, that's speculation and not Wlad's fault. And he defended his position as the division's top man for another three years after Vitali left the stage, albeit once again against a generally pretty poor pool of competition.

But that's one of the problems with Wladimir, for me - who did he beat? He defeated some good fighters, but we're talking about him being an all-time great here, and for an all-time great he's remarkably thin on really impressive wins. What's more, did he ever really look like a great fighter in any of his biggest victories? All well and good letting your hands go a bit more and putting on a show against the Mormecks and Pulevs of this world, but as I've said before, if Wladimir was facing anyone with a semblance of genuine knockout power or speed, you could guarantee he was going to foul, spoil, hold and cautiously jab his way through (Haye and Povetkin being prime examples).

Much gets made of his power, but generally speaking in unification fights or against his best opponents he had to go the full twelve. Even amongst the better names that he did stop, such as Byrd, Brewster and Peter, he only did so at the second time of asking, and when facing an inferior version of them to the first one he fought.

Just playing Devil's Advocate here to an extent as I appreciate I seem to be in the minority, but there does seem to be quite a lot of airbrushing of Wladimir going on the further into retirement he gets. Would be interested to know, am I the only one thinking all this?