How Dirty was Lewis ?

I thought he took baths? Maybe he doesn't.

 

The most Ali initiated clinching in a fight was a 133 times, and he still landed a lot of punches. Wladimir clinched over a 180 times against povetkin, and only hit him a 139 times according to compubox. He literally clinched his opponent more than he punched him. What wladimir did is far beyond anything Ali did.

 

He seemed to get cleaner as his career progressed. He had some wild moments in his earlier fights.

 

So, you are saying that Wlad is 50% better than Ali.

We agree.

 

He would've been disqualified with Genaro Rodriguez as ref who got sick of his excessive holding in the Haye fight and deducted a point.

Not sure how it's a "boxing master class performance" to grapple more than the average UFC fighter just because the ref looks the other way. By your logic, Holyfield's win over Rahman was marvelous because the ref didn't penalize him for one of the ugliest headbutts of all time.

 

He would have fought differently if Rodriguez was ref and he was deducted a point. Also if I remember correctly, Povetkin was ducking as he was coming in and a clinch was all but a fait accompli. It was an awkward matchup and always would have been. But at the end of the day, Wlad beat him up and put him on his ass for the first two times in his career.

 

I don't doubt Wladmir would've won regardless. He is factually the better fighter.

And that's what makes all those egregious clinches even worse. It was in no way, shape, or form a "master class" of the sweet sciences. I've seen Ernie Terrel fights that didn't have as many clinches.

 

It was sublime.

 

Pabon did deduck a point and it made no difference to his game plan whatsoever.
Why? Because it was literally the game plan he prepared for in camp. He had no other. If he couldn't initiate his grapple tactics he wouldn't have taken the fight.

The one ref that came down hard on Wlad for cheating was in Brewster 1. The insistence on him to stop grabbing and holding didn't make him change tactics, it caused him to panic and mentally shatter.
Many say he uprooted to Germany where he could bend the rules to his hearts content just like Sven Ottke before him

 

James Ali Bashir said after the fight that the mantra in the lead up was - " get past this one and look better in the next"

What does that mean? It means win by any means necessary , so the game plan you witness is the only way he thought he could be victorious. Therefore he won by beng bigger and illegally using his size advantage, not because e was the better fighter. So him being "factually" better fighter is based on speculation not fact.

Many refs would have stopped that fight and gave Povetkin the victory.

There's 3 scenarios here. Wlad has the ref 100% on his side , which was the case. A ref that was natural. And a ref that was 100% on Povetkins side.
If the latter materialised you could easily have witnessed Povetkin being the better fighter according to the marquis queensbury rules.
If you watch Carl Takam vs Povetkin you will see Povetkin get outskilled and outboxed clean for the first 4-5 rounds. Not a single clinch was initiated by Takam. Klitschko couldn't outbox Pov cleanly for even one minute.

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Wladmir being better than Povetkin is based on fact. Wladmir hits harder, had a better jab, better ring generalship, had a very long reign as champion, beat more contenders.

Povetkin never became champion to begin with. He was a well rounded boxer/swarmer hybrid, but he wasn't better than Wladmir by any stretch of the imagination. Nothing on film or in his record suggests this other than your bias against Wladmir.

 

Yes, apparently Povetkin could not figure out a way to defuse Wlad's attack and had to cry to the ref. To quote Fred Blassie, The ref is just a fifth post in the ring. And Wlad fought Alex in Mother Russia. The bravery of that can not be overestimated.

 

You just described Klitschko having a better career. Not your argument that he was the better fighter in the ring because that is purely opinion. Something that never happened can't be called factual.

 

Pov never cried or even fouled back. He was sold out in Russia. Its the only explanation for what Wlad what allowed do to him.

 

He was befuddled by a Master. No shame in that.