Sonny Liston or Wladimir Klitschko who rates higher as a all time heavyweight?

Was Wlad rated by the WBC when the belt became vacant or not?

 

It's like a refusal to see the point. I am not saying reigning over WBC mandos would have given him resume. I am saying he will have ruled over all of boxing rather than half. When you say he was dominant you are being hyperbolic. The reality is he left a path to avoid him.

 

Are you serious right now? Nope, not doing wee PP BS bro. I just lead you. Just showed you this is a nonpoint.

So which is it, are you really, really, actually slow and I'm just being mean or are you a scum sucking POS who is more than willing to spread misinformation to save face?

 

Klitschko statistically. Liston would beat Wladimir H2H though,in my opinion.

 

You're jumping around the question my man. Was Wlad rated by the WBC in December 2013 to be legible to fight for their vacant belt? If not, how the hell was it Wlad's fault? You're trying to tell me, that WBC crowning a second tier heavyweight as their champ after defeating another second tier heavyweight is all good and Wlad was the problem not that joke of a sanctioning body? Tell me this, why wouldn't WBC let the best heavyweight in the world fight for their belt? It's obvious he would have mopped the floor with Stiverne.

 

H2H

Sonny Liston vs. Wladimir Klitschko

Another fight that could go either way. You have Liston’s power, reflexes and ramrod jab against Klitschko’s equally impressive left jab, powerful overhand right and hand speed.

Even though Klitschko towers over Liston by five inches and approximately thirty pounds in weight, Liston’s reach is longer by three inches, and this gives Klitschko some huge problems. He struggles to establish his own jab, and Liston hits just as hard, if not harder.

Dr Steelhammer’s suspect chin struggles to hold up to the Big Bear’s lethal jab and hooks, and once Liston lands a hard shot, Klitschko starts to fight too defensively. It doesn’t take Liston long to work over his foe and put him away.

Verdict: TKO win to Liston in Round Four.

Extract from Undisputed Available on Amazon https://bookgoodies.com/a/B0D46RPZ23

 

I have no problem speaking directly to this. I only just noticed.



Y'all ain't as ready for this as you think you are.

I dunno who Dino is, I'm Marchegiano on a rival forum whose name I doubt I can post here but is super popular and recently purchased.

Around 2015ish I tracked the HW champions from then to 686BC, bridged the gap between the greeks and english, explained the history of authorities, defined the belts and awards in history, just a bunch of stuff that was very, very, dry history based things. That's what brought me here. Just, you know, spreading the word. Ancient Champions, Authorities, Myths, Rules/Regs, Equipment, **** like who invented sparring, what the colors were all about, etc.

So actually, before youse know me here as an opinion poster and I guess a bit of a rabble rouser, you first know me as a well respected history buff who gets lots of cute thumbs and little criticism. Then I started being asked my opinion and I shared it. Worst thing I could ever do here! So, I kinda just stfu for a few years and only popped in here and there to post additions to my works in progress.

That said, should you really suspect this Dino is me and I he, then I say to you, without knowing this user at all, look at my post history and make sure you believe he has the chops to produce what I have. Because if I look at his I am likely to be insulted by the comparison aren't I?



Finally, cross-trainer sees me fairly clearly. Being right isn't always important and changing minds isn't always the goal. Sometimes there's more to be found in a reaction. I'm not some weird hipster social experimenter though dudes. You can simply ask my motives. I will tell you:

The vast majority of beliefs in boxing are handed down and unchecked. As a fan base, historians, and everything in between, y'all are absolutely horrible at fact checking. Your history, if you want to call it that, is a bunch of reprints that source back to the imaginations of 18th century slave owning european wealthy elites. Even events with in not just your lifetime but prime of your life fans recharacterize into some fantasy that does not match the reality.

Right, wrong, or indifferent on the Wlad vs Sonny debate what is absolutely not true is Wlad not getting the WBC belt because he wasn't rated by the WBC. That's 100% some fantasy some fan produced and spread. That is the sort of reaction exposed by the stance.

And so it is a simple and incomplete answer to say Richard Fox and Nat Fleischer were conmen and charlatans and misinformation and mass belief founded on nothing but the imaginations of men who never fought spread through their media and into the minds of fans who then passed down said fantasies to those they shared the sport and their "knowledge" with. There is the other aspect of things. The fanbase's absolutely incredible gullibility.

There is a demagoguery to boxing that is ill defined and should you have taken the time to look at my past works you would know I am not simply whistling dixie when I say I will chronicle this and do my best to explain its ebbs and flows.


This, what I said in the greb thread about skepticism working in one direction, my posts on globalization, they are all connected.

 

I did not tell you, I showed you, that is simply not how any unification works. Period. I do not know where this he wasn't ranked and that's why he couldn't fight for the WBC title narrative came from but I did not tell you it's wrong. I proved it to you. It is simply wrong. So forgive me if I seem a bit disrespectful but right now it looks like you know damn well it's wrong but you're going to try to argue like it isn't anyway.

Why TF would you want to spread this lie around? K2 and Sonny ain't that damn important, damn. The ratings of champions has **** all nothing to do with unifications happening. FFS.

There's no dance. I can't be more clear. The sanctioning bodies can't be more clear. NO. You are wrong. I jusy showed you the ratings in 2011 when Wlad, IBF champ, unied with Haye, WBA champ. Was Wlad rated by the WBA? No? Okay den, TF is you doin' son?

 

You didn't prove anything. The facts are: Wlad COULDN'T fight for the WBC belt between 2013 and 2015. Firstly, he wasn't allowed to fight for the vacant belt as he wasn't ranked by the WBC which is a bull**** policy. After that, Wilder blocked his proposed unification with Stiverne. After that, Wilder ducked him. This is pretty simple. Acting like Wlad is to blame for this is bonkers.

 

You're fixated on a bureaucratic technicality while ignoring actual dominance. Wlad didn't "avoid" half the division—he systematically crushed nearly every relevant heavyweight for a decade. The only reason he never held the WBC belt was because his brother had it, and they weren’t going to fight each other. That’s not an "excuse," that’s context. It’s not like he ducked a line of killers holding the WBC strap—most of the best contenders Wlad beat were rated across all sanctioning bodies, including the WBC.

You bring up Primo Carnera as if he was some standard of legitimacy, but his reign was historically weak, built on questionable matchmaking and mob influence. He was a paper champion who got exposed the moment he faced a real threat in Max Baer. The idea that Carnera was "actually dominant" just because he held one belt in an era with fewer titles is laughable.

Championships don’t define dominance—who you beat and how long you stay on top does. Wlad had 23 title defenses (18 consecutive) over a nine-year reign, during which he defeated nearly every top-rated opponent available, including multiple world champions. If your argument is that "true dominance" is just about holding a singular belt rather than actually ruling the division, then by your logic, Leon Spinks was more dominant than Wlad because he briefly held the undisputed title. That’s the absurdity of your argument.

Dominance isn’t about playing belt collector—it’s about proving, fight after fight, that you're the best in the world. Wlad did that for nearly a decade. If the way you view greatness results in you ranking Primo Carnera higher than Wlad, then I’m sorry, but your entire perspective is utterly worthless.

 

Also, think about this, since Lewis gave up the IBF belt in 2002 until Wlad lost to Fury in 2015, there was only one UNIFIED heavyweight champion. It was Wlad of course from 2008. A slew of the alphabet title holders from 2002 to 2015 couldn't even unify even 2 belts, let alone 3 for these 13 years. That's including Vitali. After that, it was only AJ and Usyk who unified the titles. Wilder and Fury (up until 2024) didn't bother.

But that's just it - sanctioning body titles. I don't care about all of this crap. I'm all about champion beating top contedners. Wlad had the WBC lineage as early as 2008 and WBA lineage as early as 2009, while having 2 other belts at the time.

When Vitali retired in December 2005, Wladimir and Ruslan Chagaev emerged as Top 2 heavyweights. They beat most of the the top fighers among each other. Wlad beat Chris Byrd, Samuel Peter, Hasim Rahman, Sultan Ibragimov & Lamon Brewster while Chagaev beat Nikolay Valuev and John Ruiz. If you look this in terms of sort of a unofficial tournament, other top heavyweights Oleg Maskaev and James Toney were beat by Peter (whom Wlad defeated), Siarhei Liakhovich was beat by Nikolay Valuev (whom Chagaev beat) and Shannon Briggs got beat by Sultan Ibragimov (who was beat by Wlad). Even Monte Barret lost to Hasim Rahman who lost to Wlad. No matter how you slice it, all roads led to Wlad and Chagaev as Top 2 heavyweights of 05-08 era before Vitali came back.

After Chagaev, Wlad defeated 2 number 3s (Haye & Povetkin) and 1 number 2 (Pulev) while Povetkin and Haye were the best heavyweights around not named Vitali Klitschko, who Wlad wouldn't fight for obious reasons. Claiming that Wladimir ever duck somebody or wasn't dominating the division is crazy talk. He basically beat everybody until Fury took his crown.

 

The hypocrisy argument falls flat because there’s a difference between using size strategically and outright relying on bullying smaller fighters. Wlad used his height, reach, and jab to control distance and break opponents down—he wasn’t just walking through guys with brute force like Liston did against smaller, weaker opposition. Wlad also fought plenty of big heavyweights—Pulev, Fury, Joshua, Thompson, Wach, and even guys like Peter and Brock were bulkier than most of Liston's competition. Liston, on the other hand, feasted on light heavyweights and cruiserweights, looking dominant against guys who were naturally 190 pounds or less. The idea that Wlad’s success was just "size" is lazy—his technique, discipline, and control of range were what made him dominant.

As for intimidation, scaring opponents before a fight doesn’t mean much if you get exposed in the ring. Ali didn't just break Liston's aura—he made him quit, something Wlad never did in over 20 years as a pro. And let’s not pretend Liston was some unshakable force—he looked utterly lost and demoralized when things didn’t go his way. Wlad, for all the talk of ‘panicking,’ adjusted his style after his early losses and went on a decade-long reign of dominance. He didn’t fold when things got tough against Peters, Pulev, or even when he got dropped by Joshua—he kept fighting.

The Brewster and Peter fights get overblown. Against Peter, Wlad got up every time and won every round besides the one he got knocked down in and only reason he got knocked down was because of illegal back of the head shots. Against Brewster, there were serious questions about what happened, given how extreme his fatigue was. Either way, those difficulties came before Wlad refined his style—when he did, nobody was able to capitalize on those so-called ‘openings’ for a decade. Liston never proved he could fight through adversity the way Wlad did. He lost to the first truly elite opponent he faced and never recovered. The idea that Liston, who never beat an elite super heavyweight and crumbled when faced with movement and resistance, would just walk through Wlad is fantasy. Wlad was bigger, smarter, more disciplined, and far harder to break mentally than Liston ever was.

 

Yup. At the end of the day, Wladimir was universally recognized as the undisputed champion from when Vitali retired even without the WBC belt.

 

Not saying they are the same guy, but they both have the same tendency to take a warped view of the facts and run with some obscure factoid into the depths of hell if it serves to throw mud on the Klitschkos.

 

As has been pointed out, he was unable to fight for the WBC when his brother left it. He tried to make the Wilder match but Wilder swerved him. Probably the rumours that Wlad set Wilder on fire in sparring are true.