Is Lennox Lewis the most skilled "giant" in boxing history?

This guy gets it.

 

I would say skills wise.

Tyson Fury
Bowe ( but only for a few fights)
Wlad
Lennox.

 

lol at technician. . Vitali's technique was rudimentary. He didn't know how to deal with angles , hence his inability to land anything other than cuffing shots on a Byrd who was literally developing his strategy in real time.

Once Byrd adapted Vitali was hitting air. . Note how the better prepared technician was not the one who adapted to Byrd OR his "injured shoulder". . Technicians are adaptable.

Vitali wasn't superior to Wlad anymore than Wlad was superior to Vitali.

The had opposite styles and opposites aren't comparable.

Vitali 's ability to box off the back foot was better. Wlad punching on the front foot was better.

Vitali simply can't be superior to Wlad since he threw punches from the waist upwards and when you do that moving forward you become a turkey shoot.

 

You can be if you're that good at one aspect of boxing that you can make it irrelevant how good you are at other aspects of it. Hence Wlad's success despite, by you definition, fighting more skilled opponents.

Your bias is in what you value. You claim that you consider fighters who are well-rounded more skilled over specialists who aren't as skilled at all aspects, but I suspect it goes deeper than that. I am almost certain that if Wladimir had been a dominant inside-fighter who was equally poor at fighting at range and midrange, you would consider him more skilled. The fact is I'm almost certain that you value mastery in one style of fighting (mid-range/inside) over another (long-range), which is the very definition of a personal bias. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Not at all you're misunderstanding my definition. Its not about being good at only one thing its about having a mastery at one aspect of fighting that allows your to invalidate the other aspects that you're aren't as proficient as. For example an inside fighter who is bad at mid range fighting and outfighting but a complete master of infighting I would consider more skilled then someone who is more skilled at all aspects but doesn't not have the same mastery of any one aspect, especially if the inside fighter is able to impose his game where he is the master better then the more well rounded fighter. By your definition you would say the opposite which is the real difference between us and how we define skill.
Wilder is not skilled because he was not great at any aspect of fighting, all he was good at is landing the right hand. He had gaps that lost him fights and so was not the best at imposing his game on his opponent Wlad is in no way comparable.

Strawman that was never my argument.

 

Since everybody's throwing their definitions of skill out, what the heck, here's mine:

A fighter is more skilled when he/she doesn't have any relevant technical gaps. Relevant technical gaps would be gaps that actually matter -- that cause the boxer problems by allowing the opponent to score, burning energy inefficiently, whatever.

By that definition, Wilder is lacking in skills. He has technical gaps. Those gaps mattered in the end.

It deals with McGrain's concern about an iron chinned puncher with sucky technique. Most of the time, guys like that don't get that far even in HW -- see Ron Stander -- because crudity does, in fact, impact the fight in real life. But even if we are playing around with total abstractions, then the hypothetical puncher's gaps are still going to get him hit, allow his opponent to avoid punches he shouldn't have, etc.

It also satisfies themaster's and others' insistence that Wlad was skilled, while acknowledging that he used workarounds like McGrain pointed out. Wlad lacked inside fighting abilities. This lack didn't really manifest itself in results, or even particularly much in the ring, because he had ways of making the gaps irrelevant. He built his skills around his gameplan as much as the converse. It would be odd to characterize a guy who optimized himself for a particular environment as unskilled. Unless someone can show the guy needed the skills he was missing.

Finally, it acknowledges the skills issue McGrain pointed out with Muhammad Ali. Even in his younger days, his technical flaws got him hit at times that he didn't need to be. So they mattered. Extending the model into his second career, Ali's lack of inside fighting skill mattered until he got really expert at clinching. After that, it mattered a lot less. So his second incarnation was more skilled than his first, which tracks boxing fans' intuitions.

 

I feel like its an interesting discussion we're having but I feel like we're talking around each other rather then engaging with each others points so let me try to clear things up a bit.

Yes which is why I'm focusing on how you win not winning in of itself which you seem to be ignoring

Lets see would you say Joe Frazier is less skilled then Jerry Quarry. Would you say Joe Frazier is less skilled then Wlad? What about Foreman be honest. Not a gotcha but I think its important to clarify these things so we can have a more productive good faith discussion

That's the perspective from certain people who make similar arguments to your own and favor a certain type of fighting over others seeing it as more skilled but if you don't believe in that fair enough

Doesn't seem so my definition isn't about winning, which is what you keep claiming it is, its about mastery which so far you haven't engaged with. I would ask you engage with that definition instead of the one you created as a strawman and I will attempt to do the same with your arguments.

Obviously Ortiz but again I never stated Wilder is skilled. I never said a fighter who is good at landing one punch is more skilled then a person who isn't my focus is on different aspects of boxing and having a mastery of those aspects specifically rather then being good at only one thing like Wilder is.

 

I don't think proof of counterfactuals like that would be necessary.

We all know Ali had technical flaws that got him hit. Like when he pulls back on hooks. We can see it happen on film. In order to understand this fact, we don't first need to be able to prove whether Ali could have blocked a hook from Cooper at 1:25 of the second round. If we needed to do that, it would be impossible for boxing coaches to see and correct flaws.