Well I mean you think that AJ hasn’t had a noteworthy win in his entire career and you do kinda take every opportunity to discredit him and call him a fraud. The division was fairly thin and stagnant at the time and Wallin had two respectable showings against Fury where he pushed him hard and outboxed a dangerous Gassiev who was a cruiserweight great and is one of Usyk’s best wins. Wallin was literally top 10 in the org rankings, in the Ring rankings, and in the independent rankings of plenty of reputable boxing journalists. AJ was actually pretty decent, but I know you don’t want to admit it. Even you thought Wallin had a decent chance of beating AJ “Anthony Joshua vs. Otto Wallin; Heavyweight: aj UD (robbery is very possible/likely)” https://www.boxingforum24.com/threads/upcoming-losers-bracket-predictions-12-23.713995/
Breazeale hasn't been ranked for several years now, has no good wins on his record, is just known for being a common opponent of Wilder and aj and retired right after. Who did Gassiev beat at heavyweight, let me know how justified that ranking is. Wallin got his ass beat by a old Chisora, he was never a top 10 heavyweight in the world. There were over 2 dozen heavyweights who could have beaten Wallin
@MaccaveliMacc You know what, you're right. Forget everything i said. This era was so thin that Wallin was top 10. That's right. Wallin is a top 10 heavyweight
You can say whatever you want to say, it's your opinion, I'm just stating facts here. But watch out with "Wallin got his ass beat by a old Chisora, he was never a top 10 heavyweight in the world." Joyce was beaten by an old Chisora too, but he was definitely a Top 5 guy at one point.
Joyce got brutally stopped twice, boxes like Homer Simpson and was pushing 40. This is the evolved talent pool you people keep talking about
And Wallin got his face broken by AJ. It doesn't matter. You're keep moving the goalpost as you were proven wrong.
But who did Gassiev beat at heavyweight to deserve such a ranking ? Nobody. Even Breazeale was shot and was never good to begin with, who was his best win ? The ranking is unsubstantiated with context. You can brag about aj beating Wallin all you want, it means nothing historically. Lou Savarese is better than Otto Wallin.
You already said you don't agree with the ranking, but that's only your opinion. Wallin was universally rated in the Top 10 and that's the most important thing in this thread. You can ask how Ajagba got the Top 10 ranking even before the draw with Bakole. You can ask why Phil Jackson was rated in the Top 10 in the 90's when Lewis faced him. You can agree or disagree, but the fact is, they all were ranked.
Its quite interesting that the same people who claim Wallin is top 10 are the same people that claim joshua was done at the top level when Dubois destroyed him, despite aj beating Wallin with EASE
He was obviously on the rebuild after the two demoralizing losses to Usyk If there was a slick generational great southpaw like Usyk around in Lummox Lewis' day he would've been on the wrong end of demoralizing B2B losses too, assuming that is he would've been able to summon the courage to fight them of course and rematch them immediately. It took him like 2.5 years to rematch McCall and he fought the mighty Lionell Butler and Justine Fortune in his first 2 fights after getting iced in 2 rounds by 5 losses McCall. To be fair, he did rematch Rahman immediately after getting slept out cold by him But then again that gets cancelled out by him shamelessly ducking the rematch with Vitali
The evidence overwhelmingly points to Wallin not being top 10 H2H to the degree that it probably shouldn't be a point of debate. In REALITY he almost certainly wasn't top 10 even if every single person on earth believed otherwise. One could probably make a better case for Wallin being outside the top 15 than in the top 10.
Not quite sure I agree with your usage of "in reality" there. If all the independent ranking bodies put him in the top 10... he is in the top 10. You are confusing your opinion with "your reality"/"your truth"
The ranking bodies can all be wrong though and the objective evidence points to them being wrong. Fight results are objective whereas ratings are more subjective. Wallin losing to an ancient Chisora in one sided fashion is an objective fact for example but in 2023 people had him rated above Chisora.