Biggest "forums darlings"

I believe he's means people holding the 3 losses against him to hater levels, extreme levels, absurd even. Levels that just aren't honest.

 

I'd definitely put Marciano in instead of Foreman. Marciano did exactly what was asked of him, whereas Foreman didn't. Vitali also had a superior old guy career and far superior record in title fights than Foreman. Fury also has a better top three wins than Foreman and was the top guy for longer with no bad loses.

 

No he doesn't, Wilders resume is crap. Even beating Moorer at 45 is a better win than that. I am really questioning your integrity if you think Fury deserves a spot above Foreman

 

You got to see Bernard Hopkins fight live and in person, that’s a treat in itself.

Some of the greats I got to see in person were in dull fights, past their prime, on the way up or very quick endings, but it’s great to be able to say I saw George Foreman, Hector Camacho, Mike Tyson, Evander, Lennox, Holmes, Julian Jackson, Buster Douglas, Azumah Nelson, Simon Brown, Oscar, Roy Jr and so many more with my own eyes.

Plus you got a cool story out of it!!

 

Keep telling yourself that, bro. History will back me.

 

If the next era ends up being exciting with more unifications Fury is going to get eclipsed and criticized for lollygagging so many years and cherrypicking and then there's the Ngannou fight, how do you not see it. If someone like Jalolov became undisputed people would already be saying he beats Fury

 

Jalolov would beat Moorer and 90s Foreman.

 

He beats prime Fury and Vitali too

 

Literally every single top 10 list in the history of humans discussing anything sports related is "subjective" when it comes to atg rankings. Every single one.

So it's bizarre for you to dismiss his ranking because he's using "subjective" criteria. There are no "factual" 1+1=2 truths when it comes to who ranks higher in a sports discussion. Obviously part of the discussion is based on inarguable facts such as a fighter's personal stats (number of punches thrown in a round, KO records, title defenses, etc), but how you choose to interpret and analyze the facts are entirely subjective.

You are doing the exact same thing with Wladmir's resume: you believe his should be top 5 partly because of purely subjective things like everyone else. You feel him not fighting his brother is irrelevant, others do not. You feel him never becoming undisputed doesn't matter, others do not. You feel his sheer number of title defenses should place him ahead of other fighters who have high quality signature wins, others do not. Etc, etc.

 

You missed my point. Yes all rankings are subjective, but my critique was never about the final ranking itself. It was about the inconsistent and arbitrary criteria used to get there.

As the debate shows, whenever Mcgain was pressed to defend his criteria, he would pivot, move the goalposts, or ultimately state that his position was based on how he felt.
While everyone is entitled to their feelings, a subjective opinion that cannot be defended with consistent logic or facts is a weak one.

My argument, in contrast, was always based on objective data like length of reign and title defenses, combined with consistent subjective criteria, such as the quality and number of top-ranked opponents defeated. That is the real difference here.

 

He said multiple times that he was fine with ranking Wladmir high. His biggest issues with Wladmir's resume are that there was a guy who was either #1 or #2 who existed throughout much of his reign he didn't fight (Vitali), that he lacks elite signature wins, and that he has some iffy losses people sometimes gloss over.

All of these are completely legitimate criticisms based on "objective data and criteria" and literally dozens of very knowledgeable people have all said the same things. I'm not about to rehash someone else's arguments, but the reason you seem to never be able to meet people halfway when it comes to Wladmir is because you just don't accept these criticisms as valid. That's your choice, but they're very logical and based on facts, not feelings or arbitrary nonsense.

Speaking for myself, the biggest issue for Wladmir's reign is that it's more of a quantity rather than quality one. Sure, his stats/data are impressive on paper, but outside of a few exceptions like Povektin, Byrd, Haye, the people he beat during his "long reign" weren't all that impressive. On top of that, he fought in a splintered era where the titles were jumbled up. Had he been the undisputed champion racking up all these defenses, it would be significantly harder to hold this against him.

If you really want to get into this, maybe we should make a main thread evaluating Wladmir's resume where everyone can just focus on that. We're completely derailed at this point. Or better yet, we can even make it a Wladmir vs Foreman resume thread, that would be fun.

 

Again you missed tthe point of the debate. My primary objection wasn't the criticism he had of Wlad but the fact that his argument was factually incorrect, logically inconsistent, and argued in bad faith through constant goalpost-moving. That's a different issue than simply disagreeing on a fighter's merits.


As for you criticism i think people underrate Wlads opponents he beat plenty of good H2H fighters who would do well in any era, beat more styles then almost any HW in history, and dominated all his opponents. If you want to hold his losses against him that's fine but the other arguments about lineage and not fighting his brother are just nitpicky to me. Fact of the matter is he beat all the best fighters of his era that he could fight and I think that more then earns him a place in the top ten especially when compared to someone like Foreman or Frazier who haven't accomplished nearly as much nor did they have as dominate or as long a reign.

 

There's also the "how" he did it part. After he got with Manny and used his height, fighting economically there was a # of fights he was excessively holding. To the extreme, Wlad would throw one or two punches and lay on his opponents. Rinse and repeat.
I can't tell you exactly how many fights he used that tactic because I stopped following the heavyweight division largely because of him.

 

I love how arguments for Foreman are like "Its close man, Wladimir was a great HW but Foreman is up there as well" and arguments for Wlad are "WLAD ABOVE FOREMAN 1000% FOREMAN'S RESUME SUCKS NOT EVEN CLOSE"

Yet Foreman fans are supposedly the rabid ones.

 

Putting Foreman in front of a top five heavyweight is like putting Laila Ali's face on the Mount Rushmore of boxing.