It's time to finally appreciate Wlad's class as the champion

A lot of valid points here Mac, and I'm not that big on Wlad either, as you probably know. For all his flaws, he never would have tried to engineer a fight against a kickboxer as a legitimate title defense. A stain on Usyk's legacy.

 

There is not a single contender Vitali fought during their time as co champions that was on the level of Wlads contenders(except Peter of course). Maybe if you take Vitalis best and Wlads worst like maybe Chisora deserved it more then Leapai but Wlad was very clearly fighting the A team and Vitali was very clearly not.

 

I've appreciate him for a long time he would fight often and fight everyone

 

Wlad was sometimes boring and robotic indeed, but he was class as a champion.

Defended his titles at least 3 times a year, and yes, sometimes there were very poor opponents like Pianeta, Mormeck and Wach, but Wlad was at least consistent and active.

I am a bit disappointed in Usyk. Guys like Kabayel have worked their ways through the rankings, only to get passed by a kickboxing champion who only beat a 0-5 guy in professional boxing.

It is different from the fights Fury and Joshua had, when there was no title on the line in their fights with Ngannou and Paul. Also with these fights, I was disappointed in both of them for taking it, but at least there was only money on the table.

And even I would be okay if he fought Verhoeven, if he fought another 2 opponents as well this year. It's already 8 months ago since he totally outclassed Dubois, and now he will waste more time fighting Verhoeven and after that easy fight, we will be lucky if he fights again in November or December.

We all know Fury or Joshua would get a third fight if they want it, because they'll get paid a lot of money and it doesn't matter anymore if you have worked your way towards the #1 spot or not.

I am a big Usyk fan and he's been absolutely phenomenal in the ring, but Wlad was a better champion and did not only fight for money. I dont think he will ever fight guys like Kabayel or Parker anymore.

 

You actually enjoyed his fights though fear?

 

Yea he was OK I know the jab and grab reputation but he at least KOd all of em
He was the heavyweight Mayweather

 

Cmon fear lol. Mayweather was art to watch. Wlad was an octopus. He’s the HW Lawrence Okolie.

 

This. And, I can’t envision Wlad EVER being enough of a weasel to actually call up someone who he really doesn’t have any personal relationship with and ****ing PLEAD with them to go balls to the wall and attack another champion in the division because he didn’t want to fight him himself.

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Sorry but that’s chicken ****. lol

Lewis:“I’ll have the other for lunch!”

Yeah ok. You’d have ate right hands twice as hard as Vitali’s that almost put your ass to sleep. Sure. Wlad’s hand speed was the difference maker in this one. Lewis knew it too He’d have gotten lit up with shots he wouldn’t react to in time. He didn’t have that against Vitali.

 

Lol. Juan Carlos Gomez was better than most of them. Adamek was good too, and proved himself at heavy. And yes, Briggs would have been a fun, hard-punching, two-time champ.

Please don'e attack the Briggs thing because you think that's what you can beat. Go Boxrec Juan Carlos Gomez.

 

I think Wladimir gets a bit underrated and Vitali gets a bit overrated personally.

Vitali is the one who always gets praised for the Lewis fight a fight he lost BTW, and his overall resume isn't that memorable.

Yet Wladimir doesn't get the same appreciation for having a considerably better resume and reigning for almost 10 years.

Am i fan of Wladimir ? no.

Did i enjoy watching Wladimir fight ? no.

But i have to appreciate how he rebounded after his losses in which looked to be very damaging career ending losses, and how he went on to have one of the most dominant longest reigns in Heavyweight history.

 

I see the reasoning of giving a Cruiser a shot every once in awhile. Individually everyone one there could be rationalized to get a title shot. Its thats its a whole group of soft defenses. Same with Wilder no individual opponent is that big a problem its the group combined. I don't count WBC title fights at HW between Vitali v Danny Williams and Wilder v Ortiz because in that span the quality was so consistantly subpar.

Gomez I get the idea hes got a bunch of CW defenses he get the shot. He might be better then Mormeck. But Mormeck is one of Wlads weakest defenses and Gomez is one of Vitalis strongest.

I think Adamek is overrated as heck because people think he should make the HOF and he was in the top 10 4 years. I did a good post on him like a week ago. But to abbreviate hes only 2 CW defenses, the NABO belt at HW uncompetitive losses to low end HW contenders. Uncompetive loss to his best LHW opponent. Wasn't even the best CW from his country. Very good Chambers win.

Briggs was a fun hard punching two time champ. 4 years earlier. Briggs took nearly 3 years off after losing his belt and his comeback fights were not adequete to show the rust was off. Rust is worse then aging. Briggs is a lineal champ 50 KOs hes a great name to have on his resume. Its kinda like Usyk fighting Wilder or Andy Ruiz so he could say he beat this amount of champions. Champs have been doing that since the 1800s but it is what it is.

 

Compared to some other boxer trash, maybe.
But let's get real, he had many bad opponents that Usyk and especially Fury would get crucified for.
Here are some other dodgy realities.
Didn't rematch Sanders, got his brother to do it.
Only rematched Brewster after the Belarussian destroyed Brewster's eye.
Tried unbelievably corrupt contracts with opponents where if you won you had to fight the brother.
The Povetkin fight was an abomination. Povetkin was the only one with any class in that fight, came to box and when he got fouled to a loss, took it without complaint.
And the massive headbutt on Fury.
And trying to handicap Fury with the spongy ring. And trying to handicap Fury by forcing certain gloves on him in the contract, which broke in training and were difficult to replace. Just mind games one after another. Even the lifts in his shoes in the Fury fight.
Wlad is the epitome of 'fake nice'.

 

Gomez earned a shot with a solid heavyweight run.

 

Individually you could justify any of their shots

Peter 1 loss WBC world champion ex NABF, USBA, NABO champ
Gomez 1 loss CW champ 10 title defenses
Adamek 1 loss NABO, ex CW champ, LHW titlelist
Briggs 2x HW world champ, ex lineal HW champ ex USBA, NABO champ
Arreola Undefeated NABF champ
Johnson Solis, Charr Undefeated
Chisora Commonwealth champ
Sosnowski EBU champ

Does this compare well to Wlads group? No.

 

Lol. Many of them will be better than some in Wlad's reign, and you know that.