You can if you want. But his heavyweight resume is objectively extremely thin By that logic we can count journeyman Itauma has beat on the grounds they would be elites in prior eras
I feel like most people know the real answer to this question, but are relishing in the shallowness of Itauma’s resume before he inevitably starts knocking off quality names.
Old heads been saying that for years. According to Tom Sharkey, 1930's heavyweights weren't aggressive and preferred to go to the clubs instead of training, haha.
The 1930s were pretty terrible. They could definitely have success there. Marciano is also terribly undersized and potentially vulnerable as is Patterson.
2 of those 3 ranked opponents were both the #1 contender / reigning champion, whom he beat twice, 1 was the #2 ranked contender in their rematch. Heavyweight is historically such a ridiculously top heavy and shallow division that I think quality >>> quantity anyway. Hell I think this in general, quantity is only important if it's also quality. AJ X2, Fury X2 and Dubois Rematch might not be deep is but is arguably better than almost the entirety of Wlad's resume from 2001 to 2010 for example. 19 wins, only 7 of whom were even top #10 when he fought them. Of those 7 only 1 in the top 5, being #1 Chris Byrd in 2006, who he already beat anyway and was now 6 years older. So 12 poor wins and 7 wins that are half good half mediocre vs 5 greats wins. I'm takin the latter personally.
A chronological list of the Ring Magazine ranked opponents Wlad beat and their ranking at the time he beat them: Byrd 1 - #7 McCline - #6 Peter 1 - #8 Byrd 2 - #1 Brock - #9 Brewster 2 - #8 Ibragimov- #6 Thompson 1 - #9 Chagaev - #3 Chambers - #3 So upto and including 2010, he'd beaten 10 x top ranked opponents, 3 of whom were ranked top 5 (and top 3). Haye - #2 Thomson 2 - #10 Povetkin - #3 Pulev - #2 Jennings - #6 In total, 15 x wins vs top 10 ranked opponents, 6 of whom were top 5.
Eh, I literally looked at all the Heavyweight Ring Magazine rankings by year from 2001-2010 when making my post. How did you get a different ranking as to when he beat them? Not asking as a rebuttal, genuinely curious so I can have a more accurate source. But yeah I think Wlad's resume at Heavyweight is better overall than Usyk's obviously. It'd be extremely difficult to the point of bad faith absurdity to argue otherwise. That's why I chose that block specifically. I think most of his best wins came just before and just after that period Byrd, Hate, Povetkin etc. To that end, all 5 of the top 5 wins Usyk has in his career are better than the best win Wlad has from 01-2010 imo, so much so that in that period specifically I think the depth is pretty much irrelevant. If GGG and Hopkins were one person and their resume came from a single career, I still think it'd be worse than SRL's resume for example. That's how much I value quality over quantity personally. It's so much more difficult to defeat 1 great opponent than it is 5 good opponents, and 5 good opponents over 10 mediocre opponents and so on.