Greater fighter: Wladimir Klitschko or Luis Manuel Rodriguez

I don't know anything about Rodriguez's career summary anyone?

 

LMR was a brilliant WW in the early and mid 60's. Iirc, he only had 1 world title defence, but it was his misfortune to - A) Share an era with Emile Griffiths; and B) End with a 1-3 ledger vs Griffiths, when all 4 x fights were very close and could be argued either way.

Going 1-2 with the excellent Curtis Cokes hurts his WW record, but never much more than a WW, he holds strong wins over multiple MWs, including Holly Mims, Rubin Carter x 2, George Benton, Joey Giambra, Bennie Briscoe x 2 and Vicente Rondon. A win vs Luis Thompson just above the WW limit does his resume no harm, either.

 

Cheers Greg.

 

If people have to ask who the other fighter is, that kind of answers itself.

 

Canelo being more known than Henry Armstrong does not imply that he is greater than him.

 

Emile Griffith, Curtis Cokes, George Benton, Benny Paret > Anything Wladimir has put out in his entire career.

 

Equally it's not just about popularity to be fair. In a sport with so many top fighters over a century long many are bound to be not well known.

 

I think a lot of this depends on how you define "greater." LMR definitely has a better resume than Wlad because he beat some very good fighters and an ATG in Griffith. But at the same time, he also lost to a lot of those same fighters (went 1-3 against Griffith and 1-2 against Cokes) and was never a champion for long, nor did he ever actually successfully defend his belt. Wlad doesn't have the same level of wins as LMR, but he has a level of dominance that LMR never achieved even in his wins (many of which were close, competitive fights), plus a long title reign. So it really depends on your criteria. I'll take Wlad just because I value dominance and consistency over having a few better wins.

 

Undoubtedly Rodriguez. The resume is just leagues above.

 

Well I never, son. A reasonable, sensible post, I find myself in complete agreement with (apart from which is greater, as I'm undecided on that).

 

Rodriguez is very underrated. He beat everyone he ever fought in his prime until he lost to Benvenuti who he was naturally smaller than and leaving his prime. Great fighter , Wlad can dream of such a career

 

Cokes and Griffith were great fighters, Wlad never fought a great fighter that’s why he had his run of dominance, sandwiched in between getting ko’d by nobodies and finally fighting a borderline not quite great when he lost. Rodriguez is clearly the better fighter

 

Good to learn a bit from the replies.

I did have a hunch may come down to a quality vs quantity type thing which frequently tends to be the case with Wlad anyway.

 

Leaning towards Rodriguez but comparing career heavyweights to any other weight division has always been apples to oranges for me. I like keeping my p4p list to only 25 that way I can ignore every heavyweight not named Ali or Louis to save myself the headache.