Why doesn't Wlad have a spot on most people's Top 10 ATG HW lists?

If anything, achieving this level of success with an average chin should be even more of an accomplishment.

HBO showed most of his fights. Anyhow, tens of millions of people were watching him outing after outing so he did good in terms of numbers.

Of course he is. He beat better boxers and more styles than Vitali.

 

I was referring to an earlier mention of Fury, not Wlad...

Thi s-tle - the Thorny Thistle, the Plant,

the Flower of Scotland,
or more accurately the beauty of the Healing Balm of Truth, the White Thistle, that is truly beautiful.

my Avatar was taken on my phone, the Sun was blinding white through a doorway on an ancient Stonewall, you couldn't even look through it. I had to step to the side to see better what I was looking at to get a picture and when I looked at the photo, I nearly died. a Blood Red Cross.

now for anyone who knows the area, it is St Peter's Church in Heysham, Lancashire... and through that door is the Ruin of an older Chapel, and the Stone Graves, also featured on Black Sabbath's Album cover, but more importantly it is an old Sacred Monastery.

the Victory of Our GOD and His CHRIST, always just a whisper away for those in pursuit of His Presence on & in this, His Creation. Amen.

 

This is a great post and point 1 (the entertainment part in particular) is a really good one that I’m going to explore in a separate thread.

 

^ Pass round the hat for this post. Go upvote it.

 

They showed 22 of his fights BTW.

Only one between 2009 and 2012 however. But 22 is plenty.

 

Already have - terrific post!

 

Honestly, if Vitali had fought Wlad around 2004 or 2005, whoever won would have deserved a guaranteed spot in the top 5—or perhaps even the top 3. I’m assuming the rest of their careers would have played out exactly as they did. They simply lacked a victory over another ATG at a pivotal moment and the right kind of PR, but anyone who knows boxing realizes that Wlad belongs in the top 10.

 

The reason I rate Holmes above Wladimir is due to the following reasons.

Wladimir had 3 bad losses before the age of 30.

2 of them were when he was very much an established fighter.

The loss to Sanders especially was a crushing defeat.

Holmes in comparison had his first loss when he was age 35 considerably past his prime and that was a close decision loss.

Plus Holmes only has 1 stoppage loss on his resume compared to 4 for Wladimir. And that was at age 38 against a prime Tyson who is one of the best H2H fighters of all time at Heavyweight.

So whilst Wladimir has a few more title wins the devastating stoppage losses especially when 2 of them where when he was an established fighter.

Stop him from being rated above Holmes IMO.

 

I can see that judgement as very defensible, but also the longer/ as champion...2 reigns that equal 10 years, + Holmes own failure to rematch & unify & he was extremely cautious after Witherspoon, then faced inexperienced, overmatched opponents until the Spinks fights.

But what IF we believe that Holmes shoud have LOST vs. even just either Witherspoon or Williams, would you rate him as highly?
I believe we should take wrong or gift decisions into account.


If this was the whole story, I would clearly rate Wlad higher.
But what makes me unsure is the amount of pulling behind the nek & clinching Wlad often got away with-with German officiating.

 

I think the Witherspoon fight is very overrated as a controversial decision.

All the fans scorecards I've seen on here all had Holmes winning.

I've scored it myself 115-113 for Holmes and I don't see much case for Witherspoon winning.

Holmes won pretty much most of the first 6 rounds. Then Witherspoon comeback in the middle rounds, but he gave the fight away in the championship rounds after he had his best round of the fight in the 9th.

Williams was a controversial decision Holmes could've lost yes but on flipside Holmes also deserved to win the rematch vs Spinks.

Holmes also deserved to win a decision late on in his career vs Nielsen which was a robbery.

So it's swings and roundabouts.

And speaking of rematches Wladimir never revenged 2 of his defeats to Puritty or Sanders either the Sanders loss especially hurts Wladimir's standing.

 

ALL good points!

I did not see him against Nielson, on this thread it seems a majority of our forum members thought Holmes lost that fair & square.
And one claimed he deserved to lose against Mo Harris, + Quinn Naverre could have gone either way. https://www.boxingforum24.com/threads/holmes-nielsen.11790/

I think you are correct about Witherspoon. Other times Holmes faded late like against Holyfield, but unlike Timmy he gave it his all.
I absolutely think Williams beat him, & Holmes deserved the 2nd Spinks decision.

If Wlad ducked those rematches it hurts his standing.
I just do not think Wlad's era is so bad, or Holmes' more than decent.
Yet the X factor for me is how much I should deduct from Wlad for him getting hometown breaks re: holding-especially behind the neck-& clinching.

 

I don't think Wladimir ducked the rematches per se but the loss to Sanders was a pretty bad one. And he didn't put that right which kind of hurts his legacy.

I don't think Wladimir's era was that much worse and I give him credit for the amount of Southpaws and undefeated fighters he beat.

The only thing for me is the stoppage losses which is enough to sway it in Holmes's favour me.

 

I rank fighters based upon their overall skill, quality of opponents, impact on sport and whether or not they challenged themselves taking on tough fights. To his credit he took on dangerous opponents when he was well past his prime and came up short. He fought whoever was there during his prime. While he wasn't an exciting fighter to watch, he still filled venues and attracted fans. He got KO'd by marginal fighters, and relied a lot on clinching and his size advantage. He never really had a signature great win. One can make an argument for him being at the bottom of top ten or somewhere near the top of 11-20.

 

Well Wlad was stopped 3 times in his prime. He adjusted with Steward by excessively holding and making for terrible fights. His competition was beyond awful.
Wald probably did more to turn people off to heavyweight boxing than any one fighter could. I forgot they had a heavyweight division because of his style of fighting. I love the game of boxing as much as anyone but I had no reason to watch that.

 

I think maybe just outside the top 10, 11-15, I think would be fair. Excellent fighter, physically gifted, great power, but could have been mentally tougher.