Would Sonny Liston rule the HW division now?

You are childish. You've been engaged, debated, and handled already by McGrain, and you just refuse to see it -which was the reason for my post.

Keep finding reasons not to post in the Classic section ExCusE_MaKeR (or would that be "ExCCuse_MaKeR"?), because you're better off limiting your exposure.

 

That being used as Ali's best performance just shows the double standard that today's fighters are crippled by. Which is why none of this makes any sense until several years after Wlad retires... when people will then give him credit. Ali, Liston, ect... are all judged by their best performances... even if those performances are against little more than a heavybag... yet fighters like Wlad are judged only by their losses.

 

Well I guess Sonny must've had done good work with the rest, he was knocked out clean by Leotis Martin only 4 years after Muhammad Ali disposed of him.

 

I think he will. There is far more footage of Wlad's KOs than of Lennox.

Remember the footage of Tyson's opponents flying to the left and right of the ring? All of them small (6'3'' or smaller) or bummy (except Lou Savarese), BUT WHO KNOWS THAT? Who cares? Footage counts!

THIS _IS DEFINITELY_ an argument with the part-time boxing fans: Spectacular KOs... Dominant KOs.

Another argument is the brother. If the casual fan does not know who exactly Wladimir is then he will mix the two bros into 1 pot anyway, thus one bro will enhance the other in the minds of the fans.

Another argument is the final record: Lennox is only 41-2, Wlad is already over the 50-wins-margin. When commentators will talk about Wlad, they will always mention some record like "The most KOs in heavyweight world title fights" or something of the sort.

Wlad ALREADY NOW has one of the Top 10 KOratios in heavyweight history (of fighters with 20 fights or more): The only comparable boxers are

• LaMar Clark. He was a bum beater and has never won a world title, he's out of the picture
• Gary Mason: No world title won, out of the picture
• Zoylone: No tiles, only 20+ fights... a nobody
• Rocky Marciano: Less wins than Klitschko, only 12 fights against 200+ opponents
• Frank Bruno: No KO in a world title fight, 90% of fights in UK, a local hero -> out of the picture
• Don Steele: No won world title
• George Foreman: Only 2 KOs in world title fights (Klitschko has 10 KOs)
• Mac Foster: No won world title
• Ansaloni: No world title.
• Vitali Klitschko.

And that's it. There are no other boxers (than the above) with a better (or equal) KO ratio.

Fans usually (even experts) and part-time-fans especially don't give a damn about quality of opposition. Otherwise featherfisty Sam Langford (with a KOratio of 18% against good opposition) wouldn't be listed as #2 in the Ring Magazine's Toplist of the Hardest Punchers.

In other words: NOBODY has a better heavyweight record than Wladimir Klitschko. Marciano was a cruiser and Foreman was good but failed in world title bouts.

If you think, that you can forecast that Klitschko will never be considered great, then I think you are grossly mistaken. Klitschko-by-record is already now an ATG. There is NOBODY with a better record than Klitschko. Valuev lacks the KOs on his record thus he, too, cannot compete.

Now all that was WITHOUT TAKING QUALITY OF OPPOSITION into consideration. _IF_ you take average quality of beaten opposition into account then Wladimir Klitschko is worse than Lennox but better than George Foreman or Rocky Marciano (both of which have a far more bummed up record than Klitschko).

 

Today's heavyweights are significantly larger men competing against a more numerous field of significantly larger men too. Read some old boxing magazine articles and you will see a trend of "the heavyweights of today suck, the oldtimers were the greatest ever", that has been going on practically since boxing magazines were published. I, for my part, believe that if head-to-head competition of the greats of different eras was possible in boxing it would be much like that in other athletic sports with the oldtimer's record being shattered but since boxing isn't measure with a stopwatch or distance it's all conjecture and I have witnessed so many boxing experts get it wrong so often that even an esteemed trainer's opinion that an oldtimer would best a fighter from today I take it with a grain of salt. Not too long ago people would have laughed at the idea of Lennox Lewis beating a prime Sonny Liston as well, I think LL would have a rather good chance of using Sonny's face as a broom. Since he retired he gets more respect though. Some boxing fans are just fickled.

 

It's going to be ok.. I just don't respect you as a poster because you haven't shown me any type of boxing knowledge. All you do is talk about your opinion of me. Really... get over yourself.:good

 

Very true.:good

 

Well said!

 

Very good points here. :thumbsup

 

Aaah, insults, insults, insults when confronted with real facts and data...

Moreover: What is the Lennox League?

 

From Wikipedia:
"Jim Lampley is an American sports broadcaster, news anchor, movie producer, and restaurant owner."

Why should be trust him? Has he been a professional heavyweight or heavyweight trainer?

Maybe you CAN train chin.

"Ray Mercer used to wear this leather thing around his head and weights hung from it. He would do hundreds of head lifts with it strengthening his neck muscles and gave it the credit for his ability to take a punch."