A work in progress, how does Vitlai Klitschko rate as an ATG heavyweight?

For those who say top 30, at the end of this thread I'd like to see your top 30. There have been less than 20 great heavyweights.

I'm sure the guys on your listed were stopped lesser fighters, lost on points, have more defeats, were smaller and weaker, and so on.

 

At the end of the day he lost against the 2 best fighters he faced and his 5 best wins are:

Sam Peter, Corie Sanders, Danny Williams, Larry Donald, Kirk Johnson. All of those were heavily overweight, old or both. Not to mention none were near the best in the division, Vitali has never faced the best of the best, and guess whats hes not facing the top young challenger in Haye, his brothers doing that for him.

Wlad has achieved far more than Vitali and from the last 20years you could easily argue Byrd, Ruiz, Rahman, McCall, Bruno, Tua, Ibeabuchi have achieved more than Vitali. I rank him above some of those but his competition is largely a big padded joke. Vitali probably makes it to the top 30

In a way Vitali's career is similar to Brian Nielson, hiding in Europe and picking and choosing opponents to build up a padded winning run before stepping up and losing and he'll be remembered for simply not being good enough to beat an old aged champion 10 weeks shy of his 38th birthday

 

Fixed :yep

 

LOve the loopholes in arguments ... the Lewis fight, which he was winning, was stopped on a horrible cut. People also leave out he took the fight as a last minute substitute so did not even have the time to train for such a significant fight.

Let's get real, he beats Byrd easy without the injury.

I agree he is a hard guy to place but withhis size, skills, brain and great chin he was a vert tough guy to beat , way better than a top thirty which I think is way off ...

 

Vitali was training for a fight anyway and Vitali's team alledegly paid Johnson step aside money so Vitali would get the fight, hence Vitali was preparing for Lennox.

Lennox was the underprepared fighter who was taking a well deserved easy fight against Johnson.

As for 'Vitali was winning the fight', ahh thats why Lennox landed the bigger punches, had Vitali hanging on for dear life and tore Vitali's eye out of his skull, which isn't far from a reality of the fight had continued

As for he 'beats Byrd easily without the injury', well plenty of fighters fought with torn rotator cuff injuries without quiting, Floyd Mayweather Jr, Jesus Chavez, Danny WIlliams. Byrd isn't very good anyway, we've seen Ibeabuchi and Wlad starch him

 

vitalis good but his division has been beat so he cant ve rated among people who have mixed in better company.

top 20 about 17 or 18

 

Fighters that should be above Vitali at HW (Jeffries era onwards)

Group 1 (in no order)

Ali, LOuis, Tyson, Foreman, Jack Johnson, Liston, Holmes, Lewis, Holyfield, Tyson, Marciano, Dempsey

Group 2 (in no order) - all above Vitali

Charles, Walcott, Jeffries, Schmelling, Patterson, Bowe, Wlad, Langford, Norton,

Group 3 - Vitali fits in this group

Tunney, Witherspoon, McVey, Jeannete, Ibeabuchi, Tua, Bivins, Sharkey, Baer, Johansson, Quarry, Young, Carnera, Godfrey, Ruiz, Byrd, Rahman, Braddock, M Spinks, Shavers

So at best 22 at worst around 43

 

Where's Liston and Frazier?

You rank him with Ibeabuchi and Tua?

They've never even won a title.

 

N/m I see Liston.

 

He rates higher head to head than he does based on acomplishments.

His resume is solid but lacks depth in terms of big wins, in part due to his propensity for injuries. His last fight suggests that he could and should have shown us a lot more than he eventualy did.

The bottom line is that he rates somwhere beneath his brother Wladamir.

Had he not take three years out due to injuries I think that he would have been the dominant force of the post Lewis era right up to the present.

Also although he is a work in progress it is not going to be in progress for much longer.

 

I would rank Wlad in the Top20. Vitali in the Top30.

 

That is also my point of view. I agree with Mendoza Vitali had (probably) all the tools to become ATG, the problem is that one does not become ATG just based on "what if". Which is also why I think it is more annoying - I can understand a mediocre fighter getting a belt and then fighting hand-picked opponents to keep it as long as possible. But Vitali had all the tools to clean division (with the exception of LL and maybe Wlad), and it even didn't look like he tried.

H2H you can make an argument to rate him quite high, but in terms of achievements he is (at best) somewhere around Ruiz and Byrd.

Did he do anything more dangerous instead? No, he took even easier paydays vs even worse guys. Even if we agree those guys were past prime in 2000, there were still a couple of decent fighters around this time - Tua, Rahman, Ike, hell, even Golota.

And do not tell Vitali didn't want to fight past prime Tyson in 2000 just because it was too easy for him. Can you explain why was he ready to fight his completely shot version in 2004 then?

 

top 30 I rate Wlad higher since he fought and beat better opponents.

 

Good post janitor, i tend to agree on most or all points, i like Vitali personally but not Wladimir, for this reason I HOPE that there is a possibility that the thrd sentence of your post is preventable.