The HWT Division in 3 Tiers

You could just as easily blur the line between tiers 2 and 3, since the T2 guys have no more of a hope of dethroning healthy, non-shot Klitschkos than the T3 guys do.

 

Boytsov, Helenius and Pulev are all knocking on the door of the second tier.

Tua will get another shot too. I am not sure why people are in denial about this, but he is marketable, and fighting often against guys who are not complete tomato cans.

POST SCRIPT: Gerber, Charr, Ustinov, and after tonight, maybe Fedosov are also on the radar.

 

Thompson could actually make good on his promise to work his way back to a second title shot. He's facing Friday Ahunanya fresh off his track-meet loss to David Tua. That'll be a good win and will help creep him slowly but surely back up the rankings.

It would be cool to see him get another shot. He, Chambers and Adamek are probably my favorite Tier 2 guys (and Chagaev if he makes a serious comeback).

 

Boytsov would knock Haye out. Boytsov is very impressive, but not ready for Klitschkos, nobody is.

 

How does Arreola get so much respect (or hype). I haven't even got much against him except that he is way overweight but he has beat no one of any real calibre and got spanked by Vitali for 12 rounds.

He is tier 3 in my opinion until he beats someone in your supposed tier 2 atleast.

 

Interesting. I had a similar though earlier, being beaten by the Klits doesn't drop someone from the tier 2. It also doesn't mean anyone in the tier 2 is lower than anyone else in the tier 2.

For example, I rank Chagaev higher than Haye. Chagaev beat a better version of Valuev, and did it way better.
For some reason people rank Haye higher than Chag, even though on the one fight we can actually make a fair comparison on (Valuev) Chag showed that he was much better.
I assume this is because Chag then went on to lose to Wlad. But Haye has already been beaten by Wlad - he is too terrified to get into the ring with him (count that as Wlad TKO1 Haye).

I haven't check the official rankings, but I would expect that Sosnowski actually got higher in the rankings from his losing effort to Vitali. Similarly, I think Vitali rose in the P4P after he lost to Lewis (I may be wrong on that one, can somone confirm?).

If you go into a fight where everyone expects you to get thrashed, and you are more competitive than expected, you rise in rankings depsite losing. Similarly, when a tier 2 fighter loses to a Klit, they don't drop.

 

I'm right there with you. He never deserved to contend for a title, there was just a desperate panic to find a "dangerous" and at least seemingly credible opponent that he was rushed into it simply for being a big guy with a bunch of knockouts over nobodies.

 

:good

 

I think what needs to be remembered is that Haye broke his hand in the second round.

I have seen many Haye fights and have never seen him box on the back foot like that. Especially against a guy who is known for not having a big punch. His style was curtailed by the injury.

 

He wasn't terribly aggressive in the first two rounds, though. Was he just starting slow and intending to come on before the injury?

 

My opinion as we will never know for sure is that the first round was just a nervous feeling out one. Then part way through the seconds he gets the injury.

I would have imagined that once the fight progressed and he realised Valuev was not getting close to him he would have stepped it up.

Unfortunately, we will never know.