when we look at the situation, it clear that vitali will retire soon, haye will retire in a year. That means wlad will probably unify the belts and reign for another few years atleast. if you look at the division most guys are bums. Lets say wlad fights 4 more years fighting these bums stays undefeated and retires after 10 years winning and controlling the division. What would this do for his legacy and atg p4p ranking?
Are you all really taking Haye's retirement seriously? He'll be back within 2 years after said retirement because 1. Vitali would most likely be retired 2. No one will be talking about him which would cause him to miss all the attention 3. He's going to realize that hes wasting good boxing years that he wont be able to get back 4. Still plenty of big money fights out there 5. He will have no legacy to fall back on for the rest of his life 6. Hes a boxer
has he fought any great fighters?most in the all time top 10 have fought and beaten 1 or 2,i kno its not his fault if none exist today but isn't that how you make it into the top 10?thats how ali got there and all the rest
I don't think Wlad will hold on that long. Haye has a great shot to beat him. Povetkin should eventually be good enough to beat him. Based on talent and potential you could make a strong case that Solis is the best of the bunch.
You have to beat at least one great fighter to be great. Wlad has beaten zero great fighters and it's debatable as to whether he's ever beaten a very good one. He's nowhere near the top 10 cos he had to wait 10 years and 40+ fights for all the good fighters in the division to disappear before he started to 'dominate'. He's good, but he's miles away from being great.
There is truth to your post but some of it is fiction, if you make a domiant reign for significant period of time and face best opposition that is willing to face you then you have a case. Regardless if you are fighting medicore opposition it is hard to stay dominant and beat them all for ten year stretch. I cant think of any fighter at Heavy that has done that.
I'm not a huge fan of the 'not his fault' argument. I understand it but I don't agree. Wlad is 34 right? He's not some new kid on the block. He turned pro as Olympic Champ in '96 I think. He could have fought some elite guys if he hadn't wasted the early part of his career on nobodies and then lost badly to a couple of low-level guys. Admittedly he may be peaking late, but you can also make the argument that his 'peak' has more to do with his opposition than his skills.
that aint his fault, what matters is he has faced challengers mandotries and former champions and dominated for a lengthy amount of time, shpould he reign for a full ten years i see a reason to put him at top ten easy. what is your top ten ATG heavyweights?
The future is an interesting.... Wlad's ability to unify is not a certainty. First Vitali and Haye have to retire, then interim titlists must emerge and then who knows how long it will be before they actually want to fight Wlad. Meanwhile he will be relegated to semi-meaningless mandatories. The good news is that a fight between the likes of Solis-Povetkin-Boytsov-Chambers may decide the new beltholder and that would produce a credible opponent for Wlad. Aside from that it'll probably be another 10 years before we're seriously talking about the quality of Wlad's resume. This generation of fighters still have to create their own legacy before we can truly judge W.Klitschko's.