It would cause quite a shuffle in my current Heavyweight rankings: Champion: Lennox Lewis 1. David Haye 2. Nikolai Valuev 3. Evander Holyfield 4. Bert Cooper 5. David Tua 6. Audley Harrison 7. Monte Barrett 8. Vitali Klistchko 9. Bernard Hopkins 10. Chisora
this definitely. there is a difference between being the champ and being viewed as the best. kinda like baldomir at 147
Well being that Wladimir is the recognized Champion I'd have to say #1 with Vitali closely behind & a distant number 3 for Mr. Haye.
haye and vitali are 3 and 2 r4espectively, but not much between them. IF a fight did get made it would be seen as 50/50.
The point being that Vitali earned his belt by KOing Peter for the WBC belt. Haye barely beat Valuev who wasn't the real WBA Champ anyway. Haye's belt is therefore tainted, deal with it :good
i dont get you? you said haye is a distant 3rd, i said him and vitali would be a 50/50 fight. what do belts have to do with it? it would still be a 50/50 fight. hence rendering your statement incorrect.
vitali is the only real champ since he won the title he had vacated. haye is a paper champ since the real champ lost his belt out of the ring, much the same way wlad is a paper champ since lewis and sanders got stripped of the belts, so wlad never beat the real champ anyways. wlad's belts are therefore tainted, deal with it :good
A holder of a Couple of Important belts and a pretty well placed player for a shot at bigger paydays against another major player ... be it Vitali or Haye... Standings dont really matter, in his own mind he has to be numero uno anyhow before he laces a glove on... God Bless.
People tend to overrank people after their first big win. See Buster Douglas, McCall, Rahman or Sanders. They immediately get lifted into the top 3. IMO you enter the top level of your division after 3-4 consecutive wins over top 10-15 fighters. Not after knocking out the #1 fighter without proving you can do it again on a consistent level. If Chisora beats Wlad I wouldn't rank him inside the top 5. If however he could defend his belt against a few contenders that would quickly change.