“ Dominating a decade ”

Bodhi has a point though, you are overselling Tyson's comp... But hey, at least Tyson beat the old/faded fighters like Holmes and the blown up good guys like Spinks(see: vitali) and his opposition at least came in shape.

The 80's/90's have the most overrated HW's by far though as far as consensus of boxing fans go imo, too many could-have-beens, too many guys who underperformed, blatant steroid usage by some, and much oversold skill... They were generally better conditioned and physically more talented than today's HW pool, but even then that isnt saying much

 

Impressive stats the thing is this;

In 1999, Vitaly ranked below Holyfield and Lewis, and the WBO belt meant nothing. There was no talk about Vitaly being the uncrowned champ or the biggest threat out there, he was a footnote. Things have obviously changed since then but lets not rewrite history. In 2001, the WBO was still a lightly regarded belt. The big 3 were still the WBC, IBF & WBA. Those were the belts that fighters really cared about. 2nd tier fighters chased the WBO so they can call themselves champion. Not a Knock on Wlad or Vitaly but you never saw Lewis, Holyfield or Tyson chase around the WBO belt. The WBO has since grown in terms of prominence but it still ranks below the big three.

Remember in 2002 Lennox was champion and when Tyson was challenging for the title the WBO wasn't on the line in fact it was a side note and it was treated like a regional belt. Wlad was considered the division's future star and there were some critics along the way questioned both Klitschko brothers, so in no way shape or form were they considered the dominant forces of the division.

With Vitaly he took a 4 year lay off in 2004 he was just less than 1 year removed from losing to Lewis in his shot of being the undisputed champion. He wasn't "the man" in the same context that Lewis was. In fact, in 2004 both Byrd and Ruiz were beating fighters of a similar if not better calibre than fighter's Vitaly was beating (albeit not as impressively as Vitaly). His absence from the ring that started after the Rahman fight never came off put alot of confusion in the division. Since returning he's done fairly well but let's not pretend he dominated for decade. He was simply relevant for a decade. His record over 10 years is impressive but he wasn't really the man throughout it all.

In 2000 Wlad looked impressive, he was a year or two away from being hailed as the "heir apparent" to Lennox Lewis with a more "american" and crowd pleasing style compared to his brother. By 2004 Wlad had 2 losses and was 1 loss away from being told to retire. His fall from grace hit hard when he was stopped by Lamon Brewster, further reinforced when he was dropped by Davarryl Williamson enroute to winning an ugly Technical Decision in a fight that did nothing to boost his reputation and everything to reinforce why he's not the elite fighter he was billed as. If you were on ESB those days or even followed boxing all those who called him the division savior were eating crow as his professional image suffered.

Then came 2005. The fight against Sam Peter who at the time was being hailed as the next HW Champ was transformational. His image was revived and his career has not taken a look back since. Trouble is he's inevitably going to suffer for the simple fact that he was never at any point in his tenure as champion undisputed. There was always other guys out there who's claim as the champion was a thorn in Wlad's claim as champion. Right now Wlad and Vitaly are the best fighters and of course there is also David Haye. His legacy will suffer because he never held the crown alone despite his obvious talent.

Why this matters is because Lennox Lewis, George Foreman, Michael Moorer,
Evander Holyfield, Riddick Bowe, Mike Tyson, Larry Holmes and even Buster Douglas was at some point the undisputed Heavyweight Champion. They at some point didn't share the throne and that matters.

The only way that we can have 1 champion is if David Haye were to beat Vitaly Klitschko and Wlad beats Haye to become undisputed. Or Haye beats Wlad and is avenged by his brother. Otherwise we have a 2 headed HW Champ.

As for dominating a decade, Wlad can count anything from 2005 till present. Vitaly can't really count much since he was very much a contender pre layoff beating guys who were no different the the guys Chris Byrd or John Ruiz was beating. His 2008 return was impressive but it's in no way shape or form a decade.

 

Excellent post!

 

Well when you consider the number of german flags in his "location" section I become a little reticent of using round scoring to determine a fighter's greatness. Let's stick to simple things, like opposition and stuff like undisputed title defenses.

Vitali Klitschko has no hype.

 

And this differs from Vitali Klitschko how?

 

I realize that i'm interfering thread timelines, but I hate post clutter. I have to admit I do it a lot. I'll try and make new posts.

Vitali Klitschko still has no hype.

 

I'm feinting with my posts. I figure i can trick people into saying something stupid and then furiously berate them after an edit.

 

Neither would Buster Douglas. Byrd actually called Vitali out a couple of times, we can't just assume he was ducking him.

Vitali gets better with age, Tyson was a terror while young. At the same age Vitali was a scrawny kickboxer who won some and lost some. Different type of fighters.

 

Tyson also beat Holmes (who at that stage of his career was better than the Lewis Vitaly lost to)

Never avenging a defeat is only relevant if you rematched every fighter that beat you and you lost again. Neither Tyson nor Vitaly was given the opportunity rematch every fighter they lost to.

Thing is, Tyson only lost 1 rematch against Evander Holyfield.

In terms of depth lets put things in perspective, Tyson losing to Danny Williams and Vitaly facing him immediately afterwards speaks volumes when you consider that what stage each fighters were in their careers. With Tyson, he was looking for soft touches to propel him back into a title shot to line up his pockets. With Vitaly he was trying to establish himself as the next era champion- and that is the guy that Vitaly chose to defend against?

Tyson dominated his era unequivocally before his incarceration/layoff
Ali dominated his era unequivocally before his exile/layoff

Vitaly was a rising star who shared the spot light with Byrd and Ruiz before his layoff (due to injury) and then coming back.

The difference being he never dominated.

Back to the subject. The Klitschko Bros are impressive fighters Mendoza, and some will disagree with me (I personally think they will be appreciated once they retire because believe me they will be missed) but I think you tend to oversell them a bit. Especially Vitaly who's talent far exceeds his legacy.

Wlad is a different story, he needs to unify before he retires otherwise he'll suffer from the Larry Holmes syndrome with out the Larry Holmes ATG ranking.