You seriously want to rank him among the ATG's Heavyweights, after Bonnin, Barrett, Valuev, Ruiz, AFRAUD, and a slim chance of a possibility of Wlad. What he did at Cruiserweight does not count. Which was win 2 title fights and vacate. Where do you have Buster Douglas? And where do you even have him at Cruiserweight?
he's clearly one of the best cruisers of all time, but with a short HW resume, does dominating win over wlad catapult him into top 20, 30, 40 discussion or what?
I can name 5 cruisers off the top of my head that are better than he ever was at cruiser. Jirov Toney Qwari Holy Nunn All those guys are better than Haye could ever be, and Adamek chased him up to heavy. No telling how well Adamek could've done at CW had he stayed.
Wins over Mormeck and Enzo, combined with a lose to Thompson( which is only excusable since most fighters will eventually lose), and a total of 20 victories, 1 defense makes him ATG great? I'm only arguing about his accomplishments and longevity inside the ring and not his ability's and attributes inside it. and he certainly has some good ones. But you must admit for such a short career his resume is not that impressive. Now unifying the belts is a hard thing, and usually against a worthy adversary. But what makes it hard is that usually it takes time to arrange it with the sanctioning orgs. and belts, or even TV rights and promoters.With multiple defense in between. Not that hard a thing to do when it's 1 fight after the first title victory. A lot of fighters can win 2 fights in a row.
No. Beating Wlad is no difficult task for a fast, strong fighter. Haye needs to beat Chambers, Vitali, Chagaev before he gets some real credit.