I was thinking about this the other day, its pretty impressive having 18 defences of the heavyweight title. Granted not all were whilst being lineal or undisputed but then if we play that game Larry Holmes a great fighter never unified the title and we have to take several off his lineal one aswell. J. Louis 25 defenses L. Holmes 20 defenses M. Ali 19 defenses W. Klitshcko 18 defenses The next one is L. Lewis on 14 defenses. Any thought> Can we call him a great fighter ? Or he is just good?
I'm not sure he has 18 Werent 2 or 3 of his defences when Lennox Lewis was the undisputed champion and Wlad effectively held a paper title (ala Povetkins now)? Either way it's very impressive, though is last few fights (and seemingly next) have been pretty atrocious
He may be what he is but he is not a bum. Those same guys that were knocking him out are now getting completely outclassed by him.
We'd have to take defences from a load of fighters the great L. Holmes being one. In my view Larry has 20 defences but if your playing the game then really he only has 12.
Everyone is going to hold him to the shitty division he fights in, so its hard when considering his "greatness" when its such a subjective. Fact is he is doing what a great fighter in a subpar division is supposed to- dominate the **** out of it
Last time me and boxed ears argued about linearity the whole forum crashed for 2 days. I'm not going there again 'ears I can't do it I can't But you know how I feel You know
I'd appreciate 8 hours notice before you enter a thread that can potentially seep into that subject. We owe it to the internet not to surprise each other like this. remember the Alamo!
he is by no definition a bum it's not his fault that the quality of his opponents in this era of HW's is what it is
But how many defenses will he have if he fought Vitali in a trilogy? Or even twice? That's the rub. If Vitali was not related to Wlad they would have had at least 2 fights and it alters the entire defense stats significantly.
18 defences? I see a handful, but not 18. 1. Step back despite no punch coming. 2. Grab before a punch can be thrown. 3. Repeat steps 1 and 2. 4. Throw a jab. 5. Repeat.
