given Chisora's recent result there's a good argument for him displacing Helenius at #10 at heavyweight.
We can find almost all of this information throughout this thread, but I thought it might help to clarify in one post why all the fighters that the Ring regards as champions that the TBRB does not should indeed definitely not be recognised as legitimate champions... Wladimir Klitschko should not be considered the champion at heavy because he never fought his brother, who for so long has been the legitimate number 2. Yoan Pablo Hernandez may now be number 1 at cruiser, but beating Cunningham when he did should not have earned him the championship. That was before the TBRB was created, but the Ring removed Marco Huck from their number 1 ranking and gave Hernandez and Cunningham number 1 and 2 rankings that they hadn't earned. The Ring removed Huck when he scheduled a fight with Povetkin at heavy, but removing him from the rankings was shown to be a bad decision because Huck resumed campaigning and fighting at cruiser after that fight. Alvarez had not accomplished enough to be considered number 2 at junior middle before he fought Trout. The TBRB ranked him at number 4. Incidentally, Mayweather had not accomplished enough at junior middle before he fought Cotto to earn the junior middle championship, though beating Cotto clearly earned Mayweather the number 1 ranking, so he therefore would have to be involved in a subsequent fight to fill the junior middle vacancy. Mayweather should not be considered the welter champion because Guerrero definitely was not top 2 when Mayweather and Guerrero fought. The TBRB had Guerrero at number 5. Many seem to have accepted Danny Garcia as champion at junior welter, but he should not be. The TBRB had not yet been created, but the Ring allowing Garcia to be crowned champion after beating Khan was the beginning of the downward spiral of their championship. Because Lamont Peterson was the deserved number 1 at the time, that fight should have at best determined the number 1 ranking. That Alvarez, Mayweather, and Garcia are publicised as true champions by the Ring is what makes so many people suspect a bias towards Golden Boy fighters. Finally, Mikey Garcia had not accomplished enough to be considered number 2 at feather before he fought Salido. The TBRB ranked him at number 6.
Geale doesn't drop out of the rankings after a close loss to a quality fighter, and there's no argument that he can be worse than 6, below Chavez and above Murray. But Barker was ranked before the fight, so how high should this big win springboard him up the rankings? I'm guessing it'll be Golovkin, Quillin, Barker, Geale, Murray, Chavez, Macklin.
So what? When Vitali was retired, Wlad did face and beat the 2nd best fighter in the Byrd rematch, which established him as the top dog in the division for most unbiased observers.
Rumsfeld: Wlad became the #1 contender in 2006 (the year in which he beat Byrd and another top 10 fighter in Brock) in Ring's rankings. He didn't become the champion according to them until 2009, when he beat #3-ranked Ruslan Chagaev. It was a decision that some accepted and some rejected at the time, and I don't view either side as biased.
Well, if one views Ring as gospel, I suppose you have a point. But let me ask you this: If Wlad and Byrd were NOT the 2 best heavyweights on the planet at the start of 2006, who were? To me, it was pretty clear at the time, regardless of what Ring or any other pundit said, that Wlad and Byrd were the 2 best. Ergo, in my eyes, Wlad's dominant blasting of Byrd signified the establishment of a new lineage.
Well it was all over the place friend. Wlad had won three fights since losing TKO5 Brewster. Before that he'd put two together between loses to Brewster and Sanders. He was 5-2 going his fight with Chris Byrd and was ranked #8 by Ring. He had beaten two ranked fighter since 2002, Sam Peter most recently in a fight that saw him decked thrice. Nobody was ranking him in the top two for his fight with Byrd. Retrospectively, yes, he was likely one of the two best heavies in the world, even at that point. But champions aren't crowned retrospectively.
Fair enough, but at the time I distinctly remember many believing they were the 2 best at that time, regardless of Ring. The Peter win, despite it seeing Wlad dropped three times, was a huge win at that time, and with Vitali out of the picture, while it may be true that there were no obvious top two guys, Wlad was still widely perceived as such rightly or wrongly back then. Incidentally, I'm curious, do you happen to know who the 7 guys Ring had ranked ahead of Wlad were? I also think it's worth considering, if I recall correctly, that Brewster had been bested by Liakhovich a month or so before Byrd-Wlad II. (Brewster was a guy I believed had a decent claim as being one of the best prior to that, even with his performance against Meehan.
I think that Wlad beating Peter was a big deal, like you say, that was a big result. But it was coming behind a bunch of very **** results. **** competition beaten, mostly, two very bad losses. I can't see him ascending to #2 in the division behind that level of competition and W L ratio. Remember, he was only scraping in at a 60% win ratio against ordinary competition (overall). However, I would dearly love to see the Boxing Monthly rankings for this time. Boxing Monthly seem to rank along "who is best?" type lines rather than on pure achievement, or mostly achievement. I'd be interested to see those rankings going into this fight, if anybody has them. Ring for April 2006: 1 - Chris Byrd 2 - Hasim Rahman 3 - James Toney 4 - Lamon Brewster 5 - John Ruiz 6 - Monte Barrett 7 - Calvin Brock 8 - Wladimir Klitschko Rahman at first appears an odd choice for #2, and he did have losses behind losing the undisputed championship of the world, but he was that, and was unbeaten in two years, going 6-0-1 before being eliminated by Maskaev that year. I think his 6-0-1 is better than Wlad's 3-2 over the same period. Toney is overated, but undbeaten at the weight since his stoppage win over Evander Holyfield - which was huge "on the ground" at the time it happened. In keeping with his 2-0-1-1 since then, I think it's reasonable to have him above Wlad's 3-2. Toney was eliminated that year by Peter. Brewster was beaten after these rankings were published, but even so with his generally superior record - 4-1 over better competition than Wlad faced, including a win over Wlad - it's perfectly reasonable to rank him higher than Wlad even after the Liakhovich loss, but before the Wlad victory over Byrd. In fact, it's hard to see it any other way for me. Ruiz, you could argue Wlad above, but he did beat Gollota (unbeaten since #99) and Oquendo in '04. So it's arguable either way. The others, meh, but I don't think ranking Wlad at #8 is horrible at all, I definitely would consider it a reach. Wlad and Byrd may have literally been the two best heavies on the planet at this time, but Wlad still had a great deal to prove.
