Will Wladmir Klitschko Ever Have a Win over a Hall of Famer or ATG?

For me it's the same discussion as with Calzaghe. Joe beat Kessler, though and an old looking version of Hopkins. Anyway, my point is that Wladimir is already an ATG, top class competition or not. He beat all the names out there. True there is no Lewis and no Tyson around, so he can't really get that big win that would make him an ATG for his captious critics. However, he fought the fights that were seen as tough and challenging (Haye, Povetkin) before they took place. Of course, after Vlad had won these, they all were easy fights for some of his critics.

If you take his whole career into account, you have to admit that he is the most dominant fighter out there who won against some guys who would have been much more competitive against the fighers of other areas. It's also not fair to blame Wladimir for being tall and having a huge reach advantage in almost all of his fights. While this is one key to his success, it is by far not the only one. His tactics (can be considered as boring), his punching power and overall athleticism and, very important, his pre-fight preparations are top notch. He is not a stage hog or a trashtalker by any means, something that can be considered as boring as well, but a very nice person and first class heavyweight. The only thing which annoys me at times is his tendency to "lean" on his smaller opponents even though this is not against the rules.

It's unlikely he will ever fight a HoF or ATG because I don't see that anyone in the division could reach that status for as long as Vlad is active.

 

He will have a win over a Hall of Famer probably. Haye, Byrd, Rahman... maybe someone else as his opponents are still active... one of them will go there.

No way he gets any win against ATG though. Unless Holyfield goes completely broke and Wlad decides to "help" him ;-)

 

What did Haye do get in? Go up to HW and lose. Maybe if he won , but he didn't, he lost. And Valeuv didn't make him champ. That was a paper strap paper strap.

He never beat the best guys at CW and was ko'd by The Cat who was well past his prime.

 

No.

 

True, but I do not insist it has to be Haye, I gave him rather because he was the last decent opponet of Wlad (and technically he can still make a comeback and achieve something more).

My point was that he has beaten enough decent opponents to make (almost) sure one of them goes to HOF, even if they are not that good one to pick this one.

 

Well we have another 10 years to find out! Hahaha! :thumbsup

 

It definitely hurts his All-time ranking that he hasn't fought any true great HW fighters, but how is that his fault exactly?

he's unfortunately participating in the most diluted version of the HW division in recent times. I seriously can't remember a time in the HW division that it was as weak as it has been for the last 5-7 years now.

Him having such a longstanding dominant run in the division makes him a sure-fire HOF'er. But he never was able to test himself against great fighters because they were never around for him to fight. He's a HW, so it's not like he can jump to different divisions to look for HOF fighters to fight against.

His best win was against Sam Peter who was a pretty good fighter when they fought back in the mid 2000's. Wlad is a 1st ballot HOF'er but he's surely nowhere in the discussions as being an ATG or even one of the top 10-15 greatest HW's of all time.

He's a very good fighter but never had a chance to fight anyone who would be considered a true threat to him aside from his early years when he got knocked out a few times. And those guys he lost to early on wouldn't be considered HOF'ers by any stretch of the imagination.

 

Wlad will fight till he meets his equal which is Luis Ortiz ranked # 2 by the sactioning bodies.
They will fight a trilogy of three great fights and even a few more cubans Heavywgts that will give him a decent run for his titles to keep him busy.

 

nope. People say ridiculous stuff like - oh you can't blame them for the weak division

well you sure as hell can't anoint them among the best either

 

Yep. It's like when people compare, say, Hopkins to other ATG middleweights (not that Wlad ranks nearly as high at HW as B-Hop does at MW, but it's the same principle). It's not Hopkins's fault that the MW division was mediocre, at best, when he was champ (it was loaded with talent a couple years earlier).

While you can't punish B-Hop it, what are you gonna do, reward him for it? When other middleweight greats like Monzon and Hagler were in stronger MW divisions, and the great guys they defeated moving in weight were better.

RJJ's LHW era was average. So was Bob Foster's. Michael Spinks's was better than average. The LHW division a couple years before Spinks rose to the top was legendary.

It's just the way some things go.

But to this credit, at least Wlad fought most of the top HWs of the time. Vitali didn't. Sure he was probably the better H2H fighter, but his resume is easily inferior to Wlad's. It makes Wlad's look like Slapsie Rosenbloom in comparison

 

He's never beat an ATG because he's never fought one or anyone even close, if he did he'd get beat!

So NO is your answer!

 

Great, as if the Klitty bros ain't killed off boxing enough we've now got another ten years of the bore.

 

Er . . . Nah!

 

Just my 2 cents, you do not need to share my opinion :good

 

It depends upon a number of things.

It is actually quite likely that Haye and Mormeck will get into the IBHOF, based on their cruiserweight records.

It is just possible that Hasim Rahman gets in further down the line, since some of the weaker lineal heavyweight champions have got in.

The big wildcard, is whether he beats somebody who goes on to do something special after his time.