Wladimir Klitschkos win resume compared to past heavyweight champions

He has an excellent resume, I thought Haye, Ibragimov, Brock,Austin,Thompson, Povetkin, Chagaev,Pulev,Pianeta, Wach,Jennings, could have all own a version of the split title in the Holmes era or could have taken Norton or Spinks place against Ali and won. I think Pianeta is as good as Bugner.....Povetkin is now match with a better trained Perez and that one should be a good fight.

Styles make fights but Vlad is a class act as far as respecting the sport and his condition and defending all of his titles, lets face it Wilder is not a champ he is a contender. The way Vlad has defended and respected the title would be an insult to the sport to suggest otherwise despite what the WBC does for money

Wilder could be the super-fight but at the age 40 Vlad should not be concerned if he bows out ahead, Vlad has 67 fights, Lewis bowed out at the age of 38 with 44 fights and a big rematch money fight in front of him.....

Vlad has 18 or 23 defenses if you recognize the WBO, he has surpassed Holmes as far as fighting his best, has more defenses than most of the ATG, Dempsey and Marciano and right under Louis and Ali and Marciano for quality

Fury is a tough wild gypsy of a large Irishman and he will take chances, Vlad has the power but Fury has heart and confidence...I think Vlad takes it but there will be rough moments...good fight

Wilder depending on how his next fight goes and how much Vlad has left could be the super-fight......Wilder is already an equal to George Foreman when he fought Frazier and has an impressive highlight reel, Stilverne was a solid win

I never rate a fighter until all is said and done but Vlad has shown an adjustment strength that he did not have earlier in his career and some great tools... he will impact the top 10 in a big way

 

but the op listed attributes, records and rankings too?

are you really saying size is unimportant to boxing?

p.s a lot of ali's opponents were small and ****.

 

Good post

 

It all depends on how you view a legacy?


Years on top? Wlad is A+


# of title defenses? Wlad is A+

# of total fights? Wlad is A+

# of top ten Ring Magazine rated opponents beaten? Wlad is A+

# of top fighters beaten that could rate in the top 100? Wlad’s more like a B-. He doesn’t have Ali’s opponents

# 0f losses and upsets? Most heavyweight champions have more losses or and quite a few of them were Ko’d by lesser punchers that Brewster or Sanders! But here I would say it's a B-, thanks in part to a very long career with ten year undefeated streak on top.

 

In fairness, he listed other attributes, yeah. I just hate this "Oh, he's 240 lbs so he must hit like a sledgehammer" *******s! And two equally sized Heavyweights have completely different power, for example Joe Bugner and Bonecrusher Smith.

Size is a factor, I agree, but not always the deciding or most important one in my opinion.

As to Jennings, I took one look at him and knew he had no chance with Vlad. He has very little power and has to hit people multiple times to have an effect. But I guess he'd steamroll Joe Frazier with the weight pull he's got?

 

I will ask my standard question.

How many of the top ten heavyweights active during his career did Wlad defeat?

Consider his career from the year 2000 to today.

And we won't count Vitali, but his omission might be important.

You guys know a lot more about this era than I do, so how does Wlad stack up. I'll draw up my own list if no one replies.

*off the top of my head, Wlad has beaten more second-tier guys (or fairly good contenders) than anyone this side of Johnson, Louis, or Ali,

but I have my doubts about the first tier guys (top five or at least top ten of his era or the previous era)

 

He has had a long, strong career,

rates at or very near the top for longevity,

and has beaten a myriad of good men.

*I would like to know though who were the best men out there in others' opinions.

 

Having a convo all by yourself?

 

Pre title, unlike many, i thin Wlad's run was poor compared to others like Johnson and Co, in that he had not established himself as the standout contender. He had some decent wins, but definitely missed most of the top10. At that time, from memory that top 10 would have included the likes of Ruiz, Valuev, (Vitali of course), Brewster, Golota, Sanders, Tua, Toney, Holyfield, Peter, Rahman, McCall.

I think his record against these guys was poor despite his dominance of Chris Byrd, who was arguably (though not necessarily) the best of the bunch. he certainly could have fought a couple more and certainly could have actually beaten a couple more. Still, there is no doubt that he improved after that (I think it is only fair to assume parity of eras even if it does seem that the current era has declined). By ATG standards,i think this is a poor run.

The title reign through its longevity and dominance really is hard to fault. Most of the pre title fight crew were not fought, and it certainly would have helped Wlads resume if several of these guys did actually get a shot early in Wlad's reign even if this was more a name thing than anything else. Obviously there were some guys fought who were not world standard even for example Leapai. And so many of the fighters (if not all of them) were unproven at the top level.
This is not really Wlad's fault, but when coupled with the fact that he could really establish dominance in his pre title run against the previous era, (and neither did any of Wlad's challengers) it does make it hard to rate his opposition because there are question marks over all of them simply because they have all fought few if any top 10 contenders. It also doesnt help when his 3 KO losses were so bad, coupled with the problems he seems to have when hit Flush wuch as demonstrated in the Peter fight, or even the Wach fight. I should say that if his 3 KO losses were decision losses, or if he had won one or two battles he soaked up heaps of punishment and gritted his teeth to win, i think it would improve his ATG status and he could be ranked anywhere.

I find this amazing when i think about it. If Wlad were to undertake in a fight like Johnson Jeffries, Sullivan Corbett, Tunney Dempsey, Ali Holmes, and prove his ability to take punishment it might actually improve his legacy!

Anyway, back to the question, i think the 10 best fighters of his era (assuming the title reign started at Byrd) are something like Vitali, Povetkin, Haye, peter, Chagaev (in fact i think this four are realistically his best challengers). If we accept these as the 4 best fighters, then guys who have fought closely and showed they are close to their level are: Chambers and Helenius and arguably Toney(Peter) Chambers (Povetkin) and Oquendo, Valuev and Ruiz (Chagaev) Of these guys, Chambers who seems to have fought more of the very best did go through a bad patch where he lost on points to adamek and Mchunu after the Wlad fight but other than that i cant really think of anyone who these top challengershave actually struggled with. This is the problem with the whole era. Noone is proven. Saying that, Wlad has clearly fought the 4 best fighters in his reign, plus, Chambers who seems to have probably had the next best record. Then add in the fact that while we dont know which of the many other fightes around were any good, he does seem to have actually fought and thrashed most of them. It really is only Vitali which is the standout miss for Wlad in this era as champion. And his reign gets dominant and more impressive as it he gets older.

 

douglas was a huge upset, no doubt and I have no excuses for that one other than Tyson overlooked him. but c'mon, everyone knows he was done by the time Williams got him.

wlad and lennox got starched by guys who had no business beating them on the way up and at the top level.

really different.

and don't misunderstand my post: when I say 'c' and 'd' level guys I have great respect for them. boxings a ***** and for them to do what they do for money and our entertainment is steel testicle stuff. but you can 'rank' guys.

a-bonafide all time greats no doubt
b-legends but below a
c-very good, many 80's alphabet champions I would place here
d-above average, not poor but level below champion status or a struck lucky champ

I have said this about wlad and lennox ever since it happened to them on the internet, doesn't mean anything other than imo it's never happened to an atg coming up to guys a level below and a guy who had reached championship status. with lewis it was literally one punch both times and with wlad it was running out of gas and getting shellacked by a perennially under performing heavyweight.

 

-In your dream.

 

Tyson had injury in the first round against williams.
Douglas was undisputed heavyweight world champion wladimir never.

 

..

 

You're joking right? Zelkko Mavrovich was #1 rated in the 90s. Just the same level of Eurobum as Pulev. Every era had #1 rated contenders that you never heard back from once they got knocked out.