In light of Tyson Fury's victory, how do we feel Wlad would have got on against Sugar Nikolai Valuev? Both last night and in his prime with Steward in his corner - let's say the Haye fight.
I honestly pick Valuev to defeat Wlad. It's just a bad style match up for Wlad when he is at a height and reach disadvantage. On the other hand, I pick Wlad to beat Haye 8 out of 10 times.
Prime SNV would have run through any heavyweight in history while writing a novel with the other half of his brain. To celebrate the victory, he would have went to Africa and ended hunger, and then did something to fight terrorism. Not neccesarily a military action--he can just explain to the terrorists that they are wrong to kill people and they understand.
You guys are dumb. Valuev is too slow, Wlad at his best puts a beating on him. Wlad at 39 beats Valuev. Valuev was not half the athlete Fury is.
It would have been interesting to see how Wlad fought someone he couldn't easily tie up, lean on and exhaust in clinches. I'm not declaring Valuev as some sort of K bro killer, I'm just positing the suggesting that he would have been an interesting proposition for Wlad and Vitali.
Wlad couldn't lean on and clinch against Jefferson, MCCline, Pulev, Wach, Thompson, Austin..etc either. But he was faster than all of them by a remarkable margin. To match what Fury did, you need size, aglity, and speed...and a high iq with the disciplined strategy. And this against a considerablely slowed older Wlad. Fury was the first guy since Haye to hold a speed advantage against Wlad...and unlike Haye he was taller with a longer reach.
I liked Valuev, I think he had some skills but he was so clumsy and slow. Any version of Wlad we've seen would use him as target practice. Valuev only held a rating because of robberies and Kings careful match making.