Would Wladimir Klitschko have been as successful without his illegal holding tactics?

He's overrated by the almost the entire forum, who were probably slandering him his entire career. He's out of the picture now, so members can use him as an inoffensive pawn to push their agenda against current era boxers.

People talk about Wladimir Klitschko with certainly, saying he would KO X, Y and Z, when in reality, the only men he KO'd were no-hopers, and he was KO'd himself by mediocre opponents.

It's not that deep to me. Klitschko was capable of being knocked out by mediocre opponents, capable of beating mediocre opponents, capable of being outclassed by high level opponents. He didn't beat a top level guy in his whole career spanning nearly 20 years.

As I've said, if you're going to beat no-hopers, you'd be better off doing it the Vitali way. Come to fight, when somebody gets inside, fight them off. Don't get knocked down. Don't get knocked out. Vitali lost only in strange circumstances - once on a technicality from a grazing punch and the other because he valued his shoulder over a win against a man he was snoozing against.

There are limits to the credit that W. Klitschko should receive. Usyk, for instance, would definitely beat him, but because Usyk hasn't campaigned at heavyweight his entire career, beating up no-hopers like Wladimir did, most forum members wouldn't back him to do so.

 

All fighters clinch, Ali was good at it. Would he have been as good without it? Sure. 1 ) fighters don't allow themselves to be clinched 2 )its about 30 seconds of clinching in a bad round. ie 1/6 of a round at worse in a clinching type of fight.

 

It's normal for current boxers to be underrated and past ones to be overrated. Guys like Holmes, Holyfield and Lewis were crap in their day, flawed fighters ruling over weak eras but now they're "ATG's" and their deficiencies are swept under the rug.

A part of the reason why Wlad's stock has increased was AJ's reign. First there was their fight, which a slightly younger and more active A-side champion Wlad would have very likely won. Then there's the fact that several of AJ's best wins are Klitschko era relics: Takam, Pulev, Povetkin and Wlad himself. Then there's AJ getting dropped 4 times and quitting (something Wlad never did) in 7 against a little fat non-puncher who struggled against badly faded versions of Liakhovich, Kevin Johnson and recently Arreola.

The most similar fighter to Usyk that Wlad fought was Sultan, the most similar fighter to Wlad that Usyk has fought is AJ. Based on these fights, I can't say with a high degree of confidence that Usyk would win, at the very least it would be highly competitive. Given the disparity of the Byrd performances, I would give Wlad a better chance against Usyk than I'd give Vitali. Wlad also had the most experience of any heavyweight in history in sparring, fighting and beating southpaw contenders. Usyk apparently got the better of Wlad in sparring before the Fury fight but sparring would tend to favour the smaller, lighter punching fighter than a 12 round pro fight would.

I agree that people on this forum often fail to evaluate record's properly. For example, can we definitively say that Wlad has a better record than Usyk when Usyk probably has a better top win, always fights on the road and Usyk is undefeated, having never been knocked down?

 

Wtf weak era crap in their day

 

I don't disagree with much of what you are saying. Your opinions are fair enough, even those I disagree with.

For instance, Ibragimov was useless and came for the pay day and to retire. He had no ambition. It was an absolute snoozefest. Usyk would have fought tooth and nail, win or lose, and I'd be taking Usyk vs W. Klitschko.

Vitali was snoozing against Byrd, before he pulled out. W. Klitschko beat him easily, but Vitali would've beaten him easily (in a different way) had he not pulled out. For me, it's not worth looking at. There are many opponents Vitali took longer to get out than W. Klitschko would have. But that doesn't mean much. Wladimir was always more at risk of going down, and he was nowhere near as brave. By the way, I noticed that you posted the Danny Williams shoulder incident in a thread. There is a big difference between a dislocated shoulder and a torn rotator cuff. Vitali is no diddy. He has a doctorate in Sports Science (not sure the formation of the doctorate if it was by the book or by publication, or whatever - no idea what he specialised in, but still). I think he made the right call by not taking the risk against Byrd. It was meaningless and means more to people arguing on a boxing forum than it does to him. Williams had an obvious shoulder dislocation which normally only takes between 2 and 4 months to recover from. To return to full intensity training after a potentially fully torn rotator cuff would take anywhere between 18 months and 2 years normally, with a chance of never achieving a full recovery.

Vitali is in another league to Wladimir. No argument will convince me otherwise.

 

No. Its a shame we never saw him being punished for clinching, but it was all on his terms and was that way for a reason.

 

That was the prevailing wisdom at the time. Holmes ruled over bums, had close fights with post-prime Ali leftovers, got gifts, then lost twice to a LHW, Lewis was a Canadian-British glass jawed hypejob and Holyfield was a blown-up 190 pounder who went life and death with 42+ year old men from the 70's and got schooled by a LHW.

 

Blown up lmao you are fury fan 100%

 

No but he used what he had to good effect. Its not his fault no one had an answer to the jab and grab. We saw what happened when he fought a bigger man who could box in tyson fury.

 

I agree that Ibragimov had limited ambition in that like Haye, he didn't take the risks that could have possibly won him the fight but what would have likely got him KO'd. I don't agree that he was useless though. He won medals in the Olympics and World Championships, was an unbeaten champion, had dominant wins over Holyfield and Briggs (albeit past prime) and KO'd Whittaker, all on the road. Wlad beat him 10-2 and knocked him down, without taking any serious punishment but Sultan put up a better fight in terms of punches landed than the vast majority of Wlad's contenders (something like 100-150). Usyk would have come with more ability and ambition than Sultan but he isn't a bigger puncher, so it's very unlikely Usyk would have been able to stop Wlad. Usyk landed 25 more punches against AJ than AJ did against Usyk and by consensus won 8-9 rounds in AJ's backyard but prime Wlad was better than prime AJ: more athletic, more skilled, more powerful and more experienced, especially against southpaws. I have no problem with you favouring Usyk or Vitali against Wlad but realistically they're close matchups, you wouldn't get 2/1 odds in these fights on any side.

Byrd was able to make Vitali look clumsy and land close to the same number of punches, despite Vitali winning most of the rounds. Wlad was further from his prime than Vitali but he totally dominated slick southpaw Byrd, who wasn't able to evade or land much. Byrd was affected by Wlad's punches in a far more visceral way and couldn't deal with his speed or co-ordination. So stylistically there are certain opponents who Wlad was better against: faster fighters with less powerful punches, especially if they're tough.

Wlad's inferior chin was what made him appear less brave but it was more a lack of confidence than heart; if you have an iron chin you can afford to be more cavalier. Prime Wlad was more defensive than Vitali, which was likely a contributing factor to his superior health and why he was able to have a much longer reign. But there were plenty of times where Wlad showed heart: he got knocked down more than a dozen times in his career and never quit. The first Peter fight was the best example: Wlad was advised by Vitali to retire after Brewster, then to swerve the Peter fight as Wlad had been KO'd twice and floored 7 times in his last 6 fights and must have been low on confidence, so fighting an unbeaten KO artist was extremely risky. But Wlad got off the canvas another 3 times to win the fight, given the circumstances he showed a lot of heart.

I don't know about the Williams shoulder incident and I haven't critiqued Vitali's heart for the quit against Byrd. Fighting on and winning wouldn't have meant much if he had to retire after, the stakes weren't high enough to justify it. He also showed heart when cut against Lewis and when injured against Chisora.

 

Haven't you heard the expression "blown-up cruiserweight"? It's a common boxing term of derision and the cruiserweight limit was 190 lbs in those days with same day weigh-ins, so they were far smaller. Also, Americans don't take the division seriously, so it was filled with 3rd rate out of shape LHW's and very small 3rd rate HW's and had little money, interest or prestige as a new division, like bridgerweight today.

 

Ok

 

Chances are he'd have had a more fan-friendly style, and in the case of the AJ fight even have won (after he hurt AJ he was wasting precious seconds falling into clinches instead of going for the kill... and wasn't that finishing uppercut essentially a clinch gone wrong for Klitschko? Don't quite recall).

But yes, it's all speculative. In the end we got Wladimir Clinchko when we could've got something more...

 

Yeah he was wobbled because he was getting desperate getting manhandled and exhausted by the clinching. How is that not obvious? He resorted to desperate tactics, as the clinching was excessive. A lot of KDs were just straight pushes and a result of illegal grappling..

When has Povetkin excessively clinched in his career?

 

...& lets be fair , as taught by Manny...