Wladimir Klitschko Should Be More Appreciated

Wlad was 40 years old when he lost to AJ. Dubois is not even 30. Plus Wlad fought an undefeated confident AJ, not a weak minded, unsure man child.

 

"Get the best" is meaningless, even if true, which is in and of itself debatable. There is a certain degree of evolution that goes on, and what is important is that Baer, Schmeling, and Walcott meant far more for their own day then Ibragimov, Haye and Povetkin.

Wlad does not have the big wins, and that IS his fault, because he split the era with his brother, which leads to guys not being properly built up. Had he rematches Sanders, for example, and won, and they had a rubber, it would be a great series between two fighters that both might have gone on to be remembered as great, Sanders in the Graziano, Norton type role.

 

Wlad is top 10 lock. To fight in an era where everyone is big enough to clip you with one single shot - and rule the division for nearly 11 years and make 18 consecutive title defenses. Takes a special fighter to pull that off, and considering where he was after the first Brewster fight, he may be the greatest comeback story in the history of the division.

 

Overly so imo.

 

You're totally dishonest with yourself.

The guys who saw multiple top 5 annual Ring rankings during Wlad's best ten straight years (05 to 14) are as follows: Peter (twice), Chagaev (twice), Povetkin (eight times), Vitali (five times), Valuev (twice at five spot), Haye (three times), Fury (two times), and Adamek (four times).

He went 5-1 against that bunch, losing at about forty years old to Fury while outside the ten year window. Vitali was his brother, Valuev declined and lost to Haye, and Adamek dropped off after losing to Vitali. And he took the top spot from Byrd.

How many guys did that well?

 

I have him top 15 but not top 10. I saw him iced decisively, twice, in his physical prime when everyone's was saying he was the next big thing. To his credit he rebuilt from disaster and had a long reign (which is what elevates him into the discussion for me) but he did, IMO, preside over a largely weak era where he generally had size and home advantages. If anything, I feel he is often rated slightly too highly now.

 

He is regarded as one ATG, all right.

But it doesnt mean we are going to sugarcoat his padded resume, his boring boxing style and the overall lack of competition during one of the dullest boxing eras.

 

The era was weaker though. Only quality heavy outside wlad was vitali. Thats why they both ha e weak resumes but reigned for years and had skills to be considered atg. Im sure if you put them in this era they would still be champions.

 

That’s nonsense. The seventies had a long list of crappy fighters who cracked the top ten and the average contender in the 80s snd 90s was no better than during Wlad’s reign. Tony Thompson potentially would make the top ten in any era.

 

I find it comical that a truly global sport (and one of the oldest sports of all-time) such as boxing would have these so called droughts of bad fighters. Especially ones that last ten years. Foolishness.

 

I half rate guys like povetkin and haye but the likes of fast eddie, chagaev, ibrahimov, brewster, mormeck and wach would not be contenders in the majority of the post ali decades or now.
Neither would guys vitali fought like areola, adamek, char, johnson, sosnowski, solis or chisora and who else he fought im forgetting.

All bonecrusher smith, shavers, michael grant, botha type boxers. Current era is definitly stronger than the klit era (outside them).

 

Nobody cares about who you "half rate."

Eddie Chambers was the late 2000s answer to Jimmy Young. He was skilled, but was only the size of an average 70s heavyweight.

You don't know anything about Chagaev and Ibragimov. I'd wedge Michael Moorer right above Chagaev and right below Ibragimov for h2h southpaws.

Brewster had one of the hardest hooks and best chins of all time. He'd be at least second tier in any era.

Mormeck unified at cruiserweight and would do well in smaller heavyweight eras.

Wach was never a serious contender, but was better than some of the crap Louis and Holmes came up with in their similarly long reigns.