A world without the Klitschkos - who would be great?

I mentioned in another thread that I believe that greatness is often relative. If you're better than all of your contemporaries, you are great.

That being said, it made me wonder how far I can stretch that. The heavyweight division has been said to be in its worst shape, perhaps in history. But is that because of how dominant the Klits are, or for other reasons?

The thought occurred to me because of how quickly the perception of a division can change from "strong" to "weak" simply by the emergence of a dominant champion. Consider how we thought of the Super Middleweight division to be at a near historic level of depth only a few years ago. Now, despite all of the same fighters being present, we see it as at a near historic low. The difference? I think it's the domination of Andre Ward.

So let's talk heavyweights now. Let's imagine a world where the Klitschkos never existed. Who would be the outstanding boxers in a Klitschko-less heavyweight division, from, say, 2003 - today?

David Haye
Chris Byrd
Samuel Peter
Alexander Povetkin
Tomasz Adamek
Chris Arreola
Ruslan Chagev
Eddie Chambers
Oleg Maskaev
Roy Jones Jr.
David Toney
Hasim Rahman
John Ruiz
Calvin Brock
Lamon Brewster
Nikolay Valuev
Serguei Lyakhovich
Tony Thompson
Others

Do you see a combination of fights that would lead to someone emerging who would be considered this era's "great" in place of Wlad/Vitali?

Absent the Klits, would you have considered the division to be deep based on the parity of talent at this level?

The thing that stuck out most to me was how many potentially great match-ups could have been made during this era that never happened. If they did, I wonder if we would have had more appreciation for some of these heavyweights that we now overlook.

 

Interesting. Has there ever been a fighter in history who dominated his division for his entire era who was not considered great?

 

In a way, that's what I was getting at. Nature (and boxing historians) abhor a vacuum. I don't think great fighters emerge so much as they're annointed. If there was no Larry Holmes, would that era have no great fighters? More than likely we would have annointed someone else as great during that same period. Whomever emerged from whatever tournaments and battles would have taken place from the late 70s to early 80s.

You're probably right. But does he have to be American to count?

I think aside from the 70s and 90s, this era is more or less in line with your average heavyweight era. I'm not sure the #2 heavyweight of the Tyson, Holmes or Marciano era would be dominant in this era. I certainly wouldn't make any of them a clear favorite against the likes of a David Haye, for example. Or a Chris Byrd, for that matter.

Interesting. I've never heard a single boxing historian argue that Marciano wasn't great. And the vast majority of boxing thought leaders agree that Calzaghe is indeed great, even if not at ATG. That's why he got into the Hall of Fame on his first try with ease.

Of course, this isn't a Klitschko thread. This is more of a philosophical thread of how we identify greatness. Historically, every era in every division that where a dominant fighter emerged, we recognize them as great. That's why I wonder who, if anybody, would emerge as great in this heavyweight era absent Wlad/Vitali.

 

I'm not sure he needs to make an excuse - Lewis won.