Alexander Povetkin top 5 wins

1. Chambers
2. Chagaev
3. Whyte
4. Perez
5. Takam

 

Honestly for a non champion Povetkins SOS is fine and I don't get why people are so critical of it. You've got Byrd, Hughie Fury, Larry Donald, old Rahman, Charr, Huck and Duhupaus who didn't make this list. 1 opponent with losing record his whole career. For someone who wasn't a champion until his penultimate fight this is not bad at all. What sort of SOS can you realistically expect from someone in his spot?


1 Chagaev
2 Chambers
3 Whyte
4 Takam
5 Wach

 

Great fighter but did feel like he underachieved a bit. His biggest fights mainly fell in the 2nd half his career.

Better amateur than pro with a 125-7 record with all 7 losses avenged is unreal.

 

What does SOS stand for?

 

Strength of Schedule.

 

A one loss Wach, one loss Chagaev, one loss Perez, one loss Huck, undefeated Chambers, one loss Charr, one loss Takam, one loss Whyte, a still viable Donald, a Boswell on a 14 fight win streak... He was catching a lot of these guys hot. Throw in a couple somewhat past-it champs in Byrd and Rahman, and some very serviceable fringe guys like Estrada and Nolan, it's not bad for a guy who started in the pro's late and who had an awful trainer screwing up his career for years.

 

Rahman could barely even stand. He was a lot worse than somewhat past it.

 

The obvious one is Wilder. Povetkin blew that fight twice. If he’d won and then defended a few times, he might be top 25 or higher.

 

Shame it didn't happen. Would have loved to see Pov vs Wilder.

 

He was 9-1-1 over his previous 11 fights. It made sense on paper. And it's a right of passage to take down ex-champs. Not touting it as some great win but a necessary piece to the CV.

 

Agreed. It's just that the big fights fell for him later in his career then missing the Wilder fight. Would have been cool to see him bang with a few 00s contenders but many were many there way out by the time Pov just started and Haye was focusing on Wlad so that wasn't going to happen.

 

That’s an entirely different point. He was shot.

 

Whose an example of 21st century non champion with shiny resume? If you can produce better ones the difference will be small. Povetkin was 5-0 against Wlad Klitschko 2nd reign title opponents. Thats 5 out of 18 counting Fury. Thats probably not the record but how much more do you expect someone to get without a belt? Povetkin is also 3-1 against AJ and Parker title opponents.

Byrd was 37 and lost his alphabet belt two fights prior. I'm not a Byrd guy think hes overrated but he'd just lost a belt and had only lost to one guy for 10 years. For a non champ how is that not a good win? A lot of Povetkins wins were older because Povetkin reached the top when most Wlad opponents were older.

Looking at Tuas resume and I think Povetkins is a bit better. In terms of their best wins how we value these wins is going to differ but after win 6 or 7 Tuas resume seems to have a lot more padding than Povetkins. Povetkins got 2 unavenged losses to Wlad and AJ. Tuas got 5 and some draws.

Quarry fought in the 70s era for era Quarrys resume isn't on another level. Like Tua he lost more and I feel hes got a similar ratio of good wins to Povetkin except Quarrys are respected more. And they should be respected more but in terms of criticizing someone for "underachieving" you can only judge based on whats available.

Neither Tua or Quarry beat someone ranked as high in their era as Chagaev. IMO Lyle and Shavers are top 6 or 7 in the 70s and Quarry honestly loses to Lyle 9/10 times. Moorer was that in the 90s but he'd retired for several years before doing a Buster Douglas style comeback. Moorer won most of his fights but fought only one contender(Tua) and lost badly. His only good win was Jirov who was beating him clearly on the cards before Moorer caught him.

Haye, Pulev, Bryant Jennings and Tony Thompson are some big missing names but are we really criticizing one for not fighting Chisora? You can look at those big names and say he did "underachieve" but he was a non champion. Getting to all the top names is tough when someone doesn't have a belt because top fighters are only going to want someone of Povetkins stature with a belt on the line.

PS-You did not just call out someone for not fighting Chisora? Are you serious?