Best Wladimir Klitschko fights

Thats nice , but i think you'll find that Wlad avoided the rematch with Sanders. Lewis avenged all his losses.

 

A re-match was discussed, Sanders lost his last fight and meet a tragic end trying to protect his daughter during a robbery. He wasn't a ranked contender by that time. As Wlad showed, he was willing to rematch Peter and Brewster.

 

The Wlad/McCline match was billed as a main event and looked somewhat more like an early undercard bout than it did a title fight. Quite underwhelming.

McCline seemed to come out in 'sparring partner' mode and it turned out to be a light workout for Wlad. As such and after several dull rounds, the finish was fairly tame, with McCline just looking exhausted, by the end of the 10th.


That said, other than the lack of excitement, it was a fairly competent performance - even if McCline was too cautious to deliver any type of sustained pressure.

 

Yes , it was very tragic. I think you're confused though. Sanders had long been retired when tragedy struck.
Im saying Wlad decided not to engage an immediate rematch after his second round loss. You said he ducked no one.

 

To give Wlad credit for that fight , his jab and hook off the jab was technically impressive. The destroyer thing is a bit overstated and stems from him battering a 41 year old pot bellied Ray Mercer

 

Agreed. I don't get the 'destroyer' tag at all, really. The Mercer bout does seem to be the origin for his being talked of in these terms, though.

Obviously, Wlad was heavy handed, but he often either strolled through his contests against half-useful opponents, wearing them down effectively in the process, or took an altogether safety-first approach.

 

How did a thread about Wlad's best fights go 3pages?

 

Yes, I forgot about that one, hence I said 'generally'. You'd be hard-pressed to find anything like the Povetkin fight in his earlier career though. He was mostly a clean textbook boxer back then, not a clinch spammer like he later became.

 

This is a flat out misrepresentation. Wlad clearly ducked a Sanders rematch. He never rematched Purrity, and he did not rematch Brewster until Lamon was basically blind, and had no business getting back in the ring.

 

I thought his outboxing and later destruction of Byrd were very impressive. Byrd was one of the greatest technical HWs of the 90s/2000s and generally proved a nightmare for most HWs, especially bigger guys. Wlad handled him with ease.

Like a lot of top HWs Wlad has his tougher than expected battles against lesser guys. Lennox lost to McCall and Rahman, and had a torrid time with Mercer, Holmes had a ton of struggles against lower level fighters and ended up getting beaten by a LHW, and Fury himself has been rocked and floored by all sorts of guys not known for their power or quality at the weight (Cunningham, Firtha, Pajcik, Wallin).

I think you miss seeing the wood for the trees if you focus too much on his losses.

 

I didn't remember Wlad scoring a first round knockdown against Mercer. Ray looked woefully out of shape, yes, but Wlad was really letting his hands go: tight, fluid, crisp combo's.. some power in that left hook too.

 

^ Fortunately I'm still around to debunk Dino's lies when he goes a little overboard.

The full story of the Sanders / Wlad rematch is here, in post #83 by Kentucky Cobra

https://www.boxingforum24.com/threa...e-other-way-round.583384/page-6#post-18454027

He knows this all too well, but seems to think that if he keeps shovelling coal into his Klitschko hate train, his fantasy will eventually become reality.

Uh, no.

 

The above statement is not really borne out by his resume.

 

I think that moment was vs Brock

He was still exciting vs Byrd and blew out Austin but vs Brock it was the first time that he came out so defensive and passive. The fight was an awkward kind of fight with Klitschko not really opening up until after a few rounds. The big KO kind of made people forget about how passive he was.

After that fight he had his first real big dud vs Ibragimov and thats when he lost the US fans. Some never quite got back on board after Brewster and Sanders but Ibragimov was kind of the nail in the coffin

Wlad really kept hurting his cause. Every time HBO tried to get him a feature fight he blew it by stinking it out vs Haye and Povetkin. Some of that falls on the opponents too but he always seemed to have his most boring fights when he had the most attention.

 

Sanders was shot and killed 9 and a half years after the Wlad fight!
He hadn't fought for 4 and a half years!