Can Wlad Break Joe Louiss Record Of 25 Title Defences? Manny Steward says he can!!

Holmes beat Ali, who was the last generally recognized Heavyweight Champion at that point.

As for undisputed, you will rarely if ever have a literal undisputed champion, as he would never fight. Because the moment he did fight, someone would be disputing his title...

As I previously stated, you get generally recognized world champions. They need to beat the champ of the time to win the title. Or beat the other generally recognized top contender of the time to win the vacant title.

Holmes beat Norton, who was going into that bout the generally recognized #1 contender to the winner of the Spinks/Ali rematch. Holmes also had a victory over the then other alphabet title holder (Weaver). when Ali came back. Ali was the generally recognized world champion who had retired undefeated. When Ali came back he first fought the generally recognized #1 contender, Larry Holmes, and lost thus The Black Cloud was champion.

 

I was also following him then.

Against Skelton it was a very scrappy affair and not much could be taken from that, plus Skelton was the top fighter from britain and would shortly pick up the euro belt. He did get blasted out by Rogan in a come from behind stoppage and then personal problems seriously ****ed his life up for the next few years. He recently beat Tom Dallas and whilst I don't ever expect him to amount to much anymore, he could feasibly get a big payday againstt he likes of fury or price.

Drummond was a poor show and memory tells me some sort of cut occured? can't remeber who to though. I remember thinking at the time that perhaps he had taken drummond lightly (just a couple of years previous he was taking on ruiz and valuev and was touted as having a big professional future).

After he was never able to get going against Wlad, we can join the dots and say, yes he never did recover. But going into the Wlad fight I certainly wasn't thinking that, maybe you were further ahead of the game than I though.

A similar comparison is today with Pacman. going into the margo and mosley fights he was seen as being in the prime form of his life. He was tipped to smash Marquez into retirement. Looking back though, we can join the dots and notcie a decline that began with the drab clottey fight. Maybe his hunger is waining, or he has distractions elsewhere, or after 17 years of the pro game, his body is beginning to fail, who knows the reason. However it does seem to me he has been slipping for a while, but I wouldn't have thought that going into the marquez fight, despit now believing it began before than.

 

What a load of hogwash.

If you're telling me that you judge fighter's based on criteria where it is better to batter a parkinson's riddled man than a series of number 3 ranked opponents, then I have to say your criteria is bull****.

 

No doubt, but Wlad's losses and opp(to me)are among the very worst of all the fighters usually brought up in the ATG Heavy discussion.Big drawbacks that should mean he'd need to do some really significant stuff to get into a top 3 if you favour a balanced\"all things considered" criteria imo.Unless number of defenses is all that matters?.

 

Maybe, but it is the only way to become a generally recognized world champion. Sadly in 1980 we did not have 32 years hindsight to know Ali had Parkinson's. Yes I think we knew Ali was not right. But it was put down to a long 20+ year career and some epic, gruelling battles, that had left him a bit frail around the edges.

I was pretty young, but I remember my Dad thought Ali had one more miracle in him, and was going to win, and he was hardly alone in that thought, as mad as it sounds today.

 

Who says it's the only way?

Whilst you didn't have 32 years hindsight, you had the knowledge that he received gift after gift after the thriller in manilla.

You had the knowledge he went 1-1 with leon spinks.

Larry became champ when he beat norton.

 

Precisely.

 

The general concenus

I think you are looking at it as too matter of fact. What you write is true. But it was not so black and white. You are forgetting the romance and mystique that swirled around Ali at the time. It helped a lot of people overlook what in hindsight was pretty obvious.

To become THE champ, it needs to be recognized by the public. Thus Holmes did have to go through with in hindsight a basic public execution to be recognized as champ.

 

The general concensus? what does that even mean?

The public media WORLDWIDE report Wladimir as the champion. is that geenral enough for you?

Yes Ali was a media darling, but being a media darling doesn't win fights. Newspaper's reporting the fights are all clear cut on Ali's succession of handwrapped gifts from the judges.

As I say, any system that prefers a parkinson's riddled man to a succession of top 5 opponents is bull****.

 

Yes but the one advantage Skelton had over Ruiz was strength. Matt is a very strong man and he used this against chagaev.

It was **** against Drummond, but as i say, I had him down as being unmotivated for the fight.

Exaclty, it's making a judgement. Mine was that Skelton was an ugly fight and Drummong was a tune up he couldn't be arsed with. If you saw the signs and read it correctly then fair play to you.

 

I agree with the first paragraph, but disagree with the second.

To become the modern equivalent of a "unified" or "undisputed" champ -- and we both agree there will rarely, if ever, be an actual undisputed champ again -- a titleholder needs merely to show that he's better than everyone else. Period.

By late 1980, Holmes had done more than enough to show that he was better than everyone else. He had beaten Norton, who was really "best" in the world in early 1978. Holmes had KO'd Weaver, who went on to take the WBA belt by KO'ing Tate, in addition to defending it by KO'ing Coetzee. Holmes had also defended his belt against numerous top-10 contenders by the time of the Ali fight. Hands down, Larry Holmes was the real champ. No argument here...no need to fight Ali.

The Ali fight was made to show that Holmes could "kill" Ali's mystique...or his romance, if you will. This was totally unnecessary from the standpoint of proving who was the world's real heavyweight champion.

 

You think? I think the vast majority of the media cannot identify either of the brothers. And their perceived lack of charisma makes the media not really care. If one were to retire, then maybe in due course one of them, probably Wlad would get the consensus vote as champ. But at his age I think it unlikely he would go on and beat Louis' defences record.

 

Vlad already has the "consensus vote" as champ. And yes, he could beat Louis's record. All Vlad has to do is defend his belt 3 times annually for 4 years. He shows no signs of slowing down physically, so it's not unreasonable to expect him to fight until age 39.

As for competition, there is nobody on the horizon who can even remotely threaten Vlad. Absolutely nobody.

 

Yes.

With Vitali's admission that he's accepting second place, Wlad is generally regarded in the public eye as the champion.

In my mind it's quite clear that he's the best hw in the world and has ben for 6 years now so that's what I consider when making my own mind up.