Contrast Holmes' reign with Klitschko's.

Peter byrd brock ibraimov chagaev haye povetkin pulev quite impressive fighters!

 

Both Wlad and Holmes had similar number of title defenses, depending it could be 22 vs 20, 17 vs. 19 or 17 vs. 20.

Holmes has wins over Norton, Shavers (x2), Mercer, Witherspoon, ****ey.

Wlad has wins over Haye, Byrd (x2), Povetkin, Chagaev, Peter, Pulev, Ibragimov.

H2H would be very close.

IMO, both stand close in historical rankings. And if Wlad beats a couple more contenders and/or unifies, he should be ranked higher.

 

Vlad would have knocked Holmes out cold.........................

 

I like reading Farmboxer ****ysis, it's always a great job and I believe it takes some time to write such quality posts

 

Very interesting thread here. Should be a good read.

 

Agreed :good

I don't see Holmes' competition as being nearly as good as Intentional Butt does. Witherspoon was his best win and that is considered a less than convincing W for Holmes--meaning some think 'Spoon won.

The boxing publications at the time ( I was around back then ) constantly suggested that Gerry C0oney was a hype job with a padded record built against has-beens and tomato cans. Sort of like the criticism aimed at Deontay Wilder these days.

Zanon---no way this guy would last against Chagaev, Povetkin, Ibragimov, Haye, Brewster I and possibly Thompson and even Wach and Pulev would beat him. Byrd, Chambers and Brock would probably beat him too. Zanon is just not a credible contender in my opinion.

Ali...at the point of the Holmes fight many state that Ali's Parkinsons was already in its early stages. I have a vague memory of somebody writing that at the time Ali was even suffering from thyroid problems. Ali is a big name to have on the ledger but anything that late in his career doesn't have the same cache as something in his prime. I don't see that as being terribly different than if Klitschko had beat the daylights of Holyfield---if he had, you know he wouldn't get the same credit Holmes gets for beating a faded version of Ali. Even though Holyfield would be tougher than a faded Ali; Holyfield's conditioning and better technical skills make him more dangerous than Ali deprived of his athleticism by age and taking way too many punches not only from his contests, but from his sparring partners as well.

I just don't see the same quality in Holmes' opponents.

I don't see Evangelista as being a quality challenger. His "success" against Ali---meaning Ali out boxed him for 15 rounds instead of KOing him, is really from Ali's deterioration from age and wear and tear rather than anything Evangelista did. Look at the opponents he boxed between his defeat to Ali and his challenge vs Holmes: mostly tomato cans. I don't think that a fighter could face comparable opposition and then fight for a title today.

 

Haye B+ and Chambers A-, I can not agree with that. Exactly the opposite, I think there's at least one class difference between them in Haye's favour.

The meritum of the dissapointment with Haye's fight was IMO caused by the discrepancy between his pre fight trashtalking and his actual performance in the fight itself.

But let's try to look at the fight trough, speaking relatively, objective lenses. Considering Haye's small frame and his not quite good stamina, I think he did very well in that fight. Not only that, I think he put one of the best performances against WK in general.

He tried more than a dozen of Hayemakers, but Wlad just dodged them all. People are forgetting, or often just plain can not or will not accept, for whatever reasons, how good and very quick WK actually is. So they will rather try to belittle his opponents instead.

Haye is a tremendous fighter IMO. One that would be a force to be reckoned with in any era. Unfortunatelly, maybe, he happens to be in the Klitschko one, where many people label all Klitschko's opponents as mediocre or even worse than that, per se. In this case, I can not disagree more.

Have a nice day.

 

LOL. I'm convinced he just saves all of his posts in a notepad, and just spams them every time he logs on.

 

A tougher rival for Klitschko on historical rankings would be Lewis. Wlad has been able to dominate longer, but Lewis had his good 5-6 years and defeated prime Mercer, Golota and Vitali Klitschko. AND avenged all his loses.

IMO you can argue that Klitschko is greater than Marciano (his career is shorter than Wlad's unbeaten streak), Holmes (as some on this thread suggest), Frazier (who only had one great win but lost the trilogy and had a 38 fights overall) or Foreman (who had a short prime). BUT I don't see how Wlad can rank above Lewis.

 

Somebody can say Lewis' record may be a little bit misleading. Quite a few people have expressed the opinion that Lewis did not deserve the win versus Mercer. Golota never won any big fights, was not a particularly powerful puncher and was on drugs when Lewis flattened him. Oliver McCall was literally having a nervous breakdown during his rematch with Lewis. Hasim Rahman was given the worst technical advice ever given during a heavyweight title fight: keep both your hands straight out and he can't hit you. Holyfield was past his prime. Michael Grant was Michael Grant and so forth. I just don't see past fighters having their records scrutinized as closely as active fighters, especially in the heavyweight division.

Furthermore

This is who Alfredo Evangelista fought between his fight vs Ali and a title challenge against Larry Holmes

Christian Poncelet 29-10-2
Lucien Rodriguez 15-4-1
Jean Pierre Coopman 31-7-1
Billy Aird 19-10-5
Billy Joiner 11-12-3
Jody Ballard 27-10
Jacob Tchanthuing 2-0-0
Joe Maye 3-31-2

We would be reading even more posts about how "the heavyweight division is at its all time worst" if Pulev fought comparable opposition before his title challenge against Klitschko.

 

Since the time of the original post Klitschko has added Povetkin (which was an option on the poll), Pulev and Jenninngs. I think with those three it clearly tilts in Wlad's favor and with Fury on the horizon it's pretty much a Wlad lock. Wlad is greatly enhancing his legacy in the last stage of his career.

 

Ross Purrity, Corrie Sanders and Lamon Brewster all would disagree.

Losses COUNT - and Holmes never found himself on the wrong end of the mopping the floor equation while in his prime as Klitschko did.

 

Grabbamir was 40-1 when he got demolished by Sanders - so please, drop the "pre-prime" BS. It makes you look like a drooling mental patient...