would boxing be better with champions like eddie chambers, david haye, sam peter etc. etc. would HW be better without wlad
By better do you mean more exciting since titles would be changing hands every 2 fights? No. A dominant champion is always good for the division.
No, Wlad has done nothing wrong. He's an ambassador for the sport and dominant champions aren't the worst thing a division can have. The problem with the division is that nobody even comes close to being as good as Wlad is. He's a very good fighter but he's not great, however, that's still more thane nough to dominate. Dimitrenko is considered top 10 and yet Michael Sprott, an old journeyman, was the better fighter when they fought. Robert Helenius is top 5, number 3 in many eyes, and yet he's such a poor fighter who has a bit of power. There is nobody outside of Wlad and Vitali, who deserve the acclaim of being called a 'top 10 heavyweight' because from 3 onwards, the list is just terrible. That's the issue with the division. Wlad is a very good fighter, Vitali is good and everyone else is just very poor.
^^Logic: Wlad is head and shoulders better than everyone else, and has been for 8 years, but ISNT GREAT nut:nut
I don't care if its a weak era, the man must get his just dues. He has barely lost a round in years and years, and completely dominated his opposition. When Wladimir retires, the sport will lose a dominant champion, and in due time, he'll get his just dues. He is a great, he'll end up top15 for me. He might even creep into the top10, depending on what he does in the coming years.
No, he isn't. He's never beaten a great fighter, so he can't be ranked as one himself. That's not his fault, no, but it is a relevant fact. There isn't a single great fighter in history, who didn't beat a great fighter themselves.
Not his fault no one can make him abandon his style and "fight exciting". His job is to win, and he does. Its the other guys job to rattle him and make him fight the way they want him to fight. Blame everyone else for not being good enough, not the Champ for being too damned good.
This is true and Wlad certainly deserves credit for dominating but does it make him a great fighter? I don't think it does. Going to extremes, a 'good' fight will win 100 fights against 'awful' opponents but does that make the 'good' fighter 'great'? No, it doesn't. It just makes him better than his opposition. It's a bad situation for Wlad. I'm sure he is desperate to fight a genuinely great fighter himself but the fact is, he hasn't and it's unlikely he ever will. That's just the current state of the division right now. Wlad is dominating easily but we'll never know how good he really is, because there's nobody out there for him to prove himself against. I suppose the flip side to this argument, would be that Chambers, Brock, Haye etc., are all excellent fighters themselves but Wlad is so good than he made them look poor. There is an argument there but the records won't back that argument up in 20 or 30 years time, for the simple reason that Chambers, Brock and Haye as a heavyweight weren't proven.
I think everyone would like to see Wlad knock these guys out but you're right, you can't criticize him for that. He is capable of knocking them out but his job is to win. I'd like to see him go for it a bit more though. He could have an even better knockout record and it'd improve his legacy too. A weak chinned fighter like Haye going the distance with him, doesn't help his legacy.
There is no reason why Wlad couldn't knock most of these guys out in the first few rounds. He has almost every conceivable advantage. If the heavyweight champ was exciting and smashing through challengers (as he is capable of doing) then he would be on HBO, he would have a much larger fanbase and the heavyweight division would be a lot more popular. But he doesn't. That's his perogative.