Has Wlad done enough to establish lineage?

Can somebody explain how he can be linear champ when he doesn't hold all the belts and has not fought the no. 1s , 2s and 3s of the division.

 

Wlad fought the No. 1 in 2006!!! (Chris Byrd) And the No. 3 in 2009 (Chagaev).

 

I just don't see how Vitali Klitschko ranked ahead of Ruslan Chagaev in mid-2009. :conf

He'd spent four years away from the ring, so it isn't as though he was picking up where he left off. Emeritus Shcmemeritus.

Fresh start.

Peter & Gomez. That's it. Yeah, he acquired a ladle-full of the most prestigious alphabet soup (the one with the green and gold bits, mm!! :blurp), but it was still just Peter & Gomez to base his ranking on. Nothing else. Four years of nothing, then Peter & Gomez.

Solid victories, to be sure.

...but, just Peter & Gomez.

Chagaev was riding a streak of six top-level wins that were all comparable in quality to beating Peter & Gomez, even if none of them outweigh either one individually.

Wladimir Virchis for a couple of secondary titles.
Michael Sprott, for a secondary & tertiary.
John Ruiz, for the WBA title (you know, the one that's several decades older than the WBC...the one worn by Ali...)
Nikolai Valuev, WBA title defense.
Matt Skelton, WBA title defense.
Carl Drumond, WBA title defense.

Three of them were undefeated.

Combined record of 182-16-1. (92% victorious)

...stacked against Peter & Gomez.


Let's assign them points values, shall we?

Peter - already beaten by Wladimir, then enhanced his rating and propelled himself towards the WBC title that Vitali would eventually take by way of a gift against blown-up Toney (although he clearly took the rematch against a causally jaded and unmotivated Toney), no longer feared as he was on the way up, with hardly anybody deluded any longer into thinking he was the new Liston - we'll say out of ten, that's a 6. Add five points for obtaining the WBC.

Juan Carlos Gomez - ATG amateur, fantastic cruiser...as a heavy? Eh, creditable scalp but not a #2-maker. We'll say also a 6. WBC defense. Bonus. +4.

21 points to Vitali, based solely on his comeback performances. None of this "he is the returning champ, emeritus status, yadda yadda". FOUR years off. Fresh slate.

Virchis - 5 points.
Sprott - 3 points.
Ruiz - 4 points. Tack on 4 for nabbing the WBA (and this is generous to the Vitali side, calling the WBC more prestigious)
Valuev - 4 points. WBA defense, +2.
Skelton - 3 points. WBA defense, +2.
Drumond - 3 points. WBA defense, +2.

32 points for Chagaev.


Not that it's often meant to be a strict criteria in rankings (and usually isn't) but even h2h, I don't think "most or almost all" regarded Vitali as #2 that early in his comeback. There were still lots of question marks, and concerns surrounding his age, long layoff, and having been plagued by injuries. Yeah, great, he beat Peter and Gomez - but just Peter & Gomez, y'know? Stylistically favorable to him, both. Meanwhile Chagaev was cruising along in fine form cleaning out a wide swath of the division facing all sorts of different styles, shapes & sizes.

I'm not a quantity over quality guy, but unless you REALLY rated Peter and Gomez inordinately high at the time the two of them alone don't pull down the scale from a continuous run of activity featuring thrice as many victories (at a not dissimilar level, IMO).

Sorry, but Chag was #2. :conf

 

Simply no, maybe if he was man enough to avenge his loses...........

 

Wladimir won against Chris Byrd in 2006, the No. 1 Heavyweight for the IBF/IBO Heavyweight Worldchampionship. This was the first IBO Fight since Lennox Lewis vacated the IBO belt.

After that Wlad unifies the titles.

He did enough to estabilish lineage.

 

Holmes has the W over Ali.

Exactly WHO has Wlad ever beaten?

 

Lennox became lineal champ by holding a single belt and without having beaten either Bowe, Moorer, Foreman or Holy. And he got it by beating Briggs who didn't have a single belt while holding it.

 

... Lewis is retired in 9 years! ....

Wlad collected most of the belts and he fought the strongest
opponent at the time which is enough to start lineage.

 

Ali was inactive a few years and was irrelevant in the picture, beside that after
winning back vs Spinks he announced retirement and vacated WBA belt that
is he was not technically linear champion when he fought Holmes.
And that means Holmes claim for lineage is no stronger than Wlad's

 

wbc?

 

As THE HW champion Ali announced his retirement in July of '79 and came back to fight Holmes in Oct. of '80. After that fight everybody recognized Holmes as THE HW champion. The notion that Ali was "irrelevant" is utterly ridiculous.

Again I ask, exactly WHO has Wlad ever beaten?