How do you rank Wlad Klitschko historically?

Povetkin was equally if not more to blame for what happened in that fight. He just charged into Wlad's chest head down for most of the fight and initiated the clinching in the first place.

 

Great post although I disagree with you to an extent. I don’t necessarily disagree with any of your points, but just question who is ranked ahead of him?

To me, he falls somewhere between 5-10 and I have a hard time making sense of him being outside of that more than like one place in either direction. His opponents were small compared to him, but pretty good, and he dominated most of them. The length of his reign is a real feat, and he’s one of the hardest punchers in the divisions history.

As a slight aside - but related to your points about the size difference with his opponents:

I rewatched the AJ fight recently. While he was older, I do have to say I was surprised how straight up awkward he looked fighting someone closer to his size, and how his fundamentals were less then expected..

Im one of the people who has often put “???” Around Fury’s win over him due to his age and personal life stuff at the time - but after seeing him again against the much more hit table and less crafty AJ - I think Fury mostly won because he had superior ringcraft and a more varied game… and Wlad simply didn’t know wtf to do with him.

 

Top 5 just behind Ali, Louis, Lennox and maybe Holmes besides those 5 no other fighter was as dominant for as long in the Heavyweight division which is an amazing feat and should make those 5 the top of any heavyweight list. While some might criticize Wlad's competition, I think nowadays people have come to realize his competition was not awful and he beat some pretty good fighters throughout his reign such as Byrd, Povetkin, Haye, Chagev etc. And among the other long reigning champs only Ali and Lennox had an objectively better resume.

 

Dr Steelhammer went 10 years without losing a round, always in great shape and fought at elite level until 42.

For me personally top 6-10 ATG HW.

1. Lennox
2. Louis
3. Holmes
4. Ali
5. Iron Mike
6. Wlad
7. Marciano
8. Dempsey
9. Foreman
10. Usyk