We have been waiting for it to get better since the day Lennox left. I argue that some of the former problems are now a thing of the past. 1) A LEGIT CHAMPION Wlad still has his haters, and always will, but after unifying three of four belts, stringing together a reign that competes with Holmes and Lewis in length, and beating some quality opponents such as Haye, Povetkin and Pulev, most of them have been silenced or they have faded away. It is just getting harder to deny the man. 2) VITALI GONE Love the guy, but the multi-polar universe of the brothers really did spread a thin roster down to nothing with no hope of unification. If he wants to come back in a few years when Wlad is gone and attempt to break Foreman's record as oldest champ, god bless him. But it is good that he is gone now. 3) CREDIBLE FIGHTS ON THE HORIZON After suffering through a real bad spell of Pineta, Wach and Mormeck, Wlad has had a couple of good ones back to back, and has a good series coming up: Winner of Fury-Chisora Winner of Stiverne-Wilder Povetkin rematch Maybe Bryant Jennings 4) HBO INTERSTED IN WLAD AGAIN Looks like they are finally on the bandwagon with a great champ 5) GOOD PROSPECTS Joshua leading the field Usyk will be a heavy eventually Dinu's carrer FINALLY taking off Hugh Fury Ruiz Jr. Joseph Parker Dominic Beazeale Good amateurs Pavel Doroshilov, Evengenios Lazaridis, and Sergey Kuzman recently joining the party A ton of lesser names such as Martin, Washington, Wallin, Wallisch, Granat etc. who at least seem big and powerful. 6) BULLPEN For a long time, it was hard to think of anyone who might come out of the blue and make a contribution. Now we have a few names like Haye, Helenius, Solis, and even Peter or Price who could come out of nowhere and make some good fights. 7) AIBA PRO/WSB I was down on this league for a long time but after watching the Usyk-Medzihdov fight, I am changing my mind. Guys like Medzihdov, Omarov and Dychko can turn pro after the next Olympics with a wealth of professional experience already under the belt. 8) LESS RETREADS, FAT GUYS, BLOWN UP MIDDLEWEIGHTS, AND OTHERS THAT NO ONE WANTS TO SEE No offense to some of the great names I am about to mention, but it seems like we finally got the Oquendo's, James Toney, Golotas, Adameks, Tuas, Rahmens, etc. out of the top ten for good. In the post Lewis era, it seemed that the division was flooded with guys that left us wishing for guys who were younger, bigger, harder hitting or in better shape. So, what do you think?
American networks/promoters were killing the division more so than the lack of talent.... They turned their backs on HW boxing, but yeah things are really starting to heat up, and the future looks very promising.
Things are improving. But there is still some uncertainty in regards to the quality of many contenders. Povetkin is the only contender who I could see being competitive in other stronger era's, the rest like Fury, Glazkov, Chisora, Jennings, Pulev, Solis and Wilder still have much to prove. The prospects like Parker and Joshua still have a lot to prove as well, all they have at the moment is potential. They could be exposed at any moment. The potential is there, if contenders keep facing off against once another and the prospects mature and become good contenders then we may be on the brink of a decent heavyweight division.
The division is better than what it used to be when king had his grip on it and feeding us with multiple round robins of Rahman vs Ruiz vs Holyfield vs Rahman again.
Apart from Wlad, the quality of fighters is as poor as ever really. The only name of the horizon that I know that may turn out to be good is Joshua, but who knows how he can turn out. Shame what happened with Haye, because he is actually one talented guy out of the lot of contenders, but his career faded away so quick with his disgracing himself in the process.
Yes I think it is, potentially some exiting fights ahead, hoping Fury fulfills his potential, Joshua also. Stiverne, wilder, povetkin all make for good fights and wlad is still around who is one of the best heavyweights of all time, I don't care what anyone says. On his day he could beat any of the previous hw champions. There's also Dillian whyte and then Hughie fury who if he gets well and back to 100% could be a great fighter too.
It still sucks, but it improving. There seems to be more willingness for top fighter to fight one another. The skill levels need to be worked on but hey, one thing at a time.
The main problem is that the top fighters need to fight each other. Everyone is just waiting for an undeserved Wlad pay check.