Is Wladimir Klitschko a top ten ATG heavyweight?

You're a moron.

 

So you learned how to use google translate. Congrats.

 

Super post. Your historical analogies are on target... especially the Johnson one ! Too many think one type of bigotry is unacceptable, but others are. Lots of lame hypocrites on esb.

Wlad is easily a top 10 ATG HW, would destroy or beat any of those HWs from the past :deal
His brother, LL, that's another question.
/ thread

 

To a clown like you is anything obvious :roll:

You MADE TWO statements and BOTH are IDIOTIC and utterly FALSE.

It's the strongest era in history with WORLD competition, or do you think the world begins and ends with Merica? :-(

Millions of fans will notice when he retires, some might even care. Unlike you successful people don't live through the accomplishments of athletes :bart

 

Bugner was much more better than Wach.
He beat Cooper,Wepner,Blin,the 21-0-0 Lubbers,Ellis,Tillis,Eklund,Mac Foster,James Smith etc.
His record 69(ko41)-13-1 he had 83 fights/571 rounds and only 4 ko losses only.
(by Bruno and Shavers,by Brown(at his debut),by Welch (he was 46 years old)
.He went the distance with Frazier,Ali.

And Wach? He had 28 fights and 147 rounds.He beat bums.

 

Plus Rahman destroyed Sanders and beat Puritty.

 

What the ****? McCall beat Maskaev (tko1),destroyed the prime Lewis,destroyed Akinwande,
knocked Damiani out,knocked Seldon out,beat the 45 years old Holmes,beat still
decent Ferguson,beat Lance Whitaker etc.
The nearly 38 years old,fat Lewis knocked vitali klitschko out.
Mccall destroyed a young unbeaten Lennox.
Klitards...

 

I'd say he's borderline top 10. Anywhere from around 8-12 I think could be argued.

If he had a higher level of comp than he'd easily be in the top 10 despite his losses. But given his record and his title defenses it's pretty hard to say he's not a top 10. But his losses (not that he lost, but how he lost) I think prevent him from being near the upper echelon of the list.

 

absolutely NOT all you idiots that voted yes need to go back and check the history of the heavyweight division.dominating the weakest era in heavyweight history wlad is overrated by all the euro trash on here.

 

People behaved exactly the same way about Lennox 10 years ago. Calling him a fraud... no way he makes top 10 ATG....etc

Wladamir will as well.

 

Since I think Wlad, Holmes and Liston are competing for the last two spots, I wrote this comparing them. Already posted in another thread, but this one inspired it, so...

. I am going to pick some categories which I think in my mind define greatness, grade them, and show that sensibly, they are interchangeable. These categories and grades are subjective, but I will take the arguments of the Klit haters into account, and, on a few of them, just to show that I am being fair, give Liston and Holmes some bonus points. Again, I like all three. Given the 140 or so years since the invention of Queensbury rules, I don't even think that a top ten is realistic, and we out to talk about a tope 15-25.


THE WINS
I think most would agree that Larry Holmes' four best scalps were Ken Norton, Ernie Shaver (twice), Tim Witherspoon, and Ray Mercer. Ali was a ghost, and that fight brought no honor to Larry. Other guys such as Cooney may still have supporters, but that 4 really is a good list. These four are very good to great-ish fighters who none-the-less blew hot and cold, and, despite some great wins, also suffered embarrassing defeats . What is more, other fighters beat them much more convincingly than Larry: (Norton KO by 1 Ernie Shaver, KO by 1 Jerry Cooney, KO by 8 Jose Luis Garcia; Shaver Ko by 1 Jerry Quarry, UD 10 Bob Stallings...a bunch of other; Mercer L12 Jessie Ferguson, Witherspoon KO by 1 Bonecrusher Smith)
Let me be blunt that I think Chris Byrd is better than any of them (wins of Tua, Holyfield, and Vitklit). I further thing that on the balance Larry's best are extremely comparable to Byrd, Povetkin, Haye, and Ibragimov, although you could probably switch in Chagaev or even Thompson.
Liston twice knocked out a minor ATG in 1 in Floyd Patteson, but Patterson was really a light heavy and spent a lot of his heavyweight career getting off the canvas against embarrassing opponents such as debuting Peter Radamacher and ducking the best fighters out there. Liston also beat some very well esteemed heavies such as Zora Foley, Eddie Machen and Cleveland Willams. These men are often mentioned as coul'da/woul'da/shoul'da champs but in the end we don't really know, and since the chinniest champ ever Patterson was able to beat a faded versions of one of them later on (Machen), and since all had their wins and losses, perhaps it can be said that none were really appreciably better than Patterson.
All of these guys had solid but unspectacular wins.
OVERALL GRADE:
All get a B


THE DEFEATS
Here is where Wladdy embarrasses himself and falls way behind, right? Three prime losses to fringe contenders (at the time he fought them).
Well, no. First of all, they all have embarrassing losses. Wlad's only really awful defeat was to Purity, and that can be chalked up to some inexperience. Sanders was always known as a guy who had mad skills despite a lack of training and desire, and Brewster went on to have e very respectable reign. He avenged his defeat to Brewster, arguably the best of the three. At 62-3, Wlad has easily the best win percentage of the three.
But let's talk about Larry's losses. First of all, he has twice as many as Wlad. Secondly, though they may not be as abjectly poor as Wlad's, I can envision no scenario by which Wlad loses to a light heavy, not even as good as Michal Spinks, not when he is 37, not when he is 67. What is more, I do not think this is a controversial opinion. So you can put Wlad down all you want, but Larry has at least two losses that Wlad would never have. There is no shame in being blown out by Tyson, but he was, and since he rebounded to have a good career into his fifties, I do not think age is entirely to blame.
Now for Sonny, who is entirely blameless here...right? Only four reasonable losses, 1 to injury, 2 to the greatest, and one to old age, right. Wrong.
Minus a fight, Sonny committed exactly the sins that Klit haters charge Vitali with. Ali was the greatest, but he was no big puncher, and Sonny committed two big quitagges against him. Yes, I get the special circumstances...there are always special circumstances. Liston also had his jaw busted against Marty Marshasll...Klit haters understand there injury is no excuse, right? OF course they don't. By the by, when Liston lost to Leotis Martin he was only 39. Wlad is still a dominant champ a 38 and Larry contended for the title at 45. We have already demonstrated similar competition and Wlad has had more fights, so no consideration for age.
With comparable competition, Wlad has a better winning percentage, and the extent of the embarrassment of his defeats is greatly exaggerated by any objective standards. Let's do this liberally to cover a wide variety of legit opinions.
OVERALL GRADE:
Wlad: B- to B
Larry B- to a B+
Sonny B to a B+


END OF PART 1

 

PART2

THE TITLE REIGHN
Here where we give fat bonus points to Sonny.
It gets tricky in the era of multiple titles, but saying that Wlad won the belt from Byrd, he has had 16 title defenses. If you consider his previous title reign (I certainly don't) then you can add another 5. It is a good run regardless.
Larry had about 20 defenses.
Now let's be generous to our friend Liston and say that that whole era from 56-62 he also reigned as the uncrowned champ or the people's champ. Liston had 19 fights in that time, and in addition made a successful defense against Patterson ( the title fight has to be considered as a title fight). Not all of them were even passable as title quality, but there were terrific names such as Valdez, Machen, Foley, and Williams in addition to Patterson. Wlad and Holmes are obviously top of the line, and being very generous with Sonny here, he is very close.
OVERALL GRADE:
Wlad- A
Larry- A
Sonny- A-, B+

DOMINACE FACTOR (PERFORMANCE IN WINNING FIGHTS)
Now here is where the Holmes fans are going to get up a little bit upset.
Larry could have lost several fights that are counted as wins on his record. Carl Williams, Ken Norton, and Tim Witherspoon all go on that list. Tellingly, two of those fights (Norton, Witherspoon) are regarded (perhaps incorrectly) as two of Larry's great wins. Though he won it clearly, Holmes himself talks about how he could have been finished in the second Shaver fight. Renaldo Snipes is also often mentioned as a tough fight for Larry to win (against inferior opposition, though) becuase of a brutal knockdown.
I know of no similar glitches in the road by Wlad and Sonny. Perhaps others can enlighten me. Wlad's struggle to get up against three knock downs in the first Peter fight and his knock/down technical decision against Williamson come to mind, but they were not tile fights. Some people find his jab and grab style fan unfriendly, but it gets the job done. Let us be real that in term of vulnerability, it is Larry and Larry only that stands out.
OVERALL GRADE:
Wlad: B to B+
Larry B-
Sonny A


UNIFYING TITLES/ FIGTING EVERYONE
Liston had no titles to unify, and fought everyone he could get his hands on.
Wlad has unified three of four and is trying desperately to unify the forth. He sometimes catches some flack for not fighting his brother, for not re-matching Sanders, and for letting his brother get a couple fo fights he might have had. These are all minor by any fair minded person. Brothers don;t fight, and in any event, Vitali was not calling him out or anything, so not going to hurt him. I don't think history is going to fight any less of him for not fighting the Arreolas and Briggs of the world. Perhaps he should have goteen Sanders back in there. All said and done, these things really don't hurt him that much.
Larry, on the other hand, OPENLY gave up matches against Greg Page and Pinklon Thomas. He never made a matches against Dokes. The only unification he attempted was a handshake against Coetzee which fell though. There is no debating this...he abandoned a title rather than fight page and openly told reporters that if boxing wanted him back, they couldn't expect him to fight young guys like Thomas. It was quite disgraceful at the time.
Wlad- B to B+
Sonny- A
Larry- C

General reputation
Larry and Sonny are both enjoying unnatural heights of fan appreciation which are not historical, and will not last. Wlad has not retired, and thus he has not gotten his nostalgia perspective boost. Really they are going to be comparable, perhaps Wlad a little higher if he beats Pulev and Wilder/Stiverne.
Sonny has a very inflated rep, possibly due to the good things that Foreman and Tyson have said about him. I cannot remove him from the fact that his reputation went through a very bad period due to the quitagges.
Larry's reputation before his big comeback was terrible. Truly awful. Fans and sports writers openly discussed him as a guy who ducked fights, beat up on a decrepit Ali, fought the Marvis Fraizers of the world, got some gifts decisions, lost to a light heavy, and showed a generally disrespectful attitude to those who paid for the tickets. He was particularly held accountable for his abusiveness towards Marciano's brother. His big comeback did a lot to repair that reputation, but as someone who is old enough to have seen it all first hand, I don't think he gets a magical free pass.
Wlad- incomplete
Larry- B (I think that is very fair)
Sonny- B to an A-

Head to Head
No one really knows about this, and anyone who says they do is full of ****.
I would tentatively pick Larry to beat Wlad simply because I think Wlad would play his game of jabbing with a jabber. Wlad has right hand power, but Larry had a crakin' right too. But Wlad is the more versatile puncher, and if he did mix in some of his beautiful hooks like the Wlad of old, I don't see how Larry wins it.
Sonny is harder for me to fathom. He has a freakish reach, but height matters and Wlad is about six inches taller. I could see Wlad perplexed that the little guy is getting through with some murderous punches, or I could see it being another easy snoozefest in Wlad favor.
Grades- You decide.
So there you have it. They are comparable, Sure, others see some of these categories differently, and others would come up with different criteria altogether, but I have tried to give breaks to all three, and see it as objectively as possible. If I had to rank them now:
1. Sonny
2. Wlad
3. Larry
But Wlad absolutely has a chance to climb higher before he retires.

 

Exactly. People act today as if Lennox was always a lock for universal recognition by boxing fans. The truth is Lennox was hated during his time, he was despised and criticized during his active years. Only after Lewis retired the public started giving his credit.

 

No, top 20 but not top 10.

The top 10 are, for me:

Muhammed Ali
Joe Louis
Jack Johnson
Larry Holmes
Evander Holyfield
George Foreman
Rocky Marciano
Jack Dempsey
Lennox Lewis
Joe Fraizer