It's time to finally appreciate Wlad's class as the champion

The guy who padded canvases and threw headbutts at Fury?

Classless, midget clincher and pusher who didn't congratulate Fury when he won. BUM.

 

Don't mind abit of dirty tactics but literally grabbing hold and pushing people over getting knockdowns called because the refs were either bought or incompetent is pathetic. Povetkin fight was a farce Wlad was a one dimensional bum dosser who faltered the moment a decent man his own size fought him AJ included who is mediocre.

In the words of Fury, "you struggled with Tony Thompson for christ sake how will you handle me? You won't" and he didn't.

I agree Furys handling of is first Usyk loss was poor, big ego meets a knock.

 

This is 100% true even though Wlad's time did have a few problems in its own to be completely fair.

 

I respect you as a poster, and your post. Though I don’t agree with all of it. I definitely think Wlad should be commended for his longevity, for bouncing back from catastrophe and, as you say, for taking on those tough up-and-coming challengers when he was older.However, I think the quality of his reign was generally poor. Not his fault, granted. But only offset to a degree by the length of his reign. And some of the tactics in those performances were very questionable. As for the Lewis claim, I don’t agree that he ducked Byrd. There was literally no clamour for that fight. And, to be fair, Lewis did then go on to fight a greater threat in Vitali. I do not have Wlad in my personal HW top 10.

 

All that is true. Though Vitali, in fairness, was considered a greater threat than Byrd at the time who was, and still is to some degree, seen as a beneficiary of in injury win.

 

Lewis himself admitted that he ducked somebody but won't tell us who it was.

 

It is. I thought Usyk was already a greater HW than him, I’m not so sure now. Can you imagine Wlad dropping one of his belts rather than defending it against Fury to fight Sammy Schilt or Badr Hari or whoever the Kickboxing champion at the time was? You can’t, because he would’ve never done it.

 

No, Gomez was a great fighter and a good heavy. Let's not rewrite. Give the man his due.

Briggs would have been a good fight for him as a two-time champ, but also as exactly the kind of fighter Wlad was rarely able to beat...a physically big, imposing puncher.

 

A prime Briggs is a solid win yeah but not Briggs at that stage.