Langford v Wlad?

From what many people are saying about Wlad's era, there was never much of anything in the division to "clean out" in the first place.
"Clean out" at least implies have some recognized pretenders knocking around, a semblance of a hit list.
Many would agree that there's just been a load of "contenders-by-default" who no one believed in in the first place.

 

That's the general rule, but who decides the Top 2? The Ring, as they're now becoming biased and have never been unfallable. You could certainly make a good case that Chagaev with wins over Ruiz, Valuev, Virchis, Sprott and Skeleton should be above Vitali on recent form with his wins over Peter and Gomez after having 2 years out.

 

Oh come on, he was 9-1 coming into the Wlad rematch, partly ruined by his wars and coming off that loss to likovich and past his best but he was legit with wins over Wlad, Golota and Krasniqui.

We don't rate Charles as a Marciano opponent based on what he did after Marciano after all.

In the rankings yes, but he was 1 of the best around 04-06 and beat Ruiz more convincingly than Valuev (while using nandrolone admittedly) and Holyfield.

Peter going onto beat Toney and Maskeev legitimises him as 1 of the top contenders of the era, although both were past it.

Chambers beat Peter, Dimetrenko, Brock, Guinn which was 1 of the better in form resumes coming into the Wlad fight.

 

Well it depends how you choose or define 1 and 2. I don't think Chagaev was ever better than Vitali but he does have a better 2 year resume than Vitali. Wlad and Byrd were arguably 1 and 2 in '06.

If you're going by 1 and 2 rulings and you have a subjective choice over rankings, linear itself becomes very subjective. And isn't the be all anyway as many have Charles as no1 LHW after all.

Bottom line is the issue seems to be we never would know who wins between Vitali and Wlad. It isn't a sporting failure though.

 

Byrd lost 2 fights after Wlad too, making 1-2 in that period, he's still on your list, because he was one of the best coming into the fight (questionable decisions aside).

Walcott is 0-2 in Marciano's reign, Charles had plenty of loses after, both are rightly considered 2 of his best scalps. Holyfield picked up plenty of losses after his Lennox losses, same with Tyson, again 2 of his best scalps.

Losses after a title shot are rarely factored in to the challenge a champion faces and aren't really anymore significant than a retirement after a loss.

Not to overplay Brewster, he isn't great but he's certainly as significant during the period as Maskeev.

 

Mostly because Holmes, with the exception of one or two posters, isn't a polarizing figure. Dempsey, Marciano, Ali- you have guys arguing that they're the Greatest Ever and others arguing that they are overhyped bums with padded or fraudulent resumes. No one will argue Holmes for the top spot and so his failures as a champion are ignored in favor of simple summaries of his success, which are more obvious and require less thought, as they are more about numbers (7 years as champion, 20 defenses albeit of a splintered reign) than names and need no real familiarity to list. The debate about Holmes isn't whether he is the best or a con man; it's was he great or very good.

 

Apparently I do.


Povetkin is #3 and I already listed Thompson II at #10.

Yeah, Piant, Wach, and Mormeck weren't rated by Ring. But they are acceptable busy fights while he waits for his challengers to sort themsleves out. Wlad made it clear he wanted to fight three times a year, and if his contenders weren't ready, he would find someone who was. Wach actually turned out to be Wlad's toughest opponent in some time, so that turned out to be a good call on his part.

 

The IBF tried to pit Adamek, Chambers, and Arreola against Thompson at varoius points, all declined. Eventually they just gave Thompson his rematch with Wlad because nobody would fight him for the ranking.

Give Thompson some props, he'll fight anybody and with the exception of Pulev this year has thrashed everyone that tried to use him as stepping stone. He's an effective but unappealing fighter who never had the leverage to make fights with other Ring Ranked contenders. When such fights were ordered by sanctioning bodies, his opponents wiggled their way out of it. He hangs around the top 10 by beating up fringe fighters convincingly and climbing the alphabet rankings, which isn't exactly unique to him or this era.