Now that the dust has settled... where does Wlad belongs ?

In my HW list, he is number 12 of all time....

1- Joe Louis
2-Muhammad Ali
3-Larry Holmes
4-George Foreman
5-Evander Holyfield
6-Joe Frazier
7-Mike Tyson
8-Jack Johnson
9-Rocky Marciano
10-Jack Dempsey
11-Lennox Lewis
12-Wlad Klistchko
13-Sonny Liston
14-Max Schmeling
15-riddick Bowe
16-Gene Tunney
17-Ken Norton
18-Jersey Joe Walcott
19-Ezzard Charles
20- Harry Wills

My number 20 gotta be Harry Wills, who I had a bad impression because I found he looked bad in the Firpo footage but hey….(Who I should put at number 20, btw ? Cooney ? Lyle ? Earnie Shavers ? I don´t wanna put Patterson or Baer, because I don't think they belong in a top 20. I don´t rank active fighters..

 

Yes, I know, but my lists are a soup of resume, dominance, attributes and…… H2H, and in this one Patterson is tragically bad.

 

Why ? Because he beat Patterson ? Nah, I have my reservations with Wlad but Wlad at least had a wide veriety of different opponents and style and was proven against them. They are close together because I think Liston could very well beat Wladimir.

 

No, I explain it. Attributes is different than H2H, I don't consider Lewis and Wlad top tier skilled fighters, they were big and powerful sure. But who could not beat Wlad and Lewis if Corrie Sanders and Rahman got the job done ?

Would you be super confident in picking Wlad or Lennox against someone like Shavers ? I wouldn´t. You see where I'm coming from ?
Naturally, of course, I have my own bias....
I rank Marciano high because he found a way to win. Even considering how small he was, I do think he wouldn´t lose to Rahman or Sanders or Ross Purity (green, prime or past prime, whatever the part of his career)

 

I find Lewis difficult to rank. On one hand he looked the part in the final stage of his career. But how much of that was due to fitted match ups for him ? He beat Vitali but of course he beat Vitali, it fitted him perfectly that match.
He did not look the part before, with different type of opponents. I think he lost to Mercer, he did get stopped by Rahman (who was not anything special) and he didn´t really beat McCall in the rematch...

All this you and everybody here knows, but it seems like everybody forgets that Larry Holmes didn´t have these irregularities during their reign. Wlad and Lennox did.

Tyson, in his prime, to me, personally, could beat anyone....

 

You´re right, the top 3 is where I am sold out.
I am surprised by how high people rate Wlad. Not for nothing, I like Wlad, but his legacy aged well it seems. I just don´t buy this h2h aura that he seems to have...