Re-writing the history of boxing: WBO belt

I will take a look at it properly. I don't think I have ever seen anyone write up a whole top 100 for just heavyweights either.

When this era is over I suspect we will get more lists like that.

 

I suspect I may have him around Top 50 if I did some crazy type heavyweight list. I don't really know though and I don't rate Bowe quite as highly some people do either even though he was obviously a great fighter he by large rides on the Holyfield fights which obviously do have big worth tbf.

 

1. Bowe beat Holyfield (1). This is better than Wilder’s draw with Fury
2. Bowe’s reign against a totally washed up Dokes and journeyman Ferguson is beyond forgettable. He later beat Donald, Hide, and and Gonzalez in with an unrecognized WBO belt after losing lineage to Holyfield. This just isn’t as good Wilder being on the shortlist of guys to defend a major title into double digits.
3. I rank the two Ortiz fights above Bowe winning the third Holyfield fight when he wasn’t all there and whatever you call the Golota fights. I see Ortiz as having been a serious talent and Wilder won those cleanly.
4. The before the title stuff isn’t especially important for either.

This has Wilder slightly ahead for me. I’m not a big fan of giving the benefit of the doubt to guys who score a big win and can’t hold it together. For example, I think McCall objectively has a better resume than Bowe since he beat Lewis, Holmes, Akinwande, Maskaev, and Damiani, but nobody is going to rank him ahead.

 

@cross_trainer
It’s hard to win make as many consecutive title defenses as Wilder at heavyweight even if most of the opposition is limited. Witherspoon wouldn’t have been able to that. (He’d come in fat and lose to someone just like real life.)

(I’m on a plane and the quote function isn’t working correctly.)

 

Wilder did make it to the top of the heap, but it was brief. He was pretty clearly the man after Joshua lost and until Fury won the rematch. Fury/Arum went the marination route after the draw with Wilder and basically killed the convo for Fury to be considered the best in the division.

Bowe and Wilder are close, but I think Witherspoon is definitely below both. I don’t think Wilder or Bowe would outdo each other’s career results if the opponents were switched, but I’d expect both to outdo Witherspoon w the exception of Bowe being incapable of having a good late thirties career.

 

Wilder beat a top 5 guy to win the title (Stiverne), stopped a top 5 guy twice (Ortiz), got the draw Fury, and won eleven straight title fights before losing.

Bowe beat the top guy (Holyfield), beat him again when I’m guessing he was fringe top 5, and basically did little in terms of title defenses or beating guys near the top of the division.

I don’t see that as Bowe having done more than Wider. If Fury stayed down in first or third fight, I don’t think it would be especially close.

 

And he still wouldn’t have had a draw against Holmes and ten title defenses.

 

I don't even know how good Luis Ortiz was. He was over 40 years old even first time that Wilder fought him - if I remember correctly (I remember Fury saying that He was in his 50s and was "probably good in his prime, in the 90s", but that just as a humorous note) - and had literally 1 quality win in his career, over Bryant Jennings.
To touch on my earlier point, some of the early Wlad WBO contenders - like Charles Shufford and Jameel McCline - have superior resume to him. I of course acknowledge that Ortiz passes the eye-test - at least to a level that's beyond what He actually accomplished, but I'm not sure at all He'd beat prime McCline, for example.

 

They dug a 25 year hole for themselves at inception by sanctioning Francesco Damiani vs Johnny Du Something as their inaugural heavyweight title fight instead of begging Mike Tyson to accept recognition. Maybe they did ask and Tyson wasn't interested?

 

Yeah this is all fine. So would you object to 50ish or go higher or lower?

 

Huge underplay of the fact many felt Wilder was robbed of the KO at that time.

 

Riddick gave up his WBO belt because it was ******ing his career.
His words.
That was after he tried claiming he was the people's champ after winning it..lol

 

When you divorce it from Wilders early title defenses this is actually a reasonable message.

 

First fight was close in my opinion but Fury won it by a point or 2. But yeah Wilder was like a half second away from victory and that would have changed a lot. To me that shows Fury's underrated mettle he was coming back from 400 pounds in weight gain and drug addiction and was able to produce that. When people bash Fury on here they forget that.