Ring magazine ratings at heavy

Whatever happened to Ruslan Chagaev?

 

I'm a huge Brewster fan, but he doesnt even deserve to be in the top 20, let alone the top 10. He took over a year off from his terrible showing against Wlad in July of 07, which was 15 months since his losing effort against Liakhovich in April of 06, his last decent win was against Krasniqi in late 05, thats nearly 3 years, both Maskaev and Ruiz have been fighting top competition and have a few solid victories over decent fighters.

Arreola has beat noone give any right for him to be top 10, he's still young though. As far as Thompson, yeah the guy had 6 or 7 years of being undefeated, but look at his comp, his beat win over that span is over Luan Krasniqi, hardly a world beater.

I agree with Gomez being higher, he has proven enough over the last year or so to be ranked higher, big wins over McCall and Virchis, is definitely enough to get him past Maskaev.

 

I am not sure why you are giving to current version of Toney some much credit but according to your analogy, since Toney barely beat Danny Batchelder, all of the above should be able to beat the fatty, quite handily.

 

No, I was going off his showing against Rahman a few months back, he looked fit, and was counter punching well like the Toney of old. I predicted a Toney knockout in that fight, and most disagreed with me, but after watching the fight, most people came on hear saying how Rahman quit, because he was on the verge of being knocked out, which I agree with.

I give Toney a chance, why not, he's not a bad fighter. Given the state of affairs in a punch drunk division, I believe Toney has a good chance to beat half of the top 10 currently out there, while he lost to the number 2 guy, he proved he can take a Heavyweight punch and then some, as well as be competitve with some of the best the division has to offer. Even a fat and old James Toney, is probably still one of the most skilled fighters the division has to offer.

 

The problem with the Rahman fight comparison is that Rahman is probably more washed up than Toney as well (after all the name of the event was "Loser Retires"). Do you remember the recent Rahman's showings against Sykes and Lawrence?

 

Good point, I watched both fights on that Versus channel last year, and remember him getting rocked by both of them, I forget which one, but it looked as if Rahman was going to go through the ropes again. Sykes aint a bad fighter, he's just not top class, and still probably has "Nightmares" of when Peter punched his head off the ropes on the way down from his knockout against him. Zuri Lawrence on the other hand is walking knockout waiting to happen, Iggy blasted him out, and who could forget the 05 knockout of the year he suffered at the hands of Calvin Brock, what a sick one punch knockout that was.

I see what your saying Shpion, but Toney is live underdog against whoever he fights, aside from Vitali, who would probably knock him out. I think Toney should look for a fight against someone like Haye or even Valuev, fights like that would not only generate big money, but would also give Toney a chance at either winning a Heavyweight title that has eluded him for the past 5 years, or would at least put him one step away from a championship fight.

 

This is of the many things giving the Heavyweight division a bad nam.. aside from the few guys on top there are a bunch of walking Corpses littering the top10 rankings starting with Chagaev and going down. The HW top10 needs an infusion of new blood - stat.

 

Ruiz would hug the crap out of Tua in the rematch :deal

 

Pretty good list.

Switch Wlad with Minto and I'd pretty muvh agree with it. Although Sultan is too high.

 

While Haye would not be such a bad idea, I doubt Haye would agree to such fight. Too much risk and low reward. In addition, Toney would not be able to get a fight with Valuev because Valuev's management will most likely prompt for a mega $$$ fight with one of the Klitschko brothers. In fact Toney is in absolute limbo due to his advanced age and unlikely opportunity to fight for a title.

 

I read a few articles saying Valuev may fight Holyfield for his next fight, Toney is a more credible oppenent IMO. I honeslty cant see King letting Valuev fight either Klitschko, there's just too much risk there, he's better off fighting another King owned fighter like Toney or something, I promise you it would be a huge fight, fans always love seeing a David and Goliath type fight, this would be it.

 

I doubt Valuev will take the fight with Oldy. I think Oldy is just trying to PR himself.

Actually, if Valuev does not fight one of the Klitschkos for the unification, he will have to fight Chagaev. Such a fight is a not a 100% victory for Valuev by any means. Therefore, I think his managment will prefer to cash out with a fight with one of the brothers rather than risk a lose with Chagaev and very low $.

 

ruiz should be higher, sultan should be lower...otherwise its fine

 

It's tough to say, he probably can make just as much money fighting Holyfield, as he would against Wlad or Vitali, with very little risk involved. I think he should try and fight Wlad instead of Vitali, for two reasons, one the fight itself probably wont be delayed by injury, and given Wlad's chin issues in the past, he defintely has better chance of victory over Wlad IMO.

 

You have good points on that. Ibragimov only beat Lance Whitaker, who is a journeyman really, a very past it, asthmatic Shannon Briggs and an even more past it Holyfield. He went the distance with the latter two and even took some hard shots from Whitaker. He also drew with Ray Austin and was knocked down by him. While Ibragimovs showing vs Wlad was better than Austin´s - Tony Thompson gave Wlad more problems than Ibragimov did.

Ibragimovs overrating mostly comes from having impressive looking KOs over bad opposition and having been able to grab one of four belts in a relatively weak era. I think Chagaev would have beaten Ibragimov had that fight come off.