Sonny Liston or Wladimir Klitschko who rates higher as a all time heavyweight?

Haye in that fight was never stunned , staggered , hurt and never even came close to being dropped let alone knocked out. Weren't you saying Wlad hit harder than Shavers earlier?

The reason for this is because Wlad beat haye on size and awkwardness. Yes it was a shut out loss. But he didn't beat him down with punches. Very little clean punching landed which is why everybody hated that fight at the time.

The point here is Haye passed WK jab enough times to make him hold so many times to warrant a point deduct.
No atg jabber needs to constantly clinch a natural backfoot fighter like Haye.. Which is what he was btw. An natural backfoot ambush fighter. Not effective on the front foot.
It should have been Haye looking to clinch in that fight against the bigger man. But when Haye got in close he was looking to throw and Wlad could only clinch and hold. This is the factual representation of that fight.

Not true at all. There was no setup. Just a single leaping left hook on a demoralized and jaded Pulev from being molested repeatedly.

If you go bac and rewatch like i just did , you'll see Pulev landed a good shot was and instantly smothered and not released until the ref stepped in. It was the breaks when Wlad struck an unsuspecting Pulev with leaping left hooks.
That was his gameplan. Smother grope and strike. Rince and repeat.
Complete weasel fighting aided and abetted by Tony Weeks The same ref who allowed Wlad headbutt Fury.

Another thing you'll notice about the Pulev fight is the spongy ring canvas. This was to limit the opponents moment. Especially effective for a guy like Pulev who was known for his tricky in and out moment.

If a guy was able to move around the ring wlads jab was ineffective. The Williamson fight was foreshadowing to what woud happen in the Fury fight. Movement befuddled Wlad and made him throw more clinches than punches.
In the Jennings fight Wlad was deducted a point for holding again. And also punched his own face for failing to keep Jennings on the outside.
You failed to answer how many good jabber wlad out jabbed?
How many great jabbers did he beat?

 

You're conflating two very different situations. The brothers' decision was fundamentally different from standard 'ducking' - they publicly announced they would never fight each other from the beginning of their careers. The boxing world and sanctioning bodies accepted this reality, which is why their parallel reigns were viewed differently than typical unification situations.

Holmes, on the other hand, actively avoided unification with available champions while making statements questioning why champions should fight each other. That's a stark contrast to Wlad, who pursued and achieved unification with everyone except his brother.

I agree criticism should go both ways if the situations were the same, but I think they're different enough to not be equivalent. What should definitely go both ways is people criticizing Wlad for his competition while not having the same criticism for Holmes despite facing a similar level of opposition but struggling with it a lot more. Holmes had life-and-death struggles with Witherspoon and Williams, almost got knocked out by Snipes and Shavers, and had several other close calls. Meanwhile, Wlad typically dominated his opponents during his title reign winning most fights by wide margins or knockout.

 

Your assessment of the Haye fight is revisionist. Wlad didn't just beat Haye on 'size and awkwardness' - he systematically broke him down with the jab. The CompuBox numbers show Wlad landing 134 jabs to Haye's 32. Haye was reduced to throwing desperate lunges because he couldn't get past the jab consistently. Yes, there was clinching when Haye got inside - that's basic boxing strategy when a smaller fighter rushes in. Nearly every heavyweight champion in history has used that tactic.

Movement only gave Wlad serious trouble when he slowed down with age, not in his prime. Haye tried using movement to set up his lunges in their fight and completely failed against prime Wlad. The same goes others who attempted to use movement against him when he was at his peak. It was only once he got older that movement became more problematic for him, as we saw in the Fury fight.

Your Pulev analysis is equally flawed. I just rewatched that fight too, and Wlad was landing clean jabs throughout before the finishing sequence. The knockout came from a perfectly set-up left hook after he feinted a jab - which is textbook feinting technique. Wlad had been establishing the jab to keep Pulev at range, then caught him with a perfect left hook. That's textbook boxing, not some 'weasel' tactic.

The canvas conspiracy theory is just that - a conspiracy theory with no real facts to support it.

Regarding movement - Fury's success doesn't invalidate Wlad's jab. Fury is a 6'9" boxing anomaly with unique movement for his size. Comparing standard heavyweight movement to what Fury does is misleading.

The Jennings point deduction came in round 10 of a fight Wlad was clearly winning with his jab, which is why the scorecards were still wide for him so I don't really see the relevance. And it was a fight where he was 39, so not really in his prime anymore.

 

Why are you repeating the exact same thing? I'm aware they publicly stated they wouldn't fight and had good reason for that since they're family. But, again, the issue isn't fans demanding blood and that the two brothers never fought, the main issue here is Wladmir was never undisputed, but Liston was. That's a valid mark against Wlad when discussing his historical rating.

If there were no Ali and Norton had the belt, I would not give Norton a pass for never unifying with Frazier jus because they're friends. On a personal level, I would understand, but it would be a mark against Norton and Frazier if they never became undisputed and the discussion was whether or not Norton/Frazier have better resumes than Tyson for example.

Um, Holmes won every single round against Shavers and Snipes aside from the knock down rounds and stopped both. Wladmir was getting bounced off the canvas by Peter fighting off the back foot and just barely won. Wladmir did have some very convincing and dominant wins over good opponents such as Byrd, Haye, Povetkin, etc, but he also lost points for excessive holding and made some of those fights incredibly frustrating and boring to watch with a lenient ref. He also got stopped way more times than Holmes by pretty inferior opponents (on paper), while Holmes was only stopped once against an ATG while he was coming off 2 losses.

 

Wtf are you talking about? K2 tried to use the same illegal ring canvas against Fury. They ripped the whole thing out for everybody to see. Lennox Lewis is on VIDEO calling it out. You can see literally see Pulev and Wlads feet sink into the canvas.

Johnny Nelson is on multiple videos talking about Wlads notorious spongy canvas during fight weeks.

You have no rebuttal to anything except disagreement. Denying the ring canvas tells me you didn't follow this mans career.

The ring canvas highlights his insecurity against guys who had movement. Because his jab was always stiff and could only hit what was in front of him. He couldn't jab on the move like former great jabbers. Angles took his jab away. That is exactly why he needed his bouncy castle.


RE: Jennings. It doesn't matter if the point deduct came in the 10th. There was multiple warnings prior to that round because he had been clinching Jennings all throughout the fight. You dont just suddenly get a point taken. He was being warned repeatedly.

Futhermore ,everybody knows WK was a serial clincher. His fanboys use his clinching tactics in fantasy h2h debates.

You simply can't be a breaker of compu clinch records and be an atg jabber at the same time. One invalidates the other.
Again , name a great jabber he out jabbed?

 

Your 'spongy canvas conspiracy' claims fall apart under scrutiny. The only documented case is the Fury fight, where there was indeed a canvas dispute that was resolved before the fight. However:

1. The canvas wasn't 'illegal' - no boxing authority ever ruled it violated regulations
2. There's no verified video of Lennox Lewis specifically 'calling out' an illegal canvas in the way you suggest
3. In the Pulev fight, there's no clear visual evidence or documented complaints about excessive 'sinking' that affected the outcome
4. Johnny Nelson is a pundit, not an official boxing expert, and he's been known to exaggerate things for effect - there's no reason to take his comments as definitive proof without actual evidence

These are exaggerations that undermine your argument. Champions having preferences for ring conditions is standard in boxing - Ali, Holmes, and Lewis all had home-field advantages and there's 0 evidence of anything illegal like you claim.

Regarding clinching - great jabbers throughout history have clinched when needed. Holmes clinched against aggressive fighters or when in trouble. Ali relied heavily on clinching in his later career. Lewis clinched throughout the Holyfield fights. It's a legitimate part of heavyweight boxing.

You're creating an impossible standard that only Wlad has to meet - how many great jabbers did Holmes out-jab to prove his jab was great? How many did Lewis out-jab? None - because great jabbers rarely fight other great jabbers. They prove their jabs against the contenders of their era, exactly as Wlad did.

Wlad's jab was the foundation of his 11-year undefeated run and 18 title defenses. That doesn't happen with a mediocre jab.

 

The fundamental issue with your comparison is that you're applying different standards. Wlad had a legitimate reason not to go for unification against his brother as you acknowledge and unified all other titles. Holmes didn't have any such reason to avoid unification with his contemporaries, which is why people are more critical of Holmes for it.

Regarding dominance - yes, Holmes won every round besides knockdown rounds against Shavers and Snipes, but Wlad did the exact same against Peters in their first fight. And in their rematch, Wlad knocked Peters out.

Holding has always been a part of boxing and plenty of greats like Ali and Lewis have used it, so I don't think taking points away from Wlad for using it holds much water unless you're willing to do the same for any great fighter who used it extensively.

While Wlad did get stopped, all of that was before his reign and before he really developed his style, while Holmes had multiple close fights during his reign that he arguably lost. So it really goes down to what you value more: domination with early losses or no early losses but a less dominant reign. Personally, I think the former is much more impressive.

 

Fair he does seem to hold a visceral hatred for them for some reason lol. Which is weird to me you can dislike them but to hate them at that level just for being "boring"? Seems weird

 

This is your third time repeating yourself. I have heard you loud and clear. No one said him not wanting to fight his brother is bogus. Again, the point is if Liston did something Wlad didn't (undisputed) you can't take that away from Liston when doing a side by comparison of their careers. Wladmir DIDN'T do it, so that's a point FOR Liston regardless of why Wladmir didn't go for undisputed, legitimate excuse or not.

That is all. I'm no longer going back and forth on such an obvious fact.

 

I couldn't help myself and made a meme

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I apologize for the confusion. I thought you were comparing Holmes and Wlad rather than Wlad and Liston, hence my repeating points about Holmes.

I just don't personally value "undisputed" as much as some people do. I value dominance and overall reign more, which is why I rank both Wlad and Holmes higher than Liston despite neither being undisputed technically.

"Undisputed" often seems like a somewhat meaningless label at the end of the day. Despite not being undisputed, I don't think anyone can argue that Wlad and Holmes weren't the best fighters of their respective eras. Both dominated for extended periods and beat everyone put in front of them during their prime championship years.

 

1. What does that have to do with S.F.A?

2. Fluoride was added to public water supplies in '45.

 

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