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

They didn't just have single momentary instances of great jabs. Everybody knows they had consistently good jabs.

Its impressive to floor and stop guys with the jab because opponents in the 80s had legs. Wlad fought in the era of plodding non-movers and still couldn't fell a guy with this lighting bolt from the Gods you call a jab.
The evidence is there for all to see in the Douglas highlight reel i posted. Snap , doubles , triples. Body head. Feints. Things WK could not do. Shoot in a straight line was his limit. No levels.

I can accuse you of cherry picking examples here.
Chaggy took the fight on short notice and very foolishly fought the fight on the outside , and directly in Wlads line of sight. Chaggys mistakes made it very easy for Wlad to walk him into his jab.

Byd had no legs whatsover in the rematch. He literally blocked punches with his face.
Sultan?Worse fight ever with barely any exchanges of punches.

Haye? Thats where you slipped up. WK was deduced a point for for repeatedly holding and clinching Haye. He barely landed a jab on Haye.
Haye who is awful on the front foot breached WKs wheelhouse often and enough times to make him lose a point for holding.
Tony Bellew kept Haye on the outside without ever needing to clinch. Haye simply got nowhere near Tony Bellew.
In fact the best punch landed in the Klitschko fight was by Haye , in the 12th round. Wlad was hanging on for dear life.
Rahman? LOL . . Rahmans ghost took that fight on 2 weeks notice. So i dont want to hear any excues about Haye vs Bellew whrn you just cited guys who were barely functional and medically unfit to fight (chaggy)

And yet you just put forward Rahmans cadaver , who was in way worse shape than Peter was as evidence. In the scend go around Wlad was cheating and fouling just the same if not worse because this time he was in Germany.

https://www.boxingnews24.com/2010/09/steward-was-telling-wladimir-to-stop-clinching-peter/

No ATG jabber would have to resort to becoming a human octapus against such a low leveller like Peter.

Futhermore , how many top tier jabber did he even fight let alone beat?

He outright refused to meet Pulev jab for jab. Instead resorting to bear hugging repeatedly. A disgusting performance. Thinking about it reminds me what a weasel fighter he was. He literally plunged himself into Pulev over and over. Sometimes with double handed fist pumps. Similar to what Pacquaio did to Clottey

And of course there is the Povetkin disgrace which will invalidate any claim to him having an ATG jab for all eternity

 

No. Absolutely not.

When a title is vacant, you don't win it by default because you have the other belts. You need to fight for it.

 

You're making a lot of claims that simply don't match what happened in those fights.

First, flooring someone with a jab is impressive but rare for any fighter - even great jabbers. The effectiveness of a jab isn't measured by knockdowns but by control, and by that measure, Wlad's jab was elite.

You dismiss every example of Wlad's jab dominance with excuses while accepting no criticism of your examples. Douglas had a good jab, but his career lasted about 15 minutes - Wlad's lasted 15 years. Consistency matters.

On Haye - you're rewriting history. Wlad jabbed Haye's face off the entire fight. Yes, there was clinching, but Haye barely landed anything meaningful besides that 12th round shot, and the point deduction didn't change the complete dominance. It was 118-108, 117-109, 116-110 - a complete shutout by jab.

Your claim about Pulev is bizarre - Wlad stopped him with a left hook set up by his jab. The Povetkin fight had excessive holding, sure, but Wlad still knocked him down four times.

Your whole argument boils down to: 'if he had an ATG jab, he would never need to hold.' That's not how boxing works. Even Holmes, Lewis, and Ali clinched when needed.

The fact remains: Wlad's jab was his primary weapon in one of the longest heavyweight championship reigns in history. No journeyman-level jabber accomplishes that.

 

Wladmir chose not to unify with his brother. Personally, I don't hold it against him as I myself would never fight my brother for any amount of money unless we could orchestrate the perfect dive without hurting each other.

But if we're judging things strictly based on historical context, the two brothers ducked each other and made the division pretty stagnant and mid since the two best guys never fought. I am not sure how Wladmir gets a pass because the other A level champion in his era was his brother, but Holmes is crucified for not unifying with guys like Thomas, Page, etc. Holmes had balls. He got in the ring with a prime Tyson on a short notice, fought prime Mercer/Holyfield as a fat old man, was willing to fight Coetzer and would've but politics got in the way.

Holmes didn't avenge the Spinx or Tyson losses, Wlad didn't avenge the Sanders or Puritty losses. At least Tyson and Spinx were ATG boxers. Sanders had great talent, but never really accomplished a lot outside of the Wlad fight, and Puritty was a journeyman punching bag who also didn't win much.

I just don't see how Holmes can be crucified, but Wlad gets a pass.

 

The title was not in dispute. Therefore, it was undisputed. You don’t make the rules, pal.

 

Was Wladmir awarded the belt in the ring, or by the sanctioning bodies, yes or no?

 

I really can't see a scenario where Liston would beat Wlad h2h.

 

There's a huge difference between the Klitschko brothers situation and Holmes not unifying with other champions. The Klitschkos made a promise to their mother never to fight each other. It wasn't about ducking competition, but honoring family.

Meanwhile, Wlad actively pursued unification with everyone else available. He unified the WBA, IBF, WBO, IBO, and Ring titles - something Holmes never attempted despite having opportunities with champions of his era.

Regarding avenging losses - context matters. Wlad didn't avenge Sanders/Puritty directly, but he completely transformed his style and went on an 11-year unbeaten streak afterward, proving those losses were about his development, not his ceiling. Holmes was already established when he lost to Spinks and Tyson though past his best.

Holmes deserves credit for fighting Tyson, Mercer, and Holyfield when older, but during his prime championship years, he wasn't known for seeking the toughest challenges or unification. He famously said "Why do two champions have to fight?" when asked about unification.

Both are all-time greats, but their approaches to unification during their prime championship years were completely different.

 

I already said on a personal level, I don't blame them for not fighting. But in terms of boxing history, it's a fact he didn't unify with the best boxer in his division for what, 11 years straight give or take (aside from Vitali's down time for injuries)...?

I'm aware he changed his style, but he never avenged those losses. So, again, if you are criticize Holmes you must criticize Wladmir.

 

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?