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

Liston did not have a long career as a champion. so it's hard to rank him. Whether the Ali fights were fixed and he took a dive, or Liston was scared of a certain religious group, I guess we'll never know for sure. Unfortunately because of that, Liston's career is shrouded in mystery.
I personally think the two fights against Ali were tainted. Whether he could have beaten him or not even if they had been on the level, I don't know.

 

Not to add fuel to the fire, but when would you guys say Wlads prime actually was? Coz physically, he was in the prime of his life in the mid 2000s, and had ample experience in both the Olympics and pros bu then. But he did improve as his style changed and the dodgy pharmaceutical side of things, with a lot of longevity based work in training extended his physical prime for a lot longer than you'd expect.

Would anyone find it fair to say that the Wlad who lost to Fury and potentially AJ was closer to his prime than the Wlad who lost to Brewster?

 

I would say 2006-2012. He lost to Brewster in 2004 and lost to Fury in 2015. So it's pretty close, but in my opinion he was more removed from his prime when he fought Fury. Plus you gotta add all of the personal stuff surrounding Klit at the time. I would argue his 2017 version was better because of it, even better than the version that lost to Brewster. I still would like to know wtf happened to his blood sugar levels that day.

 

Rumor Wlad got drugged against Brewster in the first fight.

 

It's hard to say because of how dominant he was for so long he was literally one of the most dominant champions not just at heavyweight but across all weight classes unlike others who have a few years so it's easier to judge.

I would say around the time he fought David Haye in 2011 though.

 

We don't have any proof of that, but these sugar blood levels are really suspicious. Maybe he had a condition he didn't know about?

 

Yeah there isn't proof. Not sure I buy it but it was interesting to read nevertheless.

 

The unfortunate answer is the blood sugar levels are likely to do with steroids.

 

This post has triggered, in a nice way, the pedant in me, George.

Personally, I make the distinction between prime & peak. e.g. Tyson & Duran were in their prime years vs Douglas & SRL2 respectively, but neither was the peak version I'd pick in a fantasy H2H contest (nor was Duran at his peak weight).

I consider Wlad was in or around his prime years from about 2000 to about 2013. 2000 may seem early, but after virtually shutting out the excellent Chris Byrd in 2000, he was a physically mature 24-year old man with 36-professional bouts to go with his extensive amateur experience. Sure, he wasn't peak by this point, but I consider both his losses to Sanders and Brewster to have occurred during his prime years.

His peak was from around 2006 to 2012. Ok, his absolute apex won't have lasted 6-years, but he'd reached an incredibly effective, albeit rather dull, peak byy 2006, which broadly plateaued for the next c.6-years, imo.

I think that the Wlad that fought Brewster was closer to his natural physical prime than the versions who fought Fury & AJ, whilst the latter version had done a better job at protecting his vulnerabilities. Ironically I think the Wlad from Brewster 1 would have a better version of beating Fury than the actual version that fought Tyson, whilst I'd outright favour, albeit narrowly, the Wlad that fought Fury to beat the version of Brewster from their first fight.

 

Wlad from the Fury fight would also have the unfair experience advantage of having already fought Brewster twice.

 

I completely agree, and in some rare cases it's arguable imo that a fighter peaked outside of their prime. For me, Wlad is this kind of guy; the most impressive performance I've ever seen from him is Pulev. At least in terms of just actually using his devastating, accurate offense.

I also split guys into peak & prime. For me, Duran's peak is that short stretch between moving up to 147 and beating Leonard. His prime on the other hand could be argued to span from Buchanan to Hearns.

I think I'd say similar. Wlad's 'prime' was from Byrd 2 to Povetkin imo. Which is a long time, but imo, there's no such thing as a prime Wlad without Steward guiding him. I also think it's pretty silly to claim inexperience by the time he fought Brewster. Wlad had been sparring with an ATG heavyweight since they were kids; had been to the Olympics (possibly won, idr) and had been in 30+ pro fights. Including 2 losses, which imo, are even better for gaining experience than wins are.

I like that last take. It's kind of similar to how people tend to just paint 60s Ali as a much quicker, more athletic version of 70s Ali. There's stylistic differences and improvement/decline of attributes which lead to differences in fantasy matchups imo. For example, 60s Ali would have a harder time against Foreman but an easier time against Norton.

 

I agree pretty much.

With Ali in my view he was still in his prime in 1970-1974 IE when he lost to both Frazier and Norton but it just wasn't quite his athletic peak.

 

To support my all time (and by decade) rankings I've analysed the careers of hundreds of boxers. One contributing factor is losses in and around prime years. When you adopt this approach, it demands a certain amount of consistency. I can't consider defeats Wlad suffered in his mid to late 20's when he'd contested more fights than Joe Frazier did in his entire career, as pre prime, and be consistent with what I consider as the prime years as other fighters. These losses occured during his natural prime years when he was an experienced fighter. They count against his all time standing.

I can, and do, recognise that Wlad improved (from a solely effectiveness at winning fights perspective, he badly deteriorated from an entertainment and aesthetic perspective) significantly after the losses to Sanders and Brewster and factor that in when considering his all time standing.

I disagree on the Pulev fight, but I watched the fight once, live, so may be misremembering. From recollection he wasn't as dominant with the jab as usual (and may have even got out jabbed at one point?) and looked to have lost a step. He recognised that Pulev's lack of power posed him no threat and went full out attack, ala pre Steward Wlad, and it worked a treat, but I recall thinking for the first time that he'd slipped physically, an impression that was compounded during the Jennings fight.

 

I wasn't basing my thinking on that, I'd favour Wlad from the Fury bout vs Brewster from their first fight, even if Wlad didn't benefit from any additional insight into Brewster, than he had in reality going into their first contest.

 

Granted, but it's one of those interesting issues where it's hard to disentangle in reality. I think some of Wlad's style post-Brewster owes something to his experiences against Brewster.