Was Wlad more boring than Fury as HW Champion?

Tyson was calling out Lewis for a long time there was quite a few people who thought Tyson could beat Lewis based on Lewis getting stopped by Rahman recently.

Tyson hadn't officially lost since 1996 and on paper it was a huge fight, you're telling me Lewis not fighting Tyson and instead fighting Byrd would've been better for his legacy ? No chance.

People would've roasted Lewis for not fighting Tyson when he was calling him out. Byrd was an unremarkable champion who got 3 gift decisions during his short title reign.

 

Not to mention, HBO, which had a lot of pull on fights they would televise, did not care for Lewis - Byrd at all. Now, I was a fan of Byrd. But he had zero chance to beat Lewis at the time.

 

Boring? Fury Vs. The Wilder trilogy is historic, and the previous one of that rank was Holyfield Vs. Bowe.

 

At the time it happened, the Purrity loss was a reasonable indicator of Wladimir needing more professional polishing and experience. He acquired just that, fighting often (seven or so fights in '99) and stepping up to a respectable streak of names in Schulz, Byrd (WBO strap), Mercer, Botha, McCline et cetera. Meanwhile, in 2001-2002 when, as you pointed out, he became highly ranked, Lewis dropped the ball against Rahman and was milking the Tyson fight. It wasn't good for the contenders waiting for their shot at the titles he held, but inevitable from financial perspective. In 2003 Vitali essentially retired him in Lewis' swan song.

I disagreed with the quoted post which implied Wladimir was at fault for not facing Lewis. As far as I'm concerned, through half of the years their careers overlapped, Klitschko was building himself up, while Lewis spent the other half rematching Hasim and cashing out. The third paragraph of my original post was misphrased--what I meant to say was: I think Lewis would win should they fight at any point during that period of time, as Klitschko hasn't matured into the fighter he would eventually be just yet.

 

I like Wlad a lot more as a person but he was terrible to watch. Thing is you kinda expect a guy with Fury’s attributes to be boring. Wlad on the other hand was an explosive power house with a weak chin and still managed to be boring. He was so much better and bigger than many of his opponents, you’d at least expect him to just steamroll, but no, you got a 1-2 clinch fest most of the time. Early on he was exciting and the Pulev fight is one of my personal favorite ko’s. Outside of those and some fun losses, the guy was just dull. Really hurts the sport having a guy like that dominating.