Were does Vitali Kiltschko rank among all time heavyweights?

Mental trolling, you must have an agenda.

Danny Williams, Corrie Sanders, Lennox Lewis. Larry Donald, Herbie Hide, etc

Vitali in his prime ^ is one of the most exciting to watch beastly heavyweights

 

Top 25 which isn’t an option on this poll. I think you could squeeze him into top 20 and he definitely belongs within top 30.
His losses are not bad. Lewis and Byrd were both really good fighters and Vitali was winning both fights. So that’s a pretty feather in his cap so to speak, that he doesn’t have any bad losses.
His wins are good enough. Sanders coming off his best win, and who was an extremely gifted and dangerous heavyweight is a solid win. Kevin Johnson was a top contender at the time at 34-1. Vitali’s first comeback fight was against 30-1 Sam Peter that’s a tough match out of the gate of a 4 year layoff. Then he has some ok wins like Herbie Hide, Larry Donald, Tomasz Adamek. Heck even Chisora looks ok now.
I think an honest ranking can probably place him anywhere from like late teens to mid to late 20s.

 

All down to personal preference.. probably top 20.. great HW, lackluster resume.. had the potential to crack top 10 but Sanders, Peter & Briggs are probably his best wins.. I can't put him in a top 10 list with those being his best wins. Sanders is underrated a little tho I'll say that ..

 

Hardly.

 

Top 15. Usyk hurt his case for top 10.

 

I will say top thirty but I respect any answer up to top 50. He didn't beat anyone special, or even very good, so there is essentially nothing differentiating him from dozens or others.

 

Top 15, 20 at lowest. Top 10 too crowded to include him.

 

Top 10 gave me a chuckle.

 

In all honesty I've never put together more than a top ten list, and my top ten has some 'traditional names' well outside it, no Foreman, no Marciano, no Dempsey, so Vitali for me sits somewhere between 11-15 I think. I'm gonna have a think about this over the weekend...

 

I put top 50. Have a hard enough time rating him in the 21st century. It sounds disrespectful to say hes not in the top 50 but theres a lot of great HWs and I don't rank Byrd that high. Someone made a thread to rank Vitalis top wins and I found myself picking like 3 or 4 of his non title wins from the 90s and early 00s. Vitali has 15 claimed world title wins but its more like 2-2(lineal+Byrd). I have him 6-2 against HW contenders with Bean, Corrie Sanders, Danny Williams, Peter, old Briggs and Chisora. Theres nothing wrong with these opponents but these are not top 5 sorta wins for an ATG with 10+ title defenses. Vitalis got a lot of good wins but good for a rising contender not good for a champion.

Its not really Vitalis fault he was letting his brother have the spotlight and his choice of opponents cleared up any confusion about who the "real champ" was. Which was probably the right thing to do not only for his family but the sport. But at the same time it is what it is.

I sometimes wonder if Vitali would have been ranked higher if he'd stayed retired after Williams or came back to fight Peter and retired after a one off.

 

Top 10, perhaps 7 or 6

 

Vitali proper placement in the ranking should be floating somewhere between 21 - 30 at best.

Anybody placing Vitali Top 20 or lower should be tarred, feathered and kicked out from Classic Forum.