Where do you rank Wladimir Klitschko currently amonst list of Heavyweight greats?

Dempsey faced the best available super heavyweight of his day and absolutely destroyed him with infamous ferocity.

Likewise Wlad himself has been destroyed in similarly brutal fashion.

It isn't a pick I'm confident on but if Dempsey is able to land a hook before Wlad clinches he will knock him out, I'm confident of that. Then again there's every chance Wlad knocks him out with the first right hand he lands.

As for infinitely skilled, it's a tough one. Dempsey walked right through Firpo and got heavily caught by a wildly telegraphed overhand right. He tried doing the same with Flynn suffering a similar fate but one he could not recover from. On the flip side to that we have him stalking Willard until he spots an opening and we also have that famous clip of him slipping about 5 tunney jabs in a row. We have him out boxing the amazing Gibbons and we also have him trying to walk through the hype machine that was Carpentier. Dempsey at times showed tremendous skill and others showed none whatsoever.

Wlad has showed a tendency to tire and be sparked but he has also fought 12 hard rounds and recovered from knockdowns himself. Skill wise he has shown but one dimension albeit a near unbeatable dimension in today's landscape.

As I said I'm not confident but I wholly disagree with it being classified a mismatch. And that's assuming we pluck the prime versions of each into the ring.

How would wlad have looked in 1920 and how would Dempsey have looked in 2010? A lot of intangibles in this bout imo.

 

Page wasn't a big fight and Homes beat Berbick and Spoon who beat Page.

In that case , did Wlad duck Oleg Maskerv?

And Holmes went 48-0. Wlad couldn't go beyond 24-0 when he lost to a journeyman.

Shavers best weapon was his right hand. It was one of the most brutal shots in history.
You clearly don't know the sport as per all K-Nuthuggers.

Povetkin fought just like Shavers. A come forward pressure fighter only Shavers was faster and punched harder.
He was more formidable than Povetkin.
I don't need to prove it. The evidence is on film.

Povetkin also has no wins of any worth.

Shavers has two top teir wins against Jimmy Young and Ken Norton which proves beyond doubt Shavers was twice as good as Povetkin , not the other way around as you put it.

Now look at how Larry looked like a genuine ATG against Shavers and look at Wlad look like a genuine disgrace against a lesser version of Shavers- Povetkin. You're going to tell me this guy is top 3 greatest of all time. LOL:nut

 

MW, LHWs and Cruisers all went to HW to find success because their own divisions were to competitive.

Wlad racked up defenses against these guys who he held massive reach , power and size advantages over , yet he still had to clinch, foul and cheat to get the win.

If thats greatness the M5 is made of water.

 

Holmes had several weak defenses:

Evangelista
Frank
LeDoux
Leroy Jones
Lorenzo Zanon
Ossie Ocasio


That is 6 right there. Add Marvis Frazier and that makes 7. Holmes had a very weak era a several bad title defenses. Lets not play revisionist history on here. Plus he didn't fight Page or Thomas and never unified.

 

The fallacy of head to head rankings is that everyone believes they're far superior at choosing the winner than they actually are. Otherwise, we'd have no shortage of millionaires made from betting on boxing.

In today's era, with ample video evidence, it's still impossible to accurately pick the winners of a series of fights among the top rated fighters.

Why do fans delude themselves into thinking fighters being retired makes anyone any more accurate at choosing the victor? I can't say for certain, but in this instance, it's probably to try to take that jerk Mr. Klitschko down a peg, which wouldn't be a bad thing.

I make no pretensions to be any better of a bettor myself, mind you. It's simply sad to see people who can't predict fights this year seem so adamant that they can accurately assess the head to head matchups of 100+ years of boxing history.

 

Yeah but it's more fun watching film and saying "I think he would win" as opposed to reading website and records and saying "I think he did more"

 

Good point [emoji41]

 

I am not sure defending against a NABSF title challenger is horrendously weak but its not a strong defence for sure.

Even if you count all 7, that's still far short of the klitschko resume.

But poin taken larry has more than average weak defences for a long reigner. It is emphatically not the same as wlad, whose decent opps defences are half of larrys 6- 7 WEAK.

 

Tbh in terms of predictions I think comparing resume and footage are equally as accurate.

Which,as you alluded to, isn't very.

I just think research is a chore, watching fights is an enjoyment.

 

If what you say was true, then what chances does Kovalev have of beating Wlad. Would you also say if Kovalev landed a hook before Wlad clinches?

Oh yea, and Kovalev would destroy Dempsey. Any modern day elite level boxer who can box at 185+ lbs would handily beat crude Dempsey.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rm81LSKJC2k

 

Which super heavy has kovalev knocked out?

He couldn't knock out career MW Hopkins.

 

Duran against Leonard in the first fight was a beautiful boxer. No one since has come close to replicating such a great victory.