Where does Wladimir Klitschko rank among ATG HWs?

Which of those fighters will history rank the highest? Byrd? He may scrape the top 50. Peter is nowhere near the top 50. Haye won't be either. Chagaev is outside the top 50. Mercer could rank fairly highly based on his ability but certainly outside the top 30. Ibragimov is nowhere, Brewster is nowhere and Rahman was shot when Wlad beat him.

None of them are 'good' wins. Combined, it's an impressive group but none of those fighters are exceptional. A fighter like Jerry Quarry or George Chuvalo would beat them all without too many issues.

 

For all this "JACK YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING!" talk, not a single person has tried to debate my points. That's fine by me too because when you ignore what I say and try and discredit me, you confirm what I thought about you. I'm sure anyone who is impartial knows who has made the more compelling arguments in this thread.

 

-Hyperbole will you get you nowhere and your argument for this being the weakest era ever needs some work I'm afraid or you should at least apply your standards to all eras. see "Dimitrenko/Sprott and Mercer/Ferguson"

-Everytime a domintant Champion emerges accusations of "weak era" wil follow. Lewis, Tyson, Holmes, Marciano, Louis..all faced similar criticisms, I do not expect Wlad to be let off the hook either.

-Oh this last bit is a stretch as Wlad has beat better fighters than Purrity, Brewster, and Sanders.

 

From my personal experience,

You can't really seem to debate my counter points...For me...

-You need to take back what you said about Byrd or proclaim Lewis and Holyfield to have reigned over weak eras.

-You also need to apply the Dimitrenko/Sprott "worst era ever" argument to Mercer/Ferguson and the early 90s. Or take it back as just something that happens sometimes with limited lower tier contenders in every era.

 

Ferguson was a much better fighter than Sprott and, after seeing the bulk of Sprott's career, I can say that with confidence. Mercer also beat Ferguson in a rematch whereas Sprott would always outbox Dimitrenko.

And this is the weakest era in heavyweight history. A guy like Adamek being the third best heavyweight in the world? Come off it.

Lewis didn't, so I don't know why you mention him. Marciano fought in a very good era too.

Tyson, Holmes and Louis differ from Wlad in two ways. One, they were far more dominant than Wlad has been and didn't lose to poor opposition. Secondly, all of them beat a great/very good opponent. Tyson beat Spinks and Holmes, Holmes beat Norton, Louis beat Baer and Schmeling. Who has Wlad beaten that compares to those? Nobody.

I agree. However, history will note that Wlad lost when the division was stronger. He lost twice when it was poor and dominated when it was incredibly poor. Whether it's unfair or not, and I suspect it is, that is the case.

 

They're both illogical, pedantic arguments that may have a semblance of truth but not enough to be valid points.

 

You still haven't answered the question, Genius.

Exactly WHAT has Wlad been great @ doing? Beating up on BUMs, STIFFs, Tomato Cans, NO HOPERs and Ole Men?

WHO has Wlad beaten?

 

There is no need to discredit you anymore than you already did yourself

 

There is NOTHING particularly impressive about this list. Wlad's BEST win to date is the first Byrd fight and that was nearly TEN years ago - against a guy who is nothing more than a blown up middleweight. Wlad hasn't beaten a heavyweight of any notariety since.

FACTS. Learn to live with them.

 

No, this is what you are trying to project, far, far from reality. Ask yourself a simple question - what's your reason for spitting false arguments? I think we all know the answer.

This era is just as good if not better then any other era and Wlad administered a thorough cleaning over it.

 

To your reply a couple of pages back, I wanted to focus on heavyweight greats and not greats from all divisions. Partly because we're ranking heavyweights here, party because it simplifies this and also so I could leave Ray Robinson out. He's not as easy to criticise as any of the great heavyweights

I'm with lufc in that I consider Wlad as being the best heavyweight since beating Byrd the second time and don't consider his reign as having begun when he got the Ring belt. I don't think that's unfair given that he's beaten some of the guys that have held the other belts since then or at least beaten the guys that beat those belt holders. If I remember rightly Liakhovich, Maskaev and Valuev held the other titles when Wlad got his IBF belt. Wlad beat Ibragimov who beat Briggs who beat Liakhovich. He beat Peter again who took the title from Maskaev and he's beaten both Chagaev and Haye who have wins over SNV. All roads have led to Wlad over the last few years and he's beaten what he's faced in very one sided fashion.

We won't be able to come to an agreement though because you claim the division to be at it's weakest ever, which I think is incredibly unfair. I think heavyweight boxing made a huge leap from Ali's time and that previous eras (for heavyweights) didn't have the ability or skills of the modern fighters- apart from a few of the ATG fighters like Louis, Marciano and probably Dempsey and Johnson. I was suprised a while back to watch footage of these guys and amazed at how poor their opponents looked. I see them in the ring with cruiserweights (and smaller) who weren't zipping about the ring like Calzaghe but plodding, flat footed, with their hands down like you'd expect of a superheavyweight. The big guys like Carnera and the Baers look even worse to me. If these were the best of those eras then I don't see how they were better than guys like Byrd, Haye, Chagaev, Ibragimov, Povektin, Adamek, Valuev... even old Holyfield. In all serious I don't see an ounce of slickness in those old guys which should be a given in a small heavyweight

 

Worth repeating...

 

You have not answered the question, Genius.

Exactly WHO has Wlad beaten?

 

-Again, you can't split hairs when we are talking about aging journeymen that were brought in to lose. They were not much worse than each other at this point in their career. And Dimitrenko beat Sprott without ever losing to him.

-Adamek? Now you are changing the argument. Adamek is a busy fighter who inherited the #3 spot after everyone else had their turn. He'll probably be a Hall of Famer one day and brings the prestige of his Crusier achievements, Evander jumped to #4 before his first 200 lb fight, fighters like Spinks and Conn jumped straight to #1 lol. He's a good top 5 guy, would like to see him against more contenders, I can think of worse guys who found their way so high in the rankings.

-The point is not a side by side contrast of resumes with those fighters. The point is the "worst era ever" stigma has been assigned to every single dominant long reigning Champion in history so you attaching it to Wlad doesn't really mean much.