Which heavyweight you rank higher ATG, Vitali Klitschko or Riddick Bowe

Yes, absolutely longevity at being ranked #2. What the **** is wrong with that and what the **** is wrong with you? Why do you always have to be so :nut "what's the difference between him and Wilder" bull****? You have ruined this thread on the first page. I stick up for you when I can because some stuff you say is interesting, but that's the definition of a troll - comparing Vitali to Wilder and away with the emoticons for absolutely no reason.

Yes, longevity in being #2 for so long. Like Harry Wills, like Sam Langford, like Peter Jackson. Know your history.

And no, no i'm not "comparing Vitali to Sam Langford lol :nut" before you start, i'm just pointing out that everything Klitschko related needn't be ranked in the absolutely worst possible light every second of every day. Ffs there's literally no point in starting one of these threads with you on the forum - you're ruining the forum.

Vitali's status as perennial #2 DOES NOT exclude him from comparisons with Bowe.

And most of all, you are such a hypocrite. You yourself repeat over and over again that Vitali was lineal heavyweight champion of the world, that he has a claim that you recognise. Sure, it's only recognised out of your hate for the other Klitschko, but you are now arguing that a fighter YOU claim was legitimate HW of the world (I don't agree) was "always no 2".

And this post doesn't help either. Where the **** have you people come from?

 

I think you are wrong here:

You are not sat at home doing two laughs out loud, then getting on the floor and rolling about on the floor laughing. That is not happening. It is factually incorrect. Also, what you are tyring to do is antagonise dinovelvet which is wrong for my thread and this forum.

 

This isn't even a bit true. There is literally nobody I know who is worth listening to that defines "#2" in this fashion. In fact I think you're the first person ever to suggest this around me.

It's absolutely no different to what Dempsey did with Wills or dozens of champions have done with with dozens of challengers. At least Vitali wasnt sitting on the title like so many other champions, denying the legitimate #1 contender.

It's less horrible, not more.

Well nobody is interested in your book - sorry, but that's just the way it is. Vitali is universally - universally - recognises as the legitimate #2 heavyweight of the post-Lewis era, EXCEPT in cases where he was recognised as #1.

Which I thought was your position, but God knows really.

 

You are not correct.

And because at no time was Vitali the lineal champion, and because at no time was Rahman or Stiverne the #1 contender to the title he did not hold, he hardly ducked either. If you want to bleat about the alphabet strap he held, okay, but Joe Louis's failure to take on #1 ranked Elmer Ray and duration champion Jimmy Bivins are clearly far more grievous offences than those Vitali committed.

Which is another way of saying, every single "champion" (by which I mean strap-holder) has a Stiverne or two. Talking about it in a thread on this topic is a phenomenal waste of time and effort.

Yes, and i've already dealt with this.

I'll deal with it again (and again probably).

Wills didn't fight Dempsey, Dempsey didn't fight Wills, Gibbons didn't fight Wills, Wills didn't fight Tunney. EVERYONE knows that Wills was the #2 fighter during Dempsey's era, and, as is the case with Wlad and Vitali, it doesn't matter that each beat certain contenders while the other beat others.

"Tag teaming", as you call it, is absolutely normal in every sense in every division in every era in history.

In every era in history, the top heavyweights have "eliminated" other top heavyweights in order to become top heavyweights. It matters not that a fighter with an ambition to become the next best hasn't fought many fighters the champion has, and it matters not even a little bit that the #2 eliminates - it's called elimination for Christ sake - fighters that the champion will, by definition, never meet.

This is absolutely normal.

What is absolutely abnormal is that Vitali and Wlad would never fight. That is where the harm is done, just as it was with Louis-Rey, Bowe-Lewis, Johnson-Langford (yes, i know they did fight at one point). There is always, always, a #2 and he ALWAYS eliminates top fighters that the HW champ will never meet. ALWAYS.

It is only "watered down" in your head.

When asked the question, who is the #2 heavwyeight of the post Lewis era, meaning from the end of Lewis's reign to the end of Wlad's, the anwswer will always ALWAYS be "Klitschko", not "Klitschko, but in a really watered down way", just "Klitschko".

Yes, he is, absolutely inarguably in the traditional sense and any attempt to prove otherwise is absolutely futile beyond all reckoning. What is NOT "traditional", though it has happened before, is that the #1 and #2 should not meet, and that hurts both Wladimir and Vitali regardless of their blood relationship.

This can reasonably be held against him.

This is almost always the case. This is absolutely normal, and is more normal now than ever before. This is because ABC's don't draw their top tens from the most deserving fighters in the division.

What you mean is, there are fighters he didn't fight. This is exactly the same as the Stevenson/Kovalev divide, the Huck/Hernandez divide, the Ward/Froch divide etc. etc. etc. It is normal for top fighters to fight what you irrationally call "a minor part" of the division.

Riddick Bowe did exactly the same thing. He didn't fight Lennox Lewis, Michael Moorer, Tony Tucker, George Foreman, Razor Ruddock, Ray Mercer, Alex Garcia, Tim Witherspoon, Mike Tyson, Michael Bennt, Oliver McCall and a stack of other guys whose names i can't be ****ed typing. They were ALL RANKED WHILE BOWE WAS.

And if Bowe had a brother you despised like he had raped you when you were younger, I would have to hear about it all the time.

I understand, and I see no issue in making that point and holding it against Vitali and using it as a reason to find in favour of Bowe in this question. But pretending, for your own reasons, in a thread i've started, that it means that he "was a watered down #2" is a huge waste of my time.

So I take it you rank Tommy Burns above Joe Jennette, Marvin Hart above Sam Langford and James J Braddock above Elmer Ray?