Who was the last champion that participated in 20 title defenses, and had 50 knockout

On it's own the alphabet title means as much as the commonwealth or british (how many defences did henry cooper rack up?)

In today's era we have to just look at the man who sits atop the universal rankings and accept him and whatever belt he holds as the champion.

 

Resume will forever be much more important than any numbers or statistics. All stats can do is prove longevity and consistency, which pale into insignificance when you evaluate the quality of the guys fought. Wlad's resume stinks of ****, and Vitali's is even worse. The End.

 

Without context, that is an extremely naive viewpoint.

One can only fight the men from their era. Since 06 wlad has fought and dominated the best hw's out there. Saying that stinks of **** is bonkers.

 

Who cares if he can only fight the best of his era or not. The fighters are good or they aren't. They aren't. Therefore we can't give him credit for a great heavyweight resume if he simply doesn't have one.

 

That's completely subjective. There is no way of determining for certain who is better between say iggy and baer. All we can do is see if a man fights the best he can.

Only a great heavyweight could dominate for as long as he has.

 

He may be a great heavyweight, but he doesn't have a great heavyweight resume. Not at all. The vast majority of his opponents have either been tiny, shot, or flat-out ****.

 

Contextually I completely disagree: he gas beaten a fair few top 5 ranked heatyweights as well as a good handful of top 10 opponents.

Is his resume great in comparison to other top 15 hw's? I think not. But clearly he's just as great as his peers in the 10-15 bracket.

 

You are right in fairness, but fairness has nothing to do with this.

Foreman knocked out Moorer, which gave him a cast iron title claim.

Wlad was unlucky to fight in an era where lineage was hard to establish.

This does not mean that I will treat Michael Bentt as being a champion in the smae sense as Jimmy Braddock, or regard a defence of the WBO title as being analogous to a defence of the lineal title.

You have merely proved that the best of one is better than the worst of the other.

 

I think Haye, Chambers, Byrd are pretty good. Chagaev was past his best. Ibragimov was pretty decent. Brewster, Rahman and Byrd 2 were both past their best and there for the taking. Brock, Thompson and the 2 Peter fights are good wins

How many HWs in history could beat all of those fighters over a 6year period?

 

No you misunderstand.

Bentt was never regarded as the best hw in the world.

I'm saying the name of the title doesn't count. It's the man wearing the belt.

 

A fair argument, but brutal to implement in practice!

Do we realy want to go down a road, where the champion is based on the consensus on the general forum?

 

It's a road that requires more research than a cursory glance at cbz, but it's a meaningful road none the less.

In 95-96 the lineal beltholders were foreman and briggs and no one can tell me they were meaningful champions in this time frame.

95 belonged to big daddy without doubt. 96 was the year of the comeback from first tyson then holyfield.

So in 95 i'd certainly say the wbo was to be held above the lineal.

By 97 the wba&ibf were above the lineal imo.

When wlad beat byrd he became the top dog and every fight since then has been a defence of the crown.

Today to establish undisputed lineage you have to unify all 5 belts. Wlad have unified 4 of them so only a small minority see him as something other than a champion.

As a footnote, i'd never go down any road where the general forum is anything of significance. I'm happy making my own decision based on the evidence at hand.

 

What on earth does "contextually" mean?! He has never beaten a solitary proven top-class heavyweight, and no amount of context can change that fact. Great resumes are gained through merit, if you don't beat a high standard of fighter then you haven't gained one, era standards be damned. Larry Holmes on his best night may, for all we know, have outboxed Muhammad Ali, but he will never rank as highly as Ali because Ali beat Liston, Frazier and Foreman, whereas Holmes beat Cooney, Norton and Berbick.