Wladimir Klitschko: how highly do you rate him?

Oh you poor sod. I would have thought it would've been obvious to a blind child that that was just a list of twenty names, that it was not in order of greatness. That's why I didn't number it. Do you think I think Sonny Liston was a better heavyweight than Muhammad Ali? Dear God man get a grip of yourself! atsch

 

Ezzard Charles is one of the top 5 pound-for-pound fighters in the history of this sport. Wladimir Klitschko couldn't lace his boots. He is (maybe) the best around in the worst heavyweight era ever. He is not and never will be one of the top 10 heavyweights ever. That isn't "hate", it's cold hard truth. And your points on race, class and colour mean nothing - because his own brother was a far better fighter h2h, and everyone knew it in his short reign as WBC champ. Vitali was rated, because he was a fighter. Wlad is a pretender who was found out in the past and wil be again.

 

You clearly have rather severe reading and learning difficulties. Read my post again and see if you can work it out this time. atsch

 

No sweat mate, gimme 2mins :good

 

1.) 99% of fighters do indeed lose at some point. However, when you are determining greatness and rating careers, certain types of losses cannot and should not be undervalued. THREE (not one, which would be called a one-off, or even two, which could be called carelessness) stoppage losses is definitely symptomatic of an inherent weakness in a fighter when the standard of opposition is taken into account, as well as Wlad's age and experience at the time of those fights. He wasn't green, he wasn't over-the-hill. The opponents were not of great quality. Purrity was a journeyman, Brewster and Sanders were two fringe contenders, no better than decent heavyweights, they were Shannon Briggs's, Frans Botha's, Michael Grant's, etc etc. To ignore these losses would be either bias or stupidity.

2.) He has fought many styles, but to me this in no way equates to beating quality. You can beat a tall rangy southpaw, then a stocky brawler with a mean right hook, then a defensive couterpuncher - but if they are not very good fighters, then what does it really prove? It proves that you are a reasonably skilled, adaptable, competent champion. Greatness, the kind of greatness that gets you a spot in the top 10 ever, comes from beating very good fighters. Wlad has already beaten Sam Peter, who I don't particularly rate but he is also one of the best of a very bad bunch (and Wlad wasn't particularly impressive in getting a win out of that one), but if he can then beat guys like Chagaev and Haye (if Haye copes with heavyweight), maybe then his resume will begin to resemble that of a quality champion.

3.) See answer to Q2.



Do you see my points or do you think I'm being hyper-critical?

 

Good post, esp regarding Lewis, but I still don't see how acknowledging his losses and what they mean is being cynical or negative - they are there and cannot be ignored. Until such time as he has blown away some better quality fighters and thus renders the losses less significant, they must be looked at as a major weakness in his long-term standing. I have my doubts whether he is capable of this, but we shall see in due course. If he beats a Chagaev or a Haye, I will definitely give him credit. If he is impressive v Povetkin, I'll come on and say so. I don't "hate" the guy, I don't even dislike him, I just think he is widely overrated on here, and possibly my own rating of him is affected by the fact I think his fights are usually SHOCKING to watch, just utterly ****ing diabolical!

 

There are around 13 white fighters out of my top 20, so I don't think I can be accused of racial hate because I don't rate Wlad as one of the top 20 fighters since 1995. If you are just meaning on this forum in general, I disagree as well - Floyd Mayweather, Bernard Hopkins, James Toney, these guys all get dog's abuse on here regularly.

Tapia is a 3-weight world champion often overlooked because he fought at lower weights. Fantastic superbantam.

Dariusz was indeed a quality fighter.