Wladimir Klitschko is now the greatest heavyweight who ever lived, according to Boxrec.

To be fair, Haye and Povetkin couldnt counter it either. No step back hooks, uppercuts, or straights. No inside body work, no roughhousing...when you let your opponent dictate the pace it usually doesnt go your way

 

I guess it depends what you're seeing...

For me, Lewis was clearly in decline and fully ready for retirement...
He was as ripe for a changing of the guard as Wlad was against Fury and Joshua (at that level, it doesn't take that much!) but Vitali just wasn't able to take advantage... I think Wlad might've been able to, but I wouldn't bet on it either!

The idea that he was practically mummified and incapable of defending himself would be overstating things - I don't see that much, though...

You're absolutely right about excuses - there's no need for it, Lewis was one of (if not THE) head to head GOATs at the weight... It's not like Vitali went and lost to a faded version of a mediocre champion.


I guess it's funny in a way - Lewis still being effective at the end means he was still at his best (even though he clearly wasn't) whilst when some fighters decline their prime gets reduced to what their older versions became... Strange how it goes sometimes.

 

That’s not true if you look at the timelines.

 

It’s absolutely laughable to class him as the GOAT.

 

True, but he was one of the great champions of the division. Defended the IBF belt 18 times while unifying with the then WBA and WBO champions. On top of that he often faced the nr 1 contenders too, and the mandatory challengers... altho the mandatory ones were usually crap opponents.

Truly one of the top 10 champions of the division, just not the greatest.

 

Maybe you need to refresh your memory. Their timelines intersect

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lennox_Lewis

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wladimir_Klitschko

 

Yes.

I lived through the era.

I’m not saying that they couldn’t have fought, but there was no demand for it.

Wlad was well thought of on the way up, but then he lost to Purrity.

He then built himself back up where he had an impressive win over Byrd.

However, Grant was seen as the next big thing, and he was pushed by the networks and the media.

Tua was then also highly thought of at the time.

Then we had the huge shock against Rahman, where everyone wanted a rematch afterwards.

We then had the huge cash out against Mike, before Wlad’s reputation took a huge hit with the loss to Sanders.

So a fight was never really viable.

At the time, those were all preferred match ups.

Also, Lennox was only fighting a few times per year at the moment.

Under the circumstances, it’s not a big omission from his resume.

Maybe if Wlad hadn’t have lost on the way up, there’d have been more pressure on Lennox to have taken the fight, and more of a demand.

The Rahman loss was also significant after the filming of ‘Ocean’s Eleven’

 

Wlad never took a single voluntary defense in his career.

I'm not trying to be a hater, seems like he has plenty, but it's a fact. He fought contenders because you agree with the bodies not because he went out of his way to fight the best he could.

How Wlad got his high number of Ring rated defenses is because Ring waited for a mando to get announced then whoever Wlad was fighting was overnighted contendership.

The reason Ring ratings do not look anything like body ratings now is because Ring no longer overnights champions' mandos to their rating board.

18 defenses is sure enough and he don't need more but when y'all act like Wlad fought someone ... uh ... nah dog. No one. Even the best of the **** show we got was not his choice. Wlad looked for no smoke ever and that alone is why his resume is ass. It's not because he couldn't have fought names. He didn't. Could have fought a few names, they were not in position for the shitty belts doe, so he didn't. Instead he picked up the weakest belt he could get, fought their mandos while anyone of any value aged out over the WBA/WBC belts until those bodies had nothing but fat no hopers to feed to K2 too and had no problem attaching their belts to his mandos or his brother.


Ain't no shame in sliding in the backdoor when dudes like Rahman are still around to become the last man standing, but this, he faced everyone deal, nah. Nope. Didn't even fight the best. He fought his mandos. Period.

 

Bro I had to quote you just to make sure it is a blank post. Didn't even know you could do that!

I'm not sure how to take it. I did kinda ramble, my only point was Wlad's contender were ranked overnight and dudes like Mormeck, maybe especially Mormeck, were not the best he could have fought at that time.

Appreciate you showing me something though. I don't know what a blank post is meant to mean, if it's a sort of eff off, my bad, I don't mean to harass you my dude.

 

Were would he fall for you?

 

That's just simply untrue. Brock wasn't a mandatory. Rahman wasn't a mandatory. Peter II wasn't a mandatory. Chagaev wasn't a mandatory. Mormeck wasn't a mandatory. Guys like Pianeta and Wach weren't mandatories. Jennings wasn't a mandatory. His unifications obviously weren't mandatories.

That's simply not true and simple google search disproves that.

So why you're lying?

He beat all the best guys of his era. The only top guy he didn't face was Vitali.

Chris Byrd was considered the best heavyweight in the world when he fought him for his IBF belt, lol.

 

I don´t know what happened. I asked you to name the contenders Wlad did not fight.
That was my entire argument: that Wladimir fought many of the top contenders of his era, faced his mandatory obligations and unified against two other champions.
By that sense he was a fantastic champion.

 

Why do people get so worked up about all time rankings anyway?

 

We need to feed our nerdy side.