compared the great heavyweight fighters of the past how would you rate this run of fights since Wlads win over Sam Peter in september 2005 to david haye in july 2011 W12 samuel Peter TKO7 chris Byrd (IBF title) TKO7 calvin brock KO2 Ray austin TKO6 Lamon brewster W12 sultan ibragmov (Wbo title) KO11 Tony Thompson TKO7 Hasim rahman TKo9 ruslan Chagev KO12 eddie chambers KO10 Samuel Peter W12 David haye (wBa champion) most of those were decent contendrs. Rahman was a bad opponent all washed-up. And maybe brewster was too but wlad had a loss to avenge. i thinks its a respectable run of fights even compared to what other heavyweights did in the past. Im not arguing about full resumes but only specifc winning streaks
true the opposition is mediocre but not so terrible. its hard to find a run of 12 wins where a heavyweight didnt fight a few weak ones. some worse than these even
I agree. i cant really fault it. others have had longer runs or have much better resumes overall. But for a 12-fight 6-year spell against legit heavyweight challengers it is very good. few have done better
I think that Wlad is going to be remembered more fondly and as greater as time passes. The fact is, he doesn't inspire as a champion. Firstly, he has that Holmes vibe of quietly dominating opponents in a way that doesn't really appeal across the board. More than that, he boxes nervously, and without any confidence in his own punch resistance. He's perhaps unique amongst the HW champions in that he boxes to cover his weaknesses first and foremost. All the more fascinating for that... But as time goes by the raw data you've put your finger on is going to appeal more and more to guys like us. Furthermore, in his absolute prime it's going to be impossible to find film where he's being troubled. Also, if this trend continues and Lewis and the Klits are the first in a long line of muscled 6'6 250lb HW's, a natural drag is going to occur on Lennox making comparisons between him and Wlad more reasonable. SO whilst in my opinion, Lewis is clearly the better and greater fighter, that gap is going to close and in closing it's going to help legitimise ranking Wlad very highly. Based on the raw data.
in the last 6 years the only bull**** fight is against the unranked ray austin. i refuse to criticise him for not facing his brother when his brother has repeatedly said he has no intention of challenging wlad's position. it's a shame he never fought ruiz nor valuev, but he did beat both chagaev and haye which makes up for it somewhat. adamek, povetkin and arreola are the next 3 i'd like to see him face and he's arguably cleaned out the top 10.
Well in failing to match his brother, or Lewis, he has never matched his nearest competitor in his entire reign. That is going to hurt him I'm afraid, especially as he's trading on his dominance. As far as his being "penalised" in the rankings goes, he won't suffer as much because the best for a long period was his brother.
good post. I see him in the same category as lennox Lewis already. and im probably in a minority there but its how i see it. i dont like his style but i cant argue with the results
To a certain extent I follow the line of you can only fight who is there at the time - for instance at times Muhammad Ali fought some terrible opponents but when he did (and the number of times he did) he was still Muhammad Ali and it didn't make him any less of the legendary fighter he was and so too Vlad is stil Vlad Klit and he wasn't automatically a worser fighter when he fought those type of guys - he's still a great boxer in his own right - and to be fair I don't think they were awful fighters a lot of them, even the performances they put in were awful a lot of the time - I think the awful performances by so of them owed to how difficult a man to fight that Vlad is once they were in there with him and for Haye for me was hindered by the toe for better or worse- I went to the boxing gym the week after kicking the side of my bed and taking a toe nail clean off and I couldn't do 50% of what I normally could - with a broken it just wouldn't have been worth me trying
For me, on their days, Haye, Byrd and Sam Peter and Brewster are all very decent fighters - they're good fighters in my book each with certain VERY good qualities
personally ive never seen David haye look better than he did going 12 rounds with Wlad klitschko. its called stepping up in class. he actually showed more defensive skill against wlad that i thought he possessed. he did better than i had expected. God knows why he was rated so high going in to the fight. i guess a big mouth means a lot to some
Byrd and Brewster were close to being shot when they fought Wlad for the second time. Wlad's first win against Byrd is legit and arguably his best win.
Byrd was the best hw in the world when wlad fought him. brewster was a rematch of the only defeat suffered whilst with steward.