Wlad's all-time status?

I disagree here. Corrie Sanders in his 13 year career prior had not beaten one single top 10 rated fighter and had been knocked out by Nate Tubbs and Hasim Rahman....Coming into the fight He was 37 years old and ready for retirement. In the UK broadcast of the fight/ballroom dancing last night Ian Darke said the following, about the Corrie Sanders/Wlad fight :-"I spoke to Sanders before that fight and he said he was just there for the payday, and was planning on retiring anyway". So clearly Corrie himself didnt think he was a top 10 fighter going in.

* Sanders was nothing more than a 3 round fighter with horrible stamina, leaky defense, very sloppy technique and a bad chin.


Lamon Brewster was not top 10 on Sheer Ability. If I were to ask you who was his best win prior to the wladimir klitschko fight, you would not even know who to name thats how weak his resume was.....Heres a man who I watched get badly outboxed and shutout on the cards by charles shufford and clifford friggin ettiene....theres no way a man like that was top 10 on ability.....Brewster was one of the easiest fighters to outbox. Brewster had horrible defense and very below average boxing skills....All he had was a warriors heart, a punch, and a beard.


Lamon Brewster and Corrie Sanders were not top 10 fighters going in for good reason..

 

I totally disagree with you here; we will have to agree to disagree on this matter. I am convinced that in 2003, only a handful of heavyweights could have handled Corrie Sanders. The same is true of Lamon Brewster in 2004. I know many leading boxing authorities agree with me.

 

If thats the case, then how come he has never been able to defeat a top 10 Ring Magazine fighter other than Wladimir? He has had his chances...hes just not that good.

Not really. Lamon Brewster couldnt even win more than 1 out of 10 rounds against Charles Shufford and Clifford Ettiene, what makes u think he was capable of beating the other top 10 fighters?

why not? They were young, undefeated, and in there primes. Even still, look what happened when sanders stepped up to fight the flawed Hasim Rahman....he got knocked out. Brewster was lucky to get a gift decision over a 37 year old fat unskilled glass jawed kali meehan, who outslugged him for 12 rounds.

 

Even world class fighters can vary in terms of how good they are on any given night. Sometimes, world level guys fight far below their true ability level. I know that against Ettiene and Shufford, Brewster was not at his best. For one of the fights he was recovering from a knee injury, and for the other fight he was weakened by a lengthy period of weight loss.

It's obvious from Brewster's subsequent performances that he was a far better fighter than he showed against Ettiene and Shufford. I remember Doug Fischer (currently of Ring Magazine, previously of maxboxing.com) used to discuss Brewster often; he was impressed with Brewster and tended to downplay Brewster's earlier losses.

That Corrie Sanders lost to Hasim Rahman is no shame; after all, even Lennox Lewis lost to Rahman. Losing to Rahman does not mean that Sanders himself did not have top 10 worldwide fighting ability.

Also, regarding the Rahman fight, Sanders was winning handily before running out of gas. Sanders wasn't in the best shape that day. If Sanders had been better trained, he probably would have won the bout by decision.

 

We'll have to start calling you King Solomon, then!

 

1. "is too much emphasis being placed on early losses"

The losses to Sanders and Brewster were not "early". They were "prime" losses. They came when Wlad was 27 and 28 years old and had had more than 40 fights. If this is not considered "prime" the term has no meaning. I would add that both were embaressing but the Sanders fight was a total blowout of the sort that NEVER happened to many, if not most, of the top ten candidates. Even the loss to Purrity came when Wlad was hardly green. He was an Olympic gold medalist who had had 24 fights and was older than Joe Louis was when Joe lost to Schmeling. And Schmeling was one of the two or three best heavyweights of the thirties. Was Purrity one of the two or three best of any period?

2. "so what would be the criteria for ATG"

a. I would say the top one is that he defeats the best out there during his time--Has Wlad? No. He will never defeat Vitali, the next best out there now. He did not defeat Lewis or a younger Holyfield.

b. A negative factor is avoiding crushing or embaressing losses, at least in your prime. Wlad will never catch Jeffries, Louis, Marciano, Ali, Holmes, or Holyfield on this one. He will never catch Vitali, in fact. Foreman did lose to Ali and Young, but that is not quite as embarressing as going down and out to Sanders. Frazier was blown out also but by a top-notcher in Foreman. Sanders was not a top-notcher.
Lewis is about the only one of the top ten candidates who suffered a similar embaressment. One could perhaps also argue that Liston did in the second Ali fight. Dempsey and Johnson were younger or greener when they went down to Flynn and Choynski, but neither was stopped near their peaks.

c. Embarressing defeats and poor performances are reversed--Wlad did reverse his loss to Brewster. He did not reverse the losses to Purrity and Sanders. His victory over Peter was nothing to brag about as he was down three times. Peter has not proven to be a top notcher.

d. You are on top a long time or defeat a whole slew of second-raters. This is the course Wlad is on, but I don't know if it gets him that high a rating. Bob Baker defeated more good (rated at one time or another) fighters than Marciano or Jeffries or Schmeling did. I don't think many would rate him above those three. They defeated top men. Baker didn't. Jeffries and Marciano also did not suffer bad prime defeats. Baker did.

Wlad is odd in one respect. He suffered three crushing defeats to men who were not as good as the men he defeated. This is probably a function of his great strengths and also glaring weaknesses. He probably would beat the great boxers, say Tunney and Johnson, but he might well lose to the crude sluggers like Baer, or even Firpo if he can't protect his chin long enough to finish Firpo off.

 

If Wlad beats Haye, Valuev, Arreola, Povetkin in the next 2 years he could get to the top 10

 

"Prime" is a pointless term and I'm sorry I used it because it leads into all this silly gobblygook. Look, the man had over 40 fights and was at his physical peak. He has no excuses. If he could have avoided these losses with Steward that is nice, but he didn't avoid these losses and that is history and these losses count.

"Many people consider Tyson past his prime when he lost at 23"

More silly gobblygook. Obviously, you could define any fight in which anyone loses as not prime because he lost and so was not at his best. A man with the experience of Tyson and only 23 years old has no excuses.

By the way, beating Chagaev today does not prove Wlad is better than he was five or six years ago. He would have beaten Chagaev then. It takes a puncher to beat Wlad. Chagaev is not and never has been a puncher.

 

Oh, Tyson was in his prime, no question there. I think the fact that

a) He clearly wasn't 100% focussed
b) That Douglas fought a really good fight

has led people to in some ways 'excuse' the loss as an anomaly. Had Wlad lost only to Purrity, Sanders or Brewster and not all three, I'm sure that in many ways that loss would be seen as an anomaly as well.

I must admit my vote was a bit flippant. Yes, of course if Wlad wins all his fights in the next few years (or wins a half dozen or so more) then he should be considered as a possibility for a top 10-12 slot. Retiring as the unbeaten champ would help as well.

PS-I consider Tyson physically in his prime until he went to prison. He lost a little bit after that, imo. Peak Tyson was in '88 when he had an amazing year.

 

Ask me when he's retired.

You can never get a true picture until well after a career is done. Big wins and big losses can completely change things.

 

If he were to take out Haye, Valuev, Povetkin and Arreola/Kevin Johnson (Depends which one eventually sticks out as the prime American contender - probably Arreola) he'd be somewhere between 10-12 for me.

 

I think all this is beating a straw man.

I, and I think many other posters, interpreted this question not as COULD Wlad somehow make the top ten under an extreme scenario, but WOULD he in my opinion do enough to make the top ten. I don't think so, but certainly there are scenarios where he might. I just don't think them likely. I could be wrong, though.