Wlads Legacy

Wlad Klitschko, in my opinion the most underrated fighter in recent years. The man has been flattened more times than a fat steak but has come back to being one of the most dominant reigning champions in the divisions history.

65 wins (52 kos)
3 losses

He is also on a current run of 16 championship defences since he has regained the title. I understand his competition hasn't been up too much but is it his fault? A man can only beat what is put in front of him. He also hasn't got a fan friendly style but he shouldn't be scored down too much for that because in the end of the day he gets the job done.

His record is not perfect but has been very impressive of late. Other great champions like Holmes and Louis didn't have a long list of ATG on their resumes but they are still thought of as up there as some of the very greatest and in Louis case p4p. Now am not saying Wlad should be rated as highly as these two legendary champions but he deserves to rated as an ATG none the less.

No matter what he is rated now I think history will be kind to him. Not the best Heavy ever but I think he should easily be in the top 15 of all time.

I know I will get flamed for defending Wlad and rating him but I do not care. I have a high opinion of a man who can stay hungry as long as he has and get the job done over and over again.

No i tisn't his fault but forgive me for rating guys higher who've beaten better opponents and don't get their big brother to sort out people who steal their pocket money..

People who rate Wlad are probably young types who haven't seen a technically polished fighter from the eighties like a Page, Tubbs, Dokes, Witherspoon, Holmes, Biggs, Douglas, Tucker..

Guys that went to school and learned how to box....

I'd pick Lewis to stop him in 2..

I mark Louis down for his opponents..............Though I'd pick him to beat Marciano and Charles in his prime... Which with the ten year reign is enough for 2.........

I wouldn't pick Wlad to beat hardly any of the top fighters from the 80s /90s..

15ish on my list but only because of longevity..

[quote="TRUSSMAN66"]No i tisn't his fault but forgive me for rating guys higher who've beaten better opponents and don't get their big brother to sort out people who steal their pocket money..

People who rate Wlad are probably young types who haven't seen a technically polished fighter from the eighties like a Page, Tubbs, Dokes, Witherspoon, Holmes, Biggs, Douglas, Tucker..

Guys that went to school and learned how to box....

I'd pick Lewis to stop him in 2..

I mark Louis down for his opponents..............Though I'd pick him to beat Marciano and Charles in his prime... Which with the ten year reign is enough for 2.........

I wouldn't pick Wlad to beat hardly any of the top fighters from the 80s /90s..

If it is a head to head bases Dempsey should be no were near top 20 never mind ten or even 5 on some peoples lists.

Also I don't think Douglas and the like would beat Wlad. Only fighter out of your list I'd make favourite is Holmes.

Dempsey is around 8/10.............in my list..

Wlad didn't beat the best heavies of his day...Dempsey did and so did Louis regardless of competition.......I for one would pick his brother to stop him late..and Sanders exposed him..

How you fare against the fellow greats does play a big part in the heavyweight division, I like Truss am not enamoured with Louis record but up until his initial retirement he would have beaten every single Heavyweight who preceded him.

That is true of the majority of the true greats at Heavyweight to an extent, all of the great Heavyweights would have competed in previous eras something Wlad wouldn't have done between Liston and Lewis. You could name a nice big long list of fighters he wouldn't have stood a chance against.

Marciano for all his faults and he has many as a Heavyweight would have struggled immensely with the big men who followed him but who to the point of his retirement would have wiped him out?

Everything is relative isn't it............The 100% proof dianabol age of the late 60s/70s produced bigger stronger heavies than ever before.......

What price would cruisers like Dempsey, Rocky and Louis have against big bombers like Foreman....

Products of their age...............and I don't mark them down for it...

I imagine Borg with his wooden racket struggles to win games against Nadal..

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:Dempsey is around 8/10.............in my list..

Wlad didn't beat the best heavies of his day...Dempsey did and so did Louis regardless of competition.......I for one would pick his brother to stop him late..and Sanders exposed him..

I agree Vitali is the better fighter but Wlad has the deeper resume. I do understand your points but I am just basing this on Wlads resume. Wlad has beat the best fighters of recent years. I understand they are maybe not very good compared to other eras but they are wins none the less.

We both rate Floyd. Floyd is an atg no matter what some people say but should he be scored down for his opposition? He has a load of very good wins but his ledger hardly stacks up to a Sugar Ray Leonard or Roberto Duran does it? Is this Floyd fault? Not particuarly as again he can only beat the fighters that are out there for him. Still a top ten fighter for me because of his skill levels and longevity. You also point out the fact that Floyd is near 38, what age is Wlad?

Anyway I will never change peoples opinions and I am not trying that because I know most people do not rate Wlad all that highly especailly fans from other eras. I just think he gets a tad underrated.

Mayweather has beaten better fighters so it's not relevant.......and been a champion for pretty much 17 years....

If you want to be pedantic.............He beat the number 1 at Jr midd..........and he's unbeaten..

Sanders should have been dealt with by him and his brother who ruled with him probably takes his shot and rubs him out late.

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:

Wlad didn't beat the best heavies of his day...Dempsey did and .

Suspect Harry Wills would argue that point with you!

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:Mayweather has beaten better fighters so it's not relevant.......and been a champion for pretty much 17 years....

If you want to be pedantic.............He beat the number 1 at Jr midd..........and he's unbeaten..

Sanders should have been dealt with by him and his brother who ruled with him probably takes his shot and rubs him out late.

Of course Mayweather is better I was only making a point. I love Duran, one of mys favouite fighters ever but I still pick Floyd to beat him. Floyd is undefeated but he does not possess a resume such as Robertos. Wlad would beat the dung out of Rocky Marciano but Rocky was undefeated and beat the best of his time.

Maybe I am being very silly and naive to rate Wlad highly but I still do. His career should of probably been over after the knock outs but he adapted his style (boring, I know) to become a very effective fighter.

He was black......

Is it Floyd's fault? Well, who else could be to blame?

Anyway, I know I said in my Marciano thread that eventually fighters' ratings go up, especially if they have something numeratically definitive on their ledger, and Wlad has the 50KOs, and 16 championship fights. He's already about fifteen, so should be top 10 in forty years or so (;

On a serious note, there are positives and negatives for Wlad. He's been dropped eight times, he's brother got his lunch money back, the paucity of competition... But for all that. I think people can be rather harsh on an altogether accomplished heavyweight. I think his brother the greater athlete (how a 6'8 250lbs man can average 80 shots thrown a round is a miracle), but Wlad probably has the more boxing orientated gifts. He's got good reflexes, a hammer blow right hand, a good jab, good footwork, and not just for his size. He's certainly as athletically gifted as pretty much every fighter in history, and as strong, if I'd wager.

Pity then his chin means he probably loses to everyone in history to have held a lineal title.

kingraf wrote:Is it Floyd's fault? Well, who else could be to blame?

Anyway, I know I said in my Marciano thread that eventually fighters' ratings go up, especially if they have something numeratically definitive on their ledger, and Wlad has the 50KOs, and 16 championship fights. He's already about fifteen, so should be top 10 in forty years or so (;

On a serious note, there are positives and negatives for Wlad. He's been dropped eight times, he's brother got his lunch money back, the paucity of competition... But for all that. I think people can be rather harsh on an altogether accomplished heavyweight. I think his brother the greater athlete (how a 6'8 250lbs man can average 80 shots thrown a round is a miracle), but Wlad probably has the more boxing orientated gifts. He's got good reflexes, a hammer blow right hand, a good jab, good footwork, and not just for his size. He's certainly as athletically gifted as pretty much every fighter in history, and as strong, if I'd wager.

Pity then his chin means he probably loses to everyone in history to have held a lineal title.

Don't think all lineal champions would find his chin. Though I agree the ones that do would shatter it.

I'd pick Wlad to beat all the lineal champs before Liston.......

If all you do is throw jabs from the arm Raf then 80 punches a round isn't beyond the realms, most of the bigger heavyweights had more ambition than that.

I don't think Wlad will ever trouble the elite bracket of Heavies, but I think it's almost a given that he'll be generally rated a lot more kindly in ten to twenty years time than he is now. Just the nature of the beast and while his harshest detractors will argue that it's different in this case, I don't see any real reasons why it would be.

I do think that some past Heavyweight eras are romanticised a bit too much, Truss' eighties batch being a good example. The idea that Wlad isn't fit to carry someone like Tubbs', Biggs' or Witherspoon's jock is a bit sensationalist for my liking. Wladimir would likely get crucified if he served up the kind of stinker that Witherspoon and Tubbs did between them, for instance, or if he got blown out in a round (regardless of excuses / circumstances) like Terrible Tim did against the Bonecrusher. For me, Tyson's performance against Biggs was one of the best all-round displays of his career, but would Wladimir really have done any worse against that peak version of Mike?

Head to heads (which are never set in concrete anyway, even if we're ninety per cent sure how a fight would pan out) can't be the be all and end all when it comes to rating Wlad amongst the Heavies. Louis makes everyone's top two of all time, but if his peak had come twenty, thirty years later than it did and he'd have been sharing a ring with Ali, Liston, Frazier and Foreman, I seriously doub't we'd be talking about him as the second best of his own era, never mind all-time.

Said it before, but you can laugh at Wladimir's longevity and consistency all you want and say they're meaningless - but at least he has them to his name, which is more than can be said for a lot of the Heavyweights who were supposedly in a whole different class to him. I also think that some critics just flat out refuse to acknowledge that he's become a much, much better figher in recent times than he was ten or eleven years back. People talk as if the recent Wlad we've seen is the same fighter as the one who got taken out by Sanders and Brewster - he's not. He's not one of the great head-to-head monsters of the Heavyweight division in my opinion, but at the same time I don't think he'd be absolutely emasculated by every other all-time great like some do.

Definitely a top fifteen Heavy for me. Further down the line I wouldn't be surprised to see him edging by the skin of his teeth in to the occasional top ten, although I'll concede that'll probably be the exception rather than the rule.

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:I'd pick Wlad to beat all the lineal champs before Liston.......

Agreed yet he was not a better fighter for his time. Id say most on here would pick Frazier to beat the Tyson that fought Holmes/Spinks. Their reasoning would be Frazier would wear him down and knock him out. That would be true if wee Joe could take him past the 6th round but with his come forward style Tyson would knock his block off long before then.

I await to be riducled for this

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:I'd pick Wlad to beat all the lineal champs before Liston.......

I wouldn't count out the power of Louis, Patterson and Johansson.

I'd count out their chins though......

Wlad has to land on them first Truss, I said those three because of the smaller heavyweight champions they had a bit more nous and/or speed to go with the power, they wouldn't walk straight on to the jab like Marciano would.

Louis vs Klitschko is interesting. But I think looking at it, I guess there is cause for a Wlad win to be favourite.

Possibly clouds Patterson proper as well. In hindsight it was a rather rushed statement.

It isn't interesting because Louis can't stand his ground as he's a cruiser (Weighed 199 for Conn) and he sure as hell couldn't fight off the back foot..

Easy night......

He can't, but can Wlad force him on the back foot? To do that, he'd have to take a... you know..
risk

kingraf wrote:He can't, but can Wlad force him on the back foot? To do that, he'd have to take a... you know..
risk

I would imagine he could use his jab and superior bodyweight to good effect.

He managed to do alright against Buddy Baer who was no smaller than Wlad, you don't need to stand your ground against an opponent so wary of power.

AdamT wrote:

kingraf wrote:He can't, but can Wlad force him on the back foot? To do that, he'd have to take a... you know..
risk

I would imagine he could use his jab and superior bodyweight to good effect.

and he's five inches taller...with a huge reach advantage...

Louis is my number 2 but about 20 on any head to head.....

Walcott outboxed him..............So the bigger, heavier polished types like Tubbs, Witherspoon and page for me all outpoint him......Maybe Witherspoon stops him....

Bruno with Louis habit of walking into shots is 50/50...........Bruno lands the right it's good night............

Frazier, Foreman and Tyson are all mismatches.............

Product of his time....and no harm in that..Basically a cruiser.

Louis a far better and more thought of champion for his day. A lethal accurate puncher who was devasting. Unfortunately you can not ignore the fact that he is basically a cruiser going up against a super heavyweight.

He would only have a punchers chance.

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:

AdamT wrote:

kingraf wrote:He can't, but can Wlad force him on the back foot? To do that, he'd have to take a... you know..
risk

I would imagine he could use his jab and superior bodyweight to good effect.

and he's five inches taller...with a huge reach advantage...

Louis is my number 2 but about 20 on any head to head.....

Walcott outboxed him..............So the bigger, heavier polished types like Tubbs, Witherspoon and page for me all outpoint him......Maybe Witherspoon stops him....

Bruno with Louis habit of walking into shots is 50/50...........Bruno lands the right it's good night............

Frazier, Foreman and Tyson are all mismatches.............

Product of his time....and no harm in that..Basically a cruiser.

Poor Louis doesn't seem to be able beat anyone in a mythical H2H these days.. He'll not be lasting 90 secs with Joshua next

Cheers, Rodders

You said it..

I'm sure if Brewster, Peter and Sanders can terrify Wlad, I'd happily take my chances on Louis toppling the current king.

Cheers, Rodders

Mate I have Louis number 2 on my list...........Fact is Sanders, Brewster et al were big enough to stand there ground....

Haye couldn't and he's bigger than Louis....

I know it sounds great to hear how he takes the middle of the ring and keeps a guy like Foreman throwing murderous hooks like he did against Frazier on the end of his cruiser jab...But in reality...

Forget what your wife tells you Rodders...Size does matter.....

: ) Haye has no fundamental skills to slip a jab and counter he was never going to win. Watch Louis fight the big men he invested time and rounds on work to the body. Cant be bothered to look up the dimensions but surely Brewster isn't much bigger than Louis.

Cheers, Rodders

Rodney wrote:: ) Haye has no fundamental skills to slip a jab and counter he was never going to win. Watch Louis fight the big men he invested time and rounds on work to the body. Cant be bothered to look up the dimensions but surely Brewster isn't much bigger than Louis.

Cheers, Rodders

Has Wlad not improved since Brewster?

You know we'll never agree Roddy...Mate..

But it's good to see you around again..

88Chris05 wrote:I don't think Wlad will ever trouble the elite bracket of Heavies, but I think it's almost a given that he'll be generally rated a lot more kindly in ten to twenty years time than he is now. Just the nature of the beast and while his harshest detractors will argue that it's different in this case, I don't see any real reasons why it would be.

I do think that some past Heavyweight eras are romanticised a bit too much, Truss' eighties batch being a good example. The idea that Wlad isn't fit to carry someone like Tubbs', Biggs' or Witherspoon's jock is a bit sensationalist for my liking. Wladimir would likely get crucified if he served up the kind of stinker that Witherspoon and Tubbs did between them, for instance, or if he got blown out in a round (regardless of excuses / circumstances) like Terrible Tim did against the Bonecrusher. For me, Tyson's performance against Biggs was one of the best all-round displays of his career, but would Wladimir really have done any worse against that peak version of Mike?

Head to heads (which are never set in concrete anyway, even if we're ninety per cent sure how a fight would pan out) can't be the be all and end all when it comes to rating Wlad amongst the Heavies. Louis makes everyone's top two of all time, but if his peak had come twenty, thirty years later than it did and he'd have been sharing a ring with Ali, Liston, Frazier and Foreman, I seriously doub't  we'd be talking about him as the second best of his own era, never mind all-time.

Said it before, but you can laugh at Wladimir's longevity and consistency all you want and say they're meaningless - but at least he has them to his name, which is more than can be said for a lot of the Heavyweights who were supposedly in a whole different class to him. I also think that some critics just flat out refuse to acknowledge that he's become a much, much better figher in recent times than he was ten or eleven years back. People talk as if the recent Wlad we've seen is the same fighter as the one who got taken out by Sanders and Brewster - he's not. He's not one of the great head-to-head monsters of the Heavyweight division in my opinion, but at the same time I don't think he'd be absolutely emasculated by every other all-time great like some do.

Definitely a top fifteen Heavy for me. Further down the line I wouldn't be surprised to see him edging by the skin of his teeth in to the occasional top ten, although I'll concede that'll probably be the exception rather than the rule.

This quote sums up what I was trying to say Chris. good post. Is Wlad the greatest ever?No. Is he top 5? Again no but he is still a good heavy with a great record no matter the era.

The issue is when people say he has a great record which he does not, very few can say they have a great record and beating the best of the current garbage is definitely not great.

Hammersmith harrier wrote:The issue is when people say he has a great record which he does not, very few can say they have a great record and beating the best of the current garbage is definitely not great.

Well then if his record is garbage then Floyds is only good, certainly not great compared to past fighters

Not having the greatest record doesn't mean you don't have a great record, there is no comparison between Mayweather and Wlad.

Hammersmith harrier wrote:Not having the greatest record doesn't mean you don't have a great record, there is no comparison between Mayweather and Wlad.

Mayweather much better and has a better resume, agreed. Point still stands though. If I wasn't a Mayweather fan (I am check past posts) I could argue he avoided certain fighters and in no way does his record look near as good as Ray Leonards apart from the loss column.

If we confine a record to four fights then nobody has a record than compares to Ray Leonard but there is more than enough top quality on Mayweathers record with or without Pacquiao. We go back to his early days then Hernandez, Manfredy, Corrales, Chavez and Castillo is hardly a poor set of wins is it, the best of what was around in the divisions at that time.

Still should of fought Pacquaio or at least still fight him. The fight isn't the same but there is no one else unless he fights GGG which understandly he wouldn't go near in a million years.

A record doesn't consist of fights you didn't take, Leonard should have fought Pryor or McCallum at some point but for whatever reason he didn't. We don't look at Robinsons record and pinpoint the absence of Burley a fight that could have been made.

Hammersmith harrier wrote:A record doesn't consist of fights you didn't take, Leonard should have fought Pryor or McCallum at some point but for whatever reason he didn't. We don't look at Robinsons record and pinpoint the absence of Burley a fight that could have been made.

Pryor and McCallum dont hold near the same water as May and Pac. Leonards biggest rivals were Duran and Hearns, he fought them both more than once. Look I'm not looking to bash Floyd, he is the best boxer I have ever seen in my lifetime as far as skills are concerned but he should fight Pacquiao.I don't care about him not facing Margarito or Williams because he was still taking care of other good fighters but he needs Mannys name on his resume imo.

Rodney wrote:

Poor Louis doesn't seem to be able beat anyone in a mythical H2H these days..

The only fighter in the top three of his division who can't win a fight!

AdamT wrote:

Hammersmith harrier wrote:A record doesn't consist of fights you didn't take, Leonard should have fought Pryor or McCallum at some point but for whatever reason he didn't. We don't look at Robinsons record and pinpoint the absence of Burley a fight that could have been made.

Pryor and McCallum dont hold near the same water as May and Pac. Leonards biggest rivals were Duran and Hearns, he fought them both more than once. Look I'm not looking to bash Floyd, he is the best boxer I have ever seen in my lifetime as far as skills are concerned but he should fight Pacquiao.I don't care about him not facing Margarito or Williams because he was still taking care of other good fighters but he needs Mannys name on his resume imo.

Not sure how this has turned into a Mayweather but it's a bit lazy to only concentrate on a single fight, for the record McCallum would have been a far trickier proposition than Duran.

Hammersmith harrier wrote:

AdamT wrote:

Hammersmith harrier wrote:A record doesn't consist of fights you didn't take, Leonard should have fought Pryor or McCallum at some point but for whatever reason he didn't. We don't look at Robinsons record and pinpoint the absence of Burley a fight that could have been made.

Pryor and McCallum dont hold near the same water as May and Pac. Leonards biggest rivals were Duran and Hearns, he fought them both more than once. Look I'm not looking to bash Floyd, he is the best boxer I have ever seen in my lifetime as far as skills are concerned but he should fight Pacquiao.I don't care about him not facing Margarito or Williams because he was still taking care of other good fighters but he needs Mannys name on his resume imo.

Not sure how this has turned into a Mayweather but it's a bit lazy to only concentrate on a single fight, for the record McCallum would have been a far trickier proposition than Duran.

I do agree that he would of been. I also think De la hoy at 154 is greater risk than Manny now or even Corrales at 135. Point am trying to make is Floyd should get Manny on his ledger. It will be a massive name in years to come. Casuals give Lewis credit for beating Tysons shadow so surley Floyd would still get credit for beating the currennt Manny.

I agree we are a bit off topic, back to slagging Wlad then!

Rowley wrote:

Rodney wrote:

Poor Louis doesn't seem to be able beat anyone in a mythical H2H these days..

The only fighter in the top three of his division who can't win a fight!

Back to the culture thread and thanks for the contribution..

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:

Rowley wrote:

Rodney wrote:

Poor Louis doesn't seem to be able beat anyone in a mythical H2H these days..

The only fighter in the top three of his division who can't win a fight!

Back to the culture thread and thanks for the contribution..

Can't risk missing what Tino's had for lunch eh?

Don't really understand the argument that Leonard avoided Pryor or McCallum. Pryor was a weight class below for a start - Leonard had already cleaned out a spectacular Welterweight division with wins over Benitez, Duran and Hearns before Pryor had even established himself as a huge name with his win (at Light-Welter) over Arguello. Even allowing for that, Leonard and Mike Trainer still made an offer to Pryor for $500,000 for Pryor to move up and have a crack at Leonard's Welter title - and Pryor openly admitted that he turned the fight down. The offer was upped to $750,000 the following year (1982) and this time Pryor accepted, but Leonard was forced to cancel and retire due to his retina issues which required surgery. No duck there, and it worked out well for Pryor in the end - instead of Leonard, he got the fight with Arguello, a much more winnable encounter which established his legacy.

As for McCallum, well again he didn't start to make a name for himself until 1982 when he beat Kalule, and his maiden world title at 154 didn't come until 1984, again falling in the days of Leonard being retired save for that one fight against Howard. When Leonard returned in 1987, it was to face a much more highly-regarded fighter in Hagler at a higher weight and for a hell of a lot more money. I doubt many would have wanted to see him make his comeback against McCallum rather than Hagler, or thought that McCallum would be a tougher fight. After that, McCallum does move up to Middleweight in 1988.....And promptly gets dominated by Kalambay. McCallum was never the top man at 160 (the decisions against Graham and Kalambay in the rematch were mighty tight and debatable, and Watson was his only really dominant or impressive performance there), and if there was a Middleweight who you could say Leonard was doing his best to avoid at the time it would really have been Nunn rather than McCallum. I think McCallum can count himself hard done by that he never got a crack at either Duran or Hearns in his Light-Middle days, but I don't think there's anything to suggest that Hagler or Leonard were getting the jitters about facing him.

Then again....I am a Leonard fanboy as Atila likes to remind me now and then.

Reminds me of the (hall of fame?) debate where it was pointed out that Robinson had ducked all the BMR fighters. There was a genuine sentiment of Robinson the ducker, among some of our more knowledgable posters.... Until someone pointed out the timelines and concluded burley was the only genuine argument. Even then, burley shrugged it off as just business.

Mcallum and Pryor crop up every now and then as sticks to beat Leonard with. With the benefit of hindsight they'd gave been interesting fights that fans would like to have seen... And that's all.