The problem with not fighting the 2nd best fighter of your era:Klitschkos and others.

[Jel]

The problem with not fighting the 2nd best fighter of your era is that it really puts a big question mark over a variety of criteria in judging your ATG standings.
Your resume, your record, and of course your title defenses.

I will highlight 3 cases. One of which is very very unique(klitschkos)

1- K2
First off I like to say that it is 100% understandable why they DO NOT fight. They are brothers and it is impossible. They just have the bad luck (speaking from a boxing sense) to be related. The issue is this:

If Vitali was not related to Wladimir, they would have fought 2-3 times already. Vitali would have at least been a 50-50 if not outright favorite against Wladimir. This really does distorts his title defense numbers and his reign of dominance. He shared his reign with a fighter who is his equal or nearly so. He shared his dominance with a fighter who have a very real chance of beating him and ending his title defense streak. This is troubling because there are a number of ATG'S who would have had better reigns, better records and better defenses than they had, if they never fought the clear #1 challenger to their throne.


2- Roy Jones Jr and Dariusz michalczewski.
Based on what we seen of 175 Roy, we will have to make Roy the favorite against Dariusz. The issue remains that Dariusz had the biggest chance out of anybody to beat Roy. As amazing as Roy is, you can not truly say he was the best LHW of his era because he never fought the 2nd best LHW of his era. We just don't know what would have happened.


3- The obvious one.
Pacquaio-Mayweather.

Neither man can say they were the 'fighter of his generation' they have to share the reign. The best version of Pacquaio would still have been a under dog against Floyd,but the fact remain: Pacquaio had the biggest chance out of anybody to beat Floyd.


Once again, if you never fought the 2nd best fighter of your era (For whatever reasons, excusable or not excusable) it does put a dent in your resume,title defenses, and overall standings.

[Jel]

I find the Vitali-Wladimir situation especially bothersome despite the fact it is by far the most excusable. A large part of Wladimir's legacy is based off of stats and numbers. Of consecutive title defenses and overall number of wins. Vitali could have put an end to this and snapped his various streaks. If Vitali wasn't related to Wladimir, for all we know Wladimir would have been knocked out 5 times instead of 3. Which effectively shoot him out of the top 10 spot(a spot that he will surely get, but a spot which he might not have received if Vitali was not his brother)

[daggum]

add ottke-calzaghe, both had 21 title defenses in the same division at the same time.

[Jel]

add ottke-calzaghe, both had 21 title defenses in the same division at the same time.

I seriously thought about that situation, but Ottke was such a joke I just don't know if that hindered Joe's legacy in any way. Ottke actually had 3-4 losses during his 'reign'.

[edgarg]

The problem with not fighting the 2nd best fighter of your era is that it really puts a big question mark over a variety of criteria in judging your ATG standings.
Your resume, your record, and of course your title defenses.

I will highlight 3 cases. One of which is very very unique(klitschkos)

1- K2
First off I like to say that it is 100% understandable why they DO NOT fight. They are brothers and it is impossible. They just have the bad luck (speaking from a boxing sense) to be related. The issue is this:

If Vitali was not related to Wladimir, they would have fought 2-3 times already. Vitali would have at least been a 50-50 if not outright favorite against Wladimir. This really does distorts his title defense numbers and his reign of dominance. He shared his reign with a fighter who is his equal or nearly so. He shared his dominance with a fighter who have a very real chance of beating him and ending his title defense streak. This is troubling because there are a number of ATG'S who would have had better reigns, better records and better defenses than they had, if they never fought the clear #1 challenger to their throne.


2- Roy Jones Jr and Dariusz michalczewski.
Based on what we seen of 175 Roy, we will have to make Roy the favorite against Dariusz. The issue remains that Dariusz had the biggest chance out of anybody to beat Roy. As amazing as Roy is, you can not truly say he was the best LHW of his era because he never fought the 2nd best LHW of his era. We just don't know what would have happened.


3- The obvious one.
Pacquaio-Mayweather.

Neither man can say they were the 'fighter of his generation' they have to share the reign. The best version of Pacquaio would still have been a under dog against Floyd,but the fact remain: Pacquaio had the biggest chance out of anybody to beat Floyd.


Once again, if you never fought the 2nd best fighter of your era (For whatever reasons, excusable or not excusable) it does put a dent in your resume,title defenses, and overall standings.

I think you're wrong, since we can assume that V Klitschko retired and those he fought would also be easliy wiped out by W Klitschko, so you have the same situation, that Klitschko is much better than the available opposition, but if neither Klitschko was around, the pairings and fight results would be far more interesting and more evenly matched, making better fights. Very simple to understand- as long as you're not a conpiracy theorist...

[SN!PER]

These fights could've changed HW boxing history:

Lennox Lewis vs. Wladimir Klitschko
Ike Ibeabuchi vs. Vitali/ Wlad Klitschko
Riddick Bowe vs. Vitali/ Wlad Klitschko

[Jel]

I think you're wrong, since we can assume that V Klitschko retired and those he fought would also be easliy wiped out by W Klitschko, so you have the same situation, that Klitschko is much better than the available opposition, but if neither Klitschko was around, the pairings and fight results would be far more interesting and more evenly matched, making better fights. Very simple to understand- as long as you're not a conpiracy theorist...

I'm not talking about the 'other guys' I'm talking about the #1 challenger to the king's throne. Which is Vitali.

It's a unique situation because Wladimir's resume is literally build not on quality of opposition but on stats and longevity.

It's not like a Sugar Ray Leonard who don't really need any long title reign because he fought multiple Elite and ATG Fighters. Wladimir needs a long title reign because he is just like Larry Holmes in terms of sub par resume(as compare to their counter parts in the top 10 echelon)


Also take into consideration that Wlad was already knocked out 3 times. A fourth knock out would have effectively ended his career, VItali could have delivered that fourth knock out. It is extremely inaccurate to say Wladimir is the best HW of his generation when he never fought the guy who could beat him. That's a joke. Once again a excusable joke, because they are brothers, but it does not change the fact Wlad never fought this era's #2.

In fact Wlad never even fought this era's #3(Povetkin). Wladimir is one of the very few guys who have not fought the #2 OR the #3 and he is already 35-36.


The K2 Tag team combined their forces to clean out a division, that is something unique and very special, but to just 'assume' they could have done it by themselves without the other is just pure speculation.

[Simurgh]

I'm not talking about the 'other guys' I'm talking about the #1 challenger to the king's throne. Which is Vitali.

It's a unique situation because Wladimir's resume is literally build not on quality of opposition but on stats and longevity.

It's not like a Sugar Ray Leonard who don't really need any long title reign because he fought multiple Elite and ATG Fighters. Wladimir needs a long title reign because he is just like Larry Holmes in terms of sub par resume(as compare to their counter parts in the top 10 echelon)


Also take into consideration that Wlad was already knocked out 3 times. A fourth knock out would have effectively ended his career, VItali could have delivered that fourth knock out. It is extremely inaccurate to say Wladimir is the best HW of his generation when he never fought the guy who could beat him. That's a joke. Once again a excusable joke, because they are brothers, but it does not change the fact Wlad never fought this era's #2.

In fact Wlad never even fought this era's #3(Povetkin). Wladimir is one of the very few guys who have not fought the #2 OR the #3 and he is already 35-36.

The K2 Tag team combined their forces to clean out a division, that is something unique and very special, but to just 'assume' they could have done it by themselves without the other is just pure speculation.

Interesting post but I have a few remarks.

In case of Wlad it is very important to say he was not TKOed in his prime. He is a kind of fighter that matured quite late (I am not saying he wasn't a very good fighter before, but only with Manny he became what he is today - one of the best ATG in my opinion/not just resume based). To compare version of Wlad who fought any of the fights where he was TKOed is like comparing Tyson who KOed Holmes and Tyson who was KOed by Williams. I believe that's how far Wlad was from what he is today.

Second remark is that I really can't see of all opponents that Vitali fought that anyone would give Wlad a difficult challenge. He took almost 80% of contenders on his own. I don't think Arreola, Chisorra or Adamek would present any realistic dangerous for Wlad. They just don't poses what it's needed to provide even remotely competitive fight. Wlad has already fought better version of each fighter Vitali fought (I take Haye over Adamek, prime Peter over Chisorra and prime Thomson over Arreola).

The only reason why Wlad didn't already fight Povetkin is quite obvious. As soon as they meet Povetkin would become utter bum and another not-worthy Wlad's victim.

[Jel]

Interesting post but I have a few remarks.

In case of Wlad it is very important to say he was not TKOed in his prime. He is a kind of fighter that matured quite late (I am not saying he wasn't a very good fighter before, but only with Manny he became what he is today - one of the best ATG in my opinion/not just resume based). To compare version of Wlad who fought any of the fights where he was TKOed is like comparing Tyson who KOed Holmes and Tyson who was KOed by Williams. I believe that's how far Wlad was from what he is today.

Second remark is that I really can't see of all opponents that Vitali fought that anyone would give Wlad a difficult challenge. He took almost 80% of contenders on his own. I don't think Arreola, Chisorra or Adamek would present any realistic dangerous for Wlad. They just don't poses what it's needed to provide even remotely competitive fight. Wlad has already fought better version of each fighter Vitali fought (I take Haye over Adamek, prime Peter over Chisorra and prime Thomson over Arreola).

The only reason why Wlad didn't already fight Povetkin is quite obvious. As soon as they meet Povetkin would become utter bum and another not-worthy Wlad's victim.

Good post, but I also like to point out a few things:
1- I was talking about Wlad's title reign and his number of defenses. That is a unique situation in itself because he never fought the guy with the biggest shot at beating him. Vitali. If he had fought Vitali there is a very good chance his consecutive defenses would have ended, hence disrupting his record.

2- If Tyson had a brother and the brother fought Buster Douglas and UDED Douglas. People will say, well there is no way Tyson would have lost to Douglas anyways. There is just no way, so why does it matter?

If Lennox had a 6'6 southpaw brother and that guy fought and UDED Rahman the first time, people will say 'well that's ok, because Lennox would never have lost to Rahman. Never. So even without his brother he would have beaten Rahman'

See, it is impossible to say that Wlad would have not been knocked out by Chris Arreloa or Corrie Sanders in the rematch. The Sanders Rematch is huge in itself. That is the one fight where I really do see the altercations in boxing history due to the fact that Vitali fought Sanders. I don't see how Wlad would have beaten Sanders even in the rematch at the time. Sanders would have just rushed him and possibly kayoed him yet again. Sanders was just a horrific styles nightmare for Pre-Manny Wlad. Once again, what K2 is make sense, they are family. But, it does not change the facts that
1-The #1 and #2 never fought because of this, hence at best you can say they 'shared an era' and neither dominated.

2- They did beat opponents for each other.

[Jel]

These fights could've changed HW boxing history:

Lennox Lewis vs. Wladimir Klitschko
Ike Ibeabuchi vs. Vitali/ Wlad Klitschko
Riddick Bowe vs. Vitali/ Wlad Klitschko

Bowe's time line does not really match, I guess a faded Bowe could match up against a very young Wlad in 1998.

If Ike had not gone to prison, this would have been an amazing fight in the early and mid 2000's. Ike had enormous potential and the kind of pressure he brings would have troubled a young Wlad.

Lewis vs Wlad in the early 2000's is a complete mismatch. Manly because Emmanuel knew everything about Wlad even back than.