Larry Holmes and Wladimir Klitschko. Titlereign comparison.

[Tiozzo]

What agenda was that?

hard to tell since it failed

I guess the idea was to show that Wlad's reign is no worse than Holmes reign, but you didn't help your case a lot with supplying the top 10 ranked/unranked challengers of each champion, showing in the process Holmes fought way more top 10 ranked challengers

if I'm wrong, please do tell what the point/thesis of the thread was

[Tiozzo]

Plenty of titleholders in heavyweight history have had much worse reigns than Wlad. I hope I don't need to take you to school on this matter.

true, but those champions/title holders all probably beat at least one or more HOFer

it also depends on what type of reigns you compare :

some reigns are good and short (Marciano), some reigns are lenthy and ordinary (Wlad), some have multiple short reigns (Holyfield), some have one great reign (Louis) or a couple great reigns (Ali)

you say titleholders, but I was more thinking about champions (Pinkln Thomas has been a title holder, but who cares about his 3 fights and out reign ? he's not even in the picture)

[BattlingNelson]

true, but those champions/title holders all probably beat at least one or more HOFer

it also depends on what type of reigns you compare :

some reigns are good and short (Marciano), some reigns are lenthy and ordinary (Wlad), some have multiple short reigns (Holyfield), some have one great reign (Louis) or a couple great reigns (Ali)

you say titleholders, but I was more thinking about champions (Pinkln Thomas has been a title holder, but who cares about his 3 fights and out reign ? he's not even in the picture)

You said that it my point was that Wlad Klitschko is fighting no-bodies and his title reign is the worst in all boxing history.

And now you contradict yourself by saying that certain champs is not even in the picture. What planet are you on?

[BattlingNelson]

hard to tell since it failed

I guess the idea was to show that Wlad's reign is no worse than Holmes reign, but you didn't help your case a lot with supplying the top 10 ranked/unranked challengers of each champion, showing in the process Holmes fought way more top 10 ranked challengers

if I'm wrong, please do tell what the point/thesis of the thread was

I made it quite clear in the TS.

If I had an agenda about Wlad's reign being superiour do you think I would have made the effort of providing the rankings of opponents since that was clearly in Holmes favour?

[Levcon8686]

hard to tell since it failed

I guess the idea was to show that Wlad's reign is no worse than Holmes reign, but you didn't help your case a lot with supplying the top 10 ranked/unranked challengers of each champion, showing in the process Holmes fought way more top 10 ranked challengers

if I'm wrong, please do tell what the point/thesis of the thread was

What the hell is your problem?

If anything the opening post made Holmes' title reign > Wlad's title reign.

An interesting thread sparking some pretty good debate if you ask me.

I agree that Wlad can and probably will improve his reign further in the next 3/4 years. Especially if he stays as active as he his currently. Popping the David Haye bubble would do wonders for his standings I believe. How funny it would be if A-Force beat him to it!

[crold1]

Ok let's take a slight Vitali-Lewis detour.

Maybe it was the other way around. Maybe Lewis felt that the time to take on Vitali was now when he, Lewis would be at biggest advantage? I mean Vitali has about to sue Lewis for backing out of fights twice so they had to give Vitali a shot soon or face legal fines.

Now on to the lead-up to fight. Vitali had been WBC mando for about a year and Lewis played the waiting game because all he really wanted was a moneyspinning Tyson rematch.

So Lewis lines up a volountary defense against Kirk Johnson. Tyson is slated to fight Boswell on the undercard thereby hyping the potential rematch.

What happens is that Tyson pulls out of his fight with Boswell. 3 weeks (!) before the event is about to take place, Vitali accepts the role as Tyson's replacement. One week later Johnson gets injured and pulls out of the Lewis fight. Shortly thereafter Vitali agrees to step in and the date is saved.

So Lewis knows that he has had a 2 month camp while Vitali has had 2 weeks.

There you have it. I beg to differ. Lewis didn't take on Vitali on short notice because he held him to little regard. Rather he took on Vitali because he had stacked the cards against Vitali as much as was possible.

Your timeline is wrong making most of what you wrote a fairy tale; Vitali was slated for the card all along with plenty of time for a full five-plus week camp: http://www.insideboxing.com/Columnis...hot_agains.htm

Lewis showed up a career high on the scale and sloppy, indicating he thought he was in camp for Kirk Johnson and behaved according to the perceived threat. He had no reason to think Vitali was the challenge he would be and Vitali had never looked more than ordinary against lesser foes. Sorry...we'll just disagree. If he thought Vitali was all that, he would have wanted to be ripped and ready. IMO, he thought Vitali was slop he could beat in half ass shape. Vitali was much better than that. Lewis still won.

[BattlingNelson]

Your timeline is wrong making most of what you wrote a fairy tale; Vitali was slated for the card all along with plenty of time for a full five-plus week camp: http://www.insideboxing.com/Columnis...hot_agains.htm

Lewis showed up a career high on the scale and sloppy, indicating he thought he was in camp for Kirk Johnson and behaved according to the perceived threat. He had no reason to think Vitali was the challenge he would be and Vitali had never looked more than ordinary against lesser foes. Sorry...we'll just disagree. If he thought Vitali was all that, he would have wanted to be ripped and ready. IMO, he thought Vitali was slop he could beat in half ass shape. Vitali was much better than that. Lewis still won.

I had my info citated from an AP report from May 15 2003. I might have got the 3 week bit somewhat mixed with the time of Vitali's arrival stateside.

So it's still a far cry from Lewis 8 week camp and there's quite a difference in preparing for an undercardfight and to prepare for a fight for the biggest title in sport. So Lennox was ready. At least he had a chance to be more prepared than Vitali for sure.

The weight argument is not the strongest. I often read posters saying that Lummox was fat and illprepared. Consider that he weighed around 250 on the average for his last 6 fights. Heavyweights grow and 6-7 lbs is not a lot for such a big man. Hell he could take a dump and then make 252 lbs and people would say he was okay.

[crold1]

IAt least he had a chance to be more prepared than Vitali for sure.

Yes, but how serious was he taking it? It was Kirk Johnson. Vitali clearly showed up in good shape and should have been; undercard or not, he'd proven nothing, accomplished little, and SHOULD have been hungry at that point. Lewis was pounds over 250. He underperformed badly every time he came in that high accept against Botha; Lewis at 250+ = crappy Lewis. McCall and Rahman the first time were both career high weights as well and we know how those went. Vitali might not have been the best he could have been for Lewis, but he was closer than Lewis and much younger to boot.

Still couldn't get the job done.

[Tiozzo]

It's a common assumtion that the heavies of today are the worst crop ever. Outside the K-bros the contenders are terrible. Of course it's a subjective reasoning.

My feeling is that the era of Joe Louis and more recently Larry Holmes also had a pretty weak cast.

This thread will show a strenght comparison between the (alphabet) titlereigns of Larry Holmes and Wlad Klitschko.

For the sake of this thread I will only measure Larry Holmes 'first' career and deal with Wlad's as if he retired today.


Record in titlefights:

Wlad: 16-2 (14 KO's)
Holmes: 20-3 (14 KO's)



Strenght of schedule (Ring magazine ranking of opponent):

U = Outside top 10.

RED = Loss

Wlad: 10, U, U, U, U, 9, U, U, 1, 7, U, 7, 6, 8, U, 3, 4, U

Holmes: 3, 8, 10, 4, 5, 7, 6, 10, U, 7, 8, 11, 3, 10, 0, 10, 4, 9, U, 1, 1.


Notable opponents not fought:

Wlad: Vitali Klitschko, David Haye, Lennox Lewis.

Holmes: Mike Weaver II, Micheal Dokes, Pinklon Thomas.

I made it quite clear in the TS.
If I had an agenda about Wlad's reign being superiour do you think I would have made the effort of providing the rankings of opponents since that was clearly in Holmes favour?

what was clear to me is that you were supposed to demonstrate how the era of Holmes had a weak cast, just as it is now perceived to be the case for the Klit era

and how did you that ? you didn't do that at all, you just ended up comparing how many top 10 fighters Wlad and Larry fought, which can't possibly demonstrate how weak the era of Holmes nor the era of Klit was/is, because numbers without names cannot possibly demonstrate the quality of the challengers

the only thing you demonstrated is that Holmes fought more top 10 fighters than Wlad, that doesn't say anything about their eras nor about their reigns (Wlad could have beaten better challengers outside of the top 10 than Holmes did inside the top 10 for example)

top 10 ranked Arreola, QueenPin Johnson and Gomez (at the time they fought Vitali) wouldn't have been in the top 20 of Holmes era

here is how you could have done it

Holmes best wis during title reign:

Norton
Shavers II
Cooney
Whiterspoon
the rest

Wlad '' ''

Byrd
Peter
Igragimov
Chagaev
(you could switch Chambers with one of these)
the rest

if I'm on another planet, you must be in another galaxy

[beez721]

Lewis boasted, "i will have one brother for breakfast, the other brother for Tea"... Lewis would have slaughtered Wlad

I disagree. wlad would have knocked lewis out with the right hand vit landed in round 2. wlad is a harder pincher than vit and vit had lewis almost out on his feet. lewis has never faced a 2 fisted puncher like wlad