Is Sven Ottke an All Time Great?

[bare knuckle]

Hey he did have over 20 title defenses,that has to count for something right?

[daggum]

ottke and calzaghe the 2 greatest of all time in the same division at the same time. can you imagine that fight? i got ottke schooling joe by split decision.

[STEELHEAD]

after reading the first couple posts in this thread. its been a while but not again.

are you guys joking! is this the new tunney crowd?

[IronDanHamza]

Hey he did have over 20 title defenses,that has to count for something right?

Has it? Why has it?

Just because a fighter racks up a long list of "Title defenses" against unranked bums it has to count for something? Why?

If he fought the exact same fighters except they weren't "Title defenses" would it mean they are no longer good?

I know you hold an absurd amount of stock in Title Defenses, Larry. For whatever reason that is. I'm unsure as to why, though.

[CHOWWOKKA]

While we are on the subject of All time greats, and Top 20 fighters in the last 30 years, I thought I'd take a moment to reflect on the great Sven Ottke:

Sven started boxing late. But at 18 he became a German champion. 10 more German titles after that. He was in 3 Olympic Games. He was Euro Champ Twice.

He has amatuer wins over Antonio Tarver, Chris Byrd, Michael Moorer, Zsolt Erdei and Juan Carlos Gomez . He had a stellar amount of Amateur fights: 308 with 256 wins. That's a lot of wins right there.

Held the IBF-super middleweight championship after beating up Charles Brewer. 16 successful defenses of his IBF title beating up great fighters like -Thomas Tate, Glencoffe Johnson, Silvio Branco, James Butler, Anthony Mundine, and Joe Gatti. He then decided to add the WBA belt to his collection and beat Byron Mitchell.

Retired 34-0 UNDEFEATED as a professional with 21 TITLE DEFENSES of his SMW title (ties Joe Calzaghe). Many say that other Super Middleweights shamelessly ducked him. The greatest German fighter of all time.

The man, the myth, the legend:



How can you NOT call him an ATG or at least say he's top 20 in the last 30 years?

Is Ottke an All Time Great??

[sashalex]

for sure...great hands. one of the best

[theproof]

man. sometimes i think iknow it all. why did he retire? the greatest? STOP IT!

[WESS]

Damn, I ignored this thread back in 2008 and it still seems to pop up. How do people even remember Calzaghe or Ottke?? lol Actually the question should be, WHY?