Is Wladimir Klitschko a top 5 ATG heavyweight?

[LacedUp]

It's not really a good win. Old ass should have been retired Holyfield beat Valuev better than Haye did

Haye also broke his hand in the second round. But I do agree Evander beat him better. But not nearly as much as some people on here lay it out to be. Their fight was also an awful fight.

holyfield-valuev wasn't close at all and if you can't beat a 46 year old holyfield are you a good fighter? maybe old men who barely throw any punches are just a bad style match up for him?

I beg to differ. Valuev won at least 4 rounds in the fight. There were a couple where nobody was landing which could have gone either way and 6 rounds clearly to Holyfield.

Maybe they are.

[FrankieBruno]

never.......

[Sugar Adam Ali]

LacedUp I give you mad props for defending your posts.... You are a helluva battler on this thread....

[FrankieBruno]

I see Jedi Vader and his several alts like FrankieBruno voted.

Before the #2 option was over 50%, but with Jedi Vader and his alts voting, the gap closed very quickly.

Not sure what ur talkin about here mate, I don't have any aliases on here, just one name. Also I don't care about some poll on a forum, it's not that serious fella

Its pathetic that you would even accuse me of some crap like that though, seriously.

[LacedUp]

LacedUp I give you mad props for defending your posts.... You are a helluva battler on this thread....

Why thank you.

Much obliged.

[Madjab]

Haye also broke his hand in the second round. But I do agree Evander beat him better. But not nearly as much as some people on here lay it out to be. Their fight was also an awful fight.

Not as bad as Haye/Valuev

[LacedUp]

Not as bad as Haye/Valuev

No, but it was pretty damn close. At least Haye made him do a chicken dance.

[Safin]

I am extremely surprised that people are placing Wladimir above Vitali. To me, it's clear that Vitali is superior, and by some distance too.

[edgarg]

If you ad read further I did say that whilst Willard did not make defenses of his title he did fight unofficial fights against ranked "white hope" opponents. With regards to what you say about Johnson, I also did concede that he was out of shape, but that was hardly Willard's fault that Johnson didn't take him seriously. And it was a response to the person in question.

Though Dempsey didn't have the amount of defenses of the HW crown, he brought more viewers to boxing than pretty much anyone before him. And my point about Dempsey was only that he was the lineal champ and the bes of his time, something Wlad has yet to prove seeing as the second best guy in his division is a guy he will never fight.

With regards to Marciano, I don't even really have him in my top ten. Though many historians have. He did have some legendary wins and whether you think he was 'mafia protected" or not doesn't make a damn deference to that. He holds the all time greatest record in HW history and has three all time greats on his résumé. 5 fights. Which is a whole lot more than you can say for many of the other top fighters in history. Regardless of the state they may have been in.

I wasn't trying to "burn" you with my comments, I was more disappointed than otherwise. Willard's "unofficial" fights actually were official-as far as boxing was concerned, just that there were govt laws preventing decisions, so the newspaper reporters stepped in. Johnson didn't have very much time to get fit. His whole position was deliberately made untenable by the powers-that-be, who were determined to grab the title from him AT ALL COSTS. In those days there were no Associations who could "strip" titles. In Johnson's previous fights, as he was on the run, he was badly out of shape all the time. Willard etc was just a put-up job. Johnson was not going to be allowed to walk out of that ring with the title.

As for Dempsey, were they not ALL lineal champs then?? Dempsey was more notorious than popular for a long time. There was a lot of anti-Dempsey sentiment because he didn't join up. It took him years to live down that "Help-the-War" effort photo where he was in dungarees (and hard hat??) pretending to wield a shovel or axe, but was wearing a glossy, up to date pair of multi-coloured patent leather pointed shoes....... This attitude lasted even through his David v Goliath victory over Willard and didn't go until he beat Firpo, (his last fight for years until Tunney).

Take the Carpentier fight, (a middleweight who was World Lt. Heavyweight champ, and European Heavyweight champ), you probably don't know that they used camera trickery to make it appear that Carpentier-a very slight build- was as big as Dempsey, wearing 2-3 overcoats, and standing at the top of inclines, shoe uplifts etc.etc. It was only when they came into the ring that the deception was revealed.

What difference does it make that Klitschko won't fight his brother. I had an elder brother who bullied and hit me, I could have taken him apart but would never touch him, just because of that. Besides I loved him. Assuming that VK is not there, this leaves all the opponents he fought. Do you seriously think that you should deprive Klitschko from lineal status because he didn't fight THEM...? Are you SERIOUS...?? He could fight them 2-3 per night....

Marciano's "legendary wins" are nothing more than a grinding down of once great but looong past due date heros who were nearly all punched out. His "legendary wins" are something like Roy Jones or Johnny Tapia's last half dozen fights. Their opponents had legendary wins too. Marciano's best win was undoubtedly of Joe Louis, although Ezzard Charles could make a claim. Both died from debilitating illnesses long before their time.

The heros involved are of a past generation, and are viewed through "rose-coloured-glasses" by those who don't know what actually went on at that time. You could rectify this with some good research and many books. They had slid to such a level that approached Marciano's best, which made for good match-ups, like Gatti-Ward, or many another lower-level pairs. To match the farce of Marciano as Champion, one has to go back to Tommy Burns, who when all is said, was a far better fighter than Marciano, and would probably have beaten him head-to head.

Marciano died in a plane crash. He was with his close friend the son of Mafia Boss Louis Fratto. His manager Al Weill was known to be "connected".... and took a hefty share of Marciano's purses. The Mafia had a grip on nearly all boxers, managers, promoters, venues etc, although it was beginning be be loosened by Senate investigations. You cannot convincingly say a word about Marciano's 'greatness" without examining his record, his opponents, the time and their age and experience when he fought them, how many KO's they suffered, etc. Not to mention the important record of THEIR opponents. Many were clearly set-ups.

An interested person would naturally go into this, and wouldn't comment without knowing. Do it...you'll learn something.

[LacedUp]

I wasn't trying to "burn" you with my comments, I was more disappointed than otherwise. Willard's "unofficial" fights actually were official-as far as boxing was concerned, just that there were govt laws preventing decisions, so the newspaper reporters stepped in. Johnson didn't have very much time to get fit. His whole position was deliberately made untenable by the powers-that-be, who were determined to grab the title from him AT ALL COSTS. In those days there were no Associations who could "strip" titles. In Johnson's previous fights, as he was on the run, he was badly out of shape all the time. Willard etc was just a put-up job. Johnson was not going to be allowed to walk out of that ring with the title.

As for Dempsey, were they not ALL lineal champs then?? Dempsey was more notorious than popular for a long time. There was a lot of anti-Dempsey sentiment because he didn't join up. It took him years to live down that "Help-the-War" effort photo where he was in dungarees (and hard hat??) pretending to wield a shovel or axe, but was wearing a glossy, up to date pair of multi-coloured patent leather pointed shoes....... This attitude lasted even through his David v Goliath victory over Willard and didn't go until he beat Firpo, (his last fight for years until Tunney).

Take the Carpentier fight, (a middleweight who was World Lt. Heavyweight champ, and European Heavyweight champ), you probably don't know that they used camera trickery to make it appear that Carpentier-a very slight build- was as big as Dempsey, wearing 2-3 overcoats, and standing at the top of inclines, shoe uplifts etc.etc. It was only when they came into the ring that the deception was revealed.

What difference does it make that Klitschko won't fight his brother. I had an elder brother who bullied and hit me, I could have taken him apart but would never touch him, just because of that. Besides I loved him. Assuming that VK is not there, this leaves all the opponents he fought. Do you seriously think that you should deprive Klitschko from lineal status because he didn't fight THEM...? Are you SERIOUS...?? He could fight them 2-3 per night....

Marciano's "legendary wins" are nothing more than a grinding down of once great but looong past due date heros who were nearly all punched out. His "legendary wins" are something like Roy Jones or Johnny Tapia's last half dozen fights. Their opponents had legendary wins too. Marciano's best win was undoubtedly of Joe Louis, although Ezzard Charles could make a claim. Both died from debilitating illnesses long before their time.

The heros involved are of a past generation, and are viewed through "rose-coloured-glasses" by those who don't know what actually went on at that time. You could rectify this with some good research and many books. They had slid to such a level that approached Marciano's best, which made for good match-ups, like Gatti-Ward, or many another lower-level pairs. To match the farce of Marciano as Champion, one has to go back to Tommy Burns, who when all is said, was a far better fighter than Marciano, and would probably have beaten him head-to head.

Marciano died in a plane crash. He was with his close friend the son of Mafia Boss Louis Fratto. His manager Al Weill was known to be "connected".... and took a hefty share of Marciano's purses. The Mafia had a grip on nearly all boxers, managers, promoters, venues etc, although it was beginning be be loosened by Senate investigations. You cannot convincingly say a word about Marciano's 'greatness" without examining his record, his opponents, the time and their age and experience when he fought them, how many KO's they suffered, etc. Not to mention the important record of THEIR opponents. Many were clearly set-ups.

An interested person would naturally go into this, and wouldn't comment without knowing. Do it...you'll learn something.

It's like 1 o'clock over here so I don't have the patience to reply to it all right now, but it was indeed very interesting and having read a lot of your posts in the past, I know you are very knowledgable about the game.

One thing I do want to say though, is that it wasn't a swipe at Klitschko that they won't fight. I Have a brother too man, we wouldn't fight either. But who's the best? We just don't now. I am of the unpopular opinion that Vital prime for prime would beat Wlad, but his record can't back it up.

And with regards to the whole, who beat who, and who did the opponents beat, that's what started the whole thing, because in my view, not many of Wlad's opponents have actually fought that many other top 10 fighters. That's because of the sheer lack of talent, or at least the amount of talent in the division, resulting in guys beating one top 15 guy and then being granted a shot. So even if these guys potentially were good, they wouldn't gt a chance to prove it before they got a shot at the title.

On Marciano, he was a victim of circumstance. Joe Louis was more past it then Walcott and Charles and was basically only fighting to pay off his debt. It wasn't joe Louis in there. But 49-0 with 43 KOs, that's a good record. It's just sad that he happened to land in between two great eras.