What’s Kubrat Pulev’s best win?

[whollisboxing]

Probably Parker as at least he was undefeated and in his prime.

AJ’s resume is massively inflated tbf. Full of fighters past their prime approaching 40. The only defending champions he’s beat are Martin, Parker and Ruiz, that says a lot in terms of quality of opposition. His resume is decent but nothing special.

Whenever the "who did he beat?" question comes up, I have to look at who everybody else has beaten as far as top-10 contenders.

A lot of people might say that in the heavyweight division there's Fury, Wilder, AJ and a bunch of "bums". If that's the case then I look at the ratings, which fans may or may not value but it gives me a baseline.

When you look at the top 10 from the past few years, AJ has beaten more fighters on that list than Wilder or Fury. Fury has the best wins (Wilder, an older Wlad), while AJ has beaten more guys on the "best of the rest" list (Dillian Whyte, Povetkin, an old but highly motivated Wlad, Andy Ruiz Jr, Joseph Parker).

Now if you don't rate those guys then that's fine. I just look at competition faced relative to everyone else's competition.

[RJJ-94-02=GOAT]

Whenever the "who did he beat?" question comes up, I have to look at who everybody else has beaten as far as top-10 contenders.

A lot of people might say that in the heavyweight division there's Fury, Wilder, AJ and a bunch of "bums". If that's the case then I look at the ratings, which fans may or may not value but it gives me a baseline.

When you look at the top 10 from the past few years, AJ has beaten more fighters on that list than Wilder or Fury. Fury has the best wins (Wilder, an older Wlad), while AJ has beaten more guys on the "best of the rest" list (Dillian Whyte, Povetkin, an old but highly motivated Wlad, Andy Ruiz Jr, Joseph Parker).

Now if you don't rate those guys then that's fine. I just look at competition faced relative to everyone else's competition.

Yeah fair points. AJ’s resume is solid but they’re aren’t any standout wins.

What made Wlad so “highly motivated”? For me Wlad was always highly motivated for every fight he had. I don’t buy into the optic that Klitschko was more motivated for the AJ fight than he was for previous fights.

This whole AJ fought a more motivated Klitschko is just narrative building. It’s a way to try an justify a 41 yr old, 18 month inactive Klitschko as a legitimate opponent. Are we really meant to believe that, that version was equal to the 11 year undefeated Klitschko attempting to make his 19th defence of the title. I just think it’s nonsense tbh man.

[whollisboxing]

Yeah fair points. AJ’s resume is solid but they’re aren’t any standout wins.

What made Wlad so “highly motivated”? For me Wlad was always highly motivated for every fight he had. I don’t buy into the optic that Klitschko was more motivated for the AJ fight than he was for previous fights.

This whole AJ fought a more motivated Klitschko is just narrative building. It’s a way to try an justify a 41 yr old, 18 month inactive Klitschko as a legitimate opponent. Are we really meant to believe that, that version was equal to the 11 year undefeated Klitschko attempting to make his 19th defence of the title. I just think it’s nonsense tbh man.

Maybe "highly motivated" is the wrong way to describe it and I'm just talking about how Wlad performed better than expected considering the layoff you mentioned.

Of course the 41-year old Wlad wasn't the same as the 31-year old or even 36-year old Wlad. I'm just saying that he made a brave last stand when a lot of people thought he would get steamrolled.