Who ranks higher on the all-time HW list: John Ruiz or Vitali Klitschko?

[Fighting_Pride]

no doubt it's vitali, he's never been knock down nor knocked out and his aggressive style is beautiful to watch

[Superflo777]

This would make sense if I thought Ruiz was some great champion. I don't. Vitali isn't either.

Look at Ruiz's resume and tell me who Vitali beat that's so much better than who Ruiz beat?

Well Sanders.

[4Corners]

Vitali's overrated by his fans, big time, because his resume is pretty weak. But he's better than Ruiz.

Ruiz did beat a past prime Holyfield, Johnson (Kirk), Rahman, Golota, and McCline.

Vitali beat Hide, Johnson (Kirk), Sanders, Peter, Gomez, Arreola, Johnson (Kevin), Solis, Adamek, and Chisora.

I mean neither resume ranks in the Top 20 all-time for HW's, but Vitali is better than Ruiz.

Out of HW's after the Lennox/Holyfield/Bowe era, Wlad has the best resume.

Wlad beat Byrd, Botha, McCline, Peter, Brock, Brewster, Ibragimov, Thompson, Chagaev, Chambers, and Haye. Though not avenging the Sanders loss hurts Wlad a bit in my opinion. Still, his wins over Byrd and Haye are better than anything on Vitali's resume.

[Daïa]

None of the greats of the past would have took Vitali lightly. John Ruiz, well...

[The Gambler1981]

That is one of the big problems with using resume to such a large degree, because you can certainly argue that Ruiz's is better (especially depending how you rate loses) based on that metric.

Reason dictates that Vitali is better than Ruiz though, my eyes and brain tell me that.

[yoz]

Vitali has not done enough to be a considered a top ten ATG HW, but he's FAR ahead of John Ruiz.

- He's the only man to hold a world HW title in three different decades.

- He's the only man besides George Foreman to win a world HW title fight past the age of 40.

- He has many KO/TKO over decent HWs, including several who were Ring top ten at the time.

Corrie Sanders, Tomasz Adamek, Larry Donald, Kirk Johnson, Herbie Hide, prime Danny Williams, JC Gomez, etc. are not ATGs but they're definitely not bums either.

He's not even top 15, if you ask me.

[Mr. Fantastic]

Vitali's overrated by his fans, big time, because his resume is pretty weak. But he's better than Ruiz.

Ruiz did beat a past prime Holyfield, Johnson (Kirk), Rahman, Golota, and McCline.

Vitali beat Hide, Johnson (Kirk), Sanders, Peter, Gomez, Arreola, Johnson (Kevin), Solis, Adamek, and Chisora.

I mean neither resume ranks in the Top 20 all-time for HW's, but Vitali is better than Ruiz.

Out of HW's after the Lennox/Holyfield/Bowe era, Wlad has the best resume.

Wlad beat Byrd, Botha, McCline, Peter, Brock, Brewster, Ibragimov, Thompson, Chagaev, Chambers, and Haye. Though not avenging the Sanders loss hurts Wlad a bit in my opinion. Still, his wins over Byrd and Haye are better than anything on Vitali's resume.

You want to talk about overrated look at some of the past greats that get overrated as greats like crazy. Jack Johnson to Marciano to Holmes to Tyson. Somehow a guy who ducked his fellow black boxers to only fight tough man type Caucasian boxers as well as fighting Jefferies off a long layoff is so much greater than Vitali has done. Bullshit! Tyson who I loved as a kid was a bum killer but because he looked mean and intimidating he's top 5 ATG to some people(I do give props for the young HW title but that alone doesn't justify it). Holmes was as exciting as watching paint dry and he fought more bums than you could imagine.


We all can knit pick people's resumes.

[crold1]

Well Sanders.

Rahman trumps Sanders.

Of course they won't agree. They've been told Vitali is so great because he won rounds against an old Lennox and he's always lumped in with his brother although he doesn't have half of his brother's resume. The real question is: Who the **** has he beaten? And yeah, if you look at Ruiz's resume, it's comparable. I'll take 1999/2000 Holyfield over Chris Arreola.

You won't get much argument on the key point you're making because there isn't much of one. Vitali hasn't beaten better by any discernible measure. HOWEVER, it must be pointed out that he also doesn't have the same sort of losses and that arguably Ruiz's most important win (Holy II) was based on a terribly blown call by Cortez when Holy knocked him out with a body shot and Cortez ruled cup shot. He also should have lost the third, lost to Roy and Toney (PEDs or no) and got shelled in seconds by Tua (who arguably has a just-wins resume as good as either Klitschko too and shockingly got only one title shot).

That's where things like longevity, relative dominance, etc. come in. Of course Klitschko rates ahead of Ruiz, but that they can be close at all should temper where fans want to rate Vitali all-time.

[crold1]

You want to talk about overrated look at some of the past greats that get overrated as greats like crazy. Jack Johnson to Marciano to Holmes to Tyson. Somehow a guy who ducked his fellow black boxers to only fight tough man type Caucasian boxers as well as fighting Jefferies off a long layoff is so much greater than Vitali has done. Bullshit! Tyson who I loved as a kid was a bum killer but because he looked mean and intimidating he's top 5 ATG to some people(I do give props for the young HW title but that alone doesn't justify it). Holmes was as exciting as watching paint dry and he fought more bums than you could imagine.


We all can knit pick people's resumes.

Johnson may not have given title shots to guys like Langford, McVea etc. but he didn't duck them. He fought most of them multiple times, save Langford (who he trounced despite legend) and beat them all. He cleaned out the bulk of the division en route to Burns and then fought the fights that paid.

Your comment on Holmes is absurd. He had dull moments but was also an underrated action fighter for years. Norton, Shavers II, Weaver, Witherspoon, Cooney, and Snipes were all thrillers. Holmes best action fights rate up there with some of the better Heavyweight action fights.

If you're going to troll, at least be in the realm of reality.

[guru]

lol at this thread, cant belive this is even a debate. there are several guys on vk's resume who probably beat ruiz (gomez, sanders, lewis, adamak, peter). nobody on ruiz's resume would have beaten VK.