Where do you rank Wladimir Klitschko among the all-time heavyweights?

[Rantcatrat]

Jack Dempsey and Jack Johnson can NEVER be ranked below the K Brothers.
Joe Louis and Muhammad Ali can NEVER be ranked below the K Brothers.
Lennox Lewis and Larry Holmes can NEVER be ranked below the K Brothers.
Mike Tyson and George Foreman can never EVER be ranked below the K Brothers.

So right there at the very BEST they could be ranked they are at #9 and #10. BUT...

A very VERY strong case can be easily made that:

Evander Holyfield, Rocky Marciano, Gene Tunney, Sam Langford, and Audley Harrison are ALL ranked ahead of the K Brothers.

Therefore the K Brothers cannot reasonably be ranked any higher than #12 and #13 on the All-Time Great Heavyweights. And I reckon a prime Jersey Joe Walcott' prime Sonny Liston, or even a prime Ingemaar Johanssen would've given them a Night of Hell and probably won.

Other than Mike Tyson and Lennox Lewis, I agree with your assessment. Mike Tyson never really beat a prime top dog. What was his best win? Holmes at 38? To me, he's in a pretty similar situation to the Klitschko's, but what they have over him is longetivity.

With regard to Lewis, I have no problem ranking Vitali near Lewis, but I agree with you it shouldn't be ahead of him. Any way you cut it, Lewis struggled mightily with Vitali. When the fight ended, Vitali was winning. Lewis won though fair enough. but there is no argument that there was some big difference in class between Lewis and Vitali. In my opinion, the K-Bros should be ranked somewhere near Lewis, within five steps behind him. So, if you put Lewis outside the top ten, the K-Bros should be between 15-20, or something like that. Then again, that might be overestimating all three's ranking. It's a tough list to draft.

[imp]

Jack Dempsey and Jack Johnson can NEVER be ranked below the K Brothers.
Joe Louis and Muhammad Ali can NEVER be ranked below the K Brothers.
Lennox Lewis and Larry Holmes can NEVER be ranked below the K Brothers.
Mike Tyson and George Foreman can never EVER be ranked below the K Brothers.

So right there at the very BEST they could be ranked they are at #9 and #10. BUT...

A very VERY strong case can be easily made that:

Evander Holyfield, Rocky Marciano, Gene Tunney, Sam Langford, and Audley Harrison are ALL ranked ahead of the K Brothers.

Therefore the K Brothers cannot reasonably be ranked any higher than #12 and #13 on the All-Time Great Heavyweights. And I reckon a prime Jersey Joe Walcott' prime Sonny Liston, or even a prime Ingemaar Johanssen would've given them a Night of Hell and probably won.

Other than Mike Tyson and Lennox Lewis, I agree with your assessment. Mike Tyson never really beat a prime top dog. What was his best win? Holmes at 38? To me, he's in a pretty similar situation to the Klitschko's, but what they have over him is longetivity.

With regard to Lewis, I have no problem ranking Vitali near Lewis, but I agree with you it shouldn't be ahead of him. Any way you cut it, Lewis struggled mightily with Vitali. When the fight ended, Vitali was winning. Lewis won though fair enough. but there is no argument that there was some big difference in class between Lewis and Vitali. In my opinion, the K-Bros should be ranked somewhere near Lewis, within five steps behind him. So, if you put Lewis outside the top ten, the K-Bros should be between 15-20, or something like that. Then again, that might be overestimating all three's ranking. It's a tough list to draft.

Well said.

When you flip the table and look how every great fighters opponents will end up you kind of see the answer.

Looking back if vlad was that type of fighter he could have destroyed david haye if just had a bit more venom.

Vlad is a top 20 fighter for me.

Its not his fault he has these opponents but he could have finished them alot quicker.

[TysonBomb]

Wlad's opponents have almost all been mismatches ... especially last year in 2012 ... an old cruiser (who he held for over half the fight), a 40 year old whom he already defeated, and a cheating punching bag??

Sam Peter, Chris Byrd, and Sultan Ibragimov are his best wins. I would've included Ruslan Chagaev but he was a hepatitis patient.

[Mr140]

I not sure were i rate him but to be fair i feel any fighter from the 1900's to the 1960's would have major problems with some of Wlads best wins. I mean the size differences alone would a problem for some of the older fighters who were not very big. I mean Bryde, Sultan, Peter, Haye, and Chaagaev would cause some problems for people. Wald is very dominate so i not sure if he can fight any fighter we would consider great but when i look at other eras besides the 70's and 90's this era really not as bad as everyone thinks it is its just we have Wlad making it look that way. I mean Wtf is Holmes best win fucking old Norton, Shavers, Cooney, Maybe Mercer,and then there's a huge drop off in his wins but like other great champs he region on top.