A huge damper on Wlad is that he avoided (although excusably) the best HW during his reign which was his brother. If they had fought and Vitali won, then his title reign and number of defenses wouldn’t be a factor. He would have been the same exact fighter, but would be looked at differently.

That is my biggest problem. I just have a very hard time believing that Wlad would beat Vitali and because he never proved that he could, his reign is tainted whether it was a good excuse or not.