WHAT WOULD HAPPEN if Wladimir Klitschko decided to call out a 174 lbs opponent for his next heavyweight world championship fight (= an opponent who is 60 lbs lighter than his current opponents)?

 

What would happen if Wladimir Klitschko called out 34-11 guy (who has lost 2 of his last 3 fights, including a loss to an opponent who was 11-2 and 191 lbs)?

 

What would happen if the next world championship opponent earned his title fight by beating three bums[?] (6-8, 13-4, 16-27)?

 

What would happen if Vitali Klitschko decided to call out a 37-30 opponent (= bum[?]) for his next world championship fight?

 

What would happen if Wladimir Klitschko decided to stage a world championship against a 197 lbs boxer who had only 7 fights (of which only 2 had been real heavyweight fights 200×2)?

Or if Wladimir Klitschko decided to lose all his muscles, go all the way down to 197 lbs and then fight another 197 lbs opponent?

Or even go down to 185 lbs to stage a world championship against another 185 lbs (who never had and never will have a single real heavyweight fight 200×2)?

 

Simple. Fans would get upset, cancel their PPV subscriptions or lose their interest in boxing altogether.

Or they would laugh and accuse Klitschko of cherry-picking and the division of being "the greatest joke in history"

 

Yet, exactly such opponents and circumstances HAPPENED and are USED AS A PROOF of the GREATNESS of past eras.

Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano, Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier all fought exactly such opponents in exactly such world championship fights.

• Joe Louis vs ·Jim Braddock (197 lbs vs 197 lbs) (world heavyweight title 1937)
• Joe Louis vs ·Tony Musto (37-30 whole career) (World heavyweight title 1941)
• Joe Louis vs ·Billy Conn 174 lbs (Unification(!) world heavyweight title 1937)
• Rocky Marciano 184 lbs vs ·Roland LaStarza 185 lbs (World heavyweight title 1953)
• Muhammad Ali vs ·Leon Spinks 197 lbs, 7-0 at bout, 26-17 whole career (WBA+WBC world heavyweight title 1978)
• Muhammad Ali vs ·George Chuvalo, 34-11 at bout, coming off a loss to a 11-2, 191 lbs guy (world heavyweight title 1966)
• Joe Frazier vs Dave Zyglewicz, who earned his title fight by beating Pedro Sanchez (6-8), Bob Felstein (13-4), Willie Johnson (16-27) and Levi Forte (18-19) (world heavyweight title 1969)

 

The same fans and experts who declare that "Joe Louis still holds the record for most heavyweight championships won" (which includes world title opponents like mentioned above) have no problems to declare that the current heavyweight division (which excludes such title opponents like mentioned above) is weak.

The same fans who complain about a "dire Klitschko era" have no problem to declare Ali's era to be "The golden Age", yet half of Ali's opponents wouldn't be allowed nowadays or would be a proof of how Klitschko sucks.

The same experts who calculated that "Rocky Marciano is the heavyweight champ with the highest KO'ratio" would turn away from the TV sets if Klitschko's KO victims would be a median 190 lbs.

The same fans who mention that "Rocky Marciano is the only heavyweight champ who retired undefeated (49-0)" would be very upset if Wladimir Klitschko chose 40 of his 49 opponents to be cruisers (200 lbs and below) or chose 49 of his 49 opponents to be cruisers, former cruisers and bums (yes, that's Marciano's record in a nutshell).

 

The same fans who measure Wladimir Klitschko against previous oh-so-great champs would be appalled if Wladimir Klitschko actually fought opponents like those champs fought.

-and-

It's a no-brainer that Joe Louis can hold such records because included in his 26 title wins are opponents like Billy Conn 174 lbs and bums like Tony Musto (37-30).

 

Just take a deep look at this picture:

_THAT_ was a heavyweight world title fight back then.

Such guys (Tommy Burns 160+ lbs vs Philadelphia Jack O'Brien 170+ lbs), both massively smaller than even the referee, are seriously compared to Vitali Klitschko and Lennox Lewis and such world titles are seriously compared to Klitschko's and Lennox Lewis' world titles.

And, believe it or not, exactly this Tommy Burns from that picture is compared to Wladimir Klitschko because "Tommy Burns holds the record for the most (8) consecutive KOs in world title bouts" (all without exception against cruiser-bums like Jewey Smith 22-22 and/or in round #13), while "Klitschko managed to score only 5 in a row".

Klitschko would never want to box or KO such opponents.

Fans would never want to watch Klitschko box or KO such opponents.

It would be even against the current heavyweight rules for Klitschko to box or KO such opponents.

And it would be a proof of the terrible state of the current heavyweight boxing division to box or KO such opponents.

Yet records and streaks against such opponents are being compared to records and streaks of modern world champs.

In other words:

What would now be considered a proof of a terrible state of the division,
is being used as proof of the glory and the achievements of past divisions.

 

I am sorry, but I refuse to compare Tommy Burns to Mike Tyson, to Larry Holmes or even to Muhammad Ali. We have to apply some common sense here:

Either we exclude bums[?] and sub-200 fights to have some common ground for comparisons.

Or we leave bums and sub-200 fights on the record
and then compare Joe Louis to ·Sugar Ray Robinson and Nikolay Valuev to ·Floyd Mayweather Jr
and don't call it "heavyweight toplist" or "heavyweight titles"
but "boxing toplist", "p4p toplist" or "boxing titles"

-and-

The statement
"Joe Louis has XX world title wins and Wlad has only YY world title wins, nah na-na-nah nah"
is equivalent to
"Oscar de la Hoya was world champ in six divisions and Wlad only in one, nah na-na-nah nah".

Apples and oranges.

 

See also:
Boxing eras (#1) The best heavyweight era of all time -OR- Is Roy Jones Jr. a better cruiser than Rocky Marciano?
Boxing eras (#2) Current heavyweights are fat and out of shape -OR- Ali and the mystery of the six-pack

 

Did Muhammad Ali also face bums in world championship fights? Even worse!

You don't even have to go as far back as Joe Louis. Of Ali's 25 world title fights 10(!) were against bums and/or sub-200 opponents, e.g.

• Muhammad Ali vs ·Leon Spinks (26-17) 197 lbs (WBA world heavyweight title 1978)
• or Muhammad Ali vs ·Henry Cooper (40-14) 188 lbs (World Heavyweight title 1966)

(Of the remaining 15 fights (against non-bums, 200+ lbs) 4 were against handicaps (Joe Frazier was blind on his left eye, Cleveland Williams had his intestines removed after a gun shooting and Sonny Liston had an inflammated shoulder), but that's another story.)

 

Similar fights happened during Larry Holmes' era where we had to witness world championship fights like

• Larry Holmes vs Mike Weaver (41-18) 202 lbs (WBC heavyweight title 1979)
• Larry Holmes vs Ossie Ocasio (23-13) (WBC heavyweight title 1979)
• Larry Holmes vs David Bey (18-11) (IBF heavyweight title 1985)

 

Such fights _ARE_ included when fans or TV shows mention "the longest streaks", "the longest reigns" or "the most championships won".

So please, could we finally have some statistics WITHOUT bums and WITHOUT cruisers (or even and sub-cruisers)?

Could we please compare apples to apples? Unpadded heavyweight records to unpadded heavyweight records?

Yes, finally an objective comparison has arrived:

 

Let's make a fair Heavyweight world championship comparison, shall we?

So far there have been approximately 80 heavyweight world champs (since 18xx).

Most of them won only 2 or 1 title fights ("One hit wonders") or even ZERO (e.g. Ken Norton, who was appointed world champ without winning it in the ring).

Once we exclude such "2nd and 3rd tier champs" we are left with the following "top of the crop":

• Chris Byrd
• Evander Holyfield
• George Foreman
• Joe Louis
• Larry Holmes
• Lennox Lewis
• Mike Tyson
• Muhammad Ali
• Nikolay Valuev
• Vitali Klitschko
• Wladimir Klitschko

These are the only champs worth mentioning.

These are the only heavyweight world champs you have to know about.

You won't get topper that these guys. If you want to compile your own heavyweight boxing toplist and if you want to rank by actual records (and not by "fame", "footwork" or "foulmouthing") then these guys above MUST be at top positions.

In the tables below I additionally list the following names…

• Ezzard Charles
• Gene Tunney
• Jack Dempsey
• James J Jeffries
• Joe Frazier
• Primo Carnera
• Rocky Marciano
• Sonny Liston

… not because they really deserve to be on heavyweight toplists, but because these names are dear to fans.

Some of them didn't even have a single real heavyweight fight 200×2 lbs (Rocky Marciano) or had only 1 (Ezzard Charles), because they were merely "Cruiserweights formerly called Heavyweights" or "Cruiserweights AKA Heavyweights" ("CakaH-Weights"), but nevertheless heavyweight boxing tables wouldn't be complete without them.

 

Important note #1: These tables are compiled after Wladimir Klitschko's fight against Tony Thompson and after Vitali Klitschko's fight against Manuel Charr.

Important note #2: These tables compare achievements like "title fights won" but not "Who would win against whom in the ring?". For a glance at toe-to-toe chances see Muhammad Ali vs Wladimir Klitschko – Fact-based analysis and prediction

Important note #3: I urge you to read my mathematical definition of "bum" at Definitions. It's a strict and objective definition.

Important note #4: "HWWC" = "HeavyWeight World Championship".

 

So, here we go:

THAT is a real comparison.

THAT's how we compare apples to apples.

Wladimir Klitschko has won 17 world championships 200×2 (and counting), Joe Louis has won 7.

-and-

Wladimir Klitschko has scored approximately TWICE as many KOs as Mike Tyson
(heavyweight world championship fights, 200×2, non-bums)

 

The last column by the way, although it looks like "just another figure", is basically _THE_ quintessential heavyweight resume of a boxer.

Why?

Because everyone agrees that the worth/resume of a boxer consists of "the number of good opponents that were dominated" and this last column shows exactly this dominance+importance+quality in one single figure.

• "top opponents" = "non-bums"
• "dominating" = "KO'ing"
• "meaningful" = "world championship"
• "Quintessence of a career: How many top opponents was he dominating in important fights?"

 

Or in clear words:

• Wladimir Klitschko's world championship dominance at real heavyweight boxing 200×2 is approximately TWICE as impressive as Mike Tyson's and as Muhammad Ali's
• Wladimir Klitschko's world championship dominance at real heavyweight boxing 200×2 is approximately FIVE TIMES as good as George Foreman's.
• It's obvious that Lennox Lewis, Wladimir Klitschko, Vitali Klitschko and Mike Tyson are a league of their own.
• Ancient CakaH-weights like Rocky Marciano, Jim Jeffries or Sonny Liston have basically no tangible achievements in terms of modern heavyweight championships. They may have been good boxers (or not), but not in terms of heavyweight.

 

Is disregarding sub-200 fight fair? No!

Now, if you think that it's unfair to compare Joe Louis and Rocky Marciano to modern cruiserweights (instead of modern heavyweights) then it's only because you have been conditioned to think of Rocky Marciano and Joe Louis as heavyweights.

And if you think that it's unfair to compare 200×2 only to 200×2 then you are right, but not in a sense that you probably like.

Because it's not unfair to Marciano, Louis and Ali, but to Wladimir Klitschko, Lennox Lewis and Mike Tyson.

Why?

Because no heavyweight world championships takes place at such a low weight nowadays.

To compare 200×2 to 200×2 _IS ALREADY A FAVOR_ to ancient heavies.

With the Klitschkos' opponents weighing somewhere around 230 lbs on the average (and the Klitschkos themselves even more), one should set the threshold not to 200×2 but to a more realistic 215×2. From approximately that weight we begin to compare apples to apples.

So let's check what the Klitschkos' worth would be in a division that would describe modern heavyweight in a more objective way: An "ultraheavweight" division starting at 215 lbs:

 

In clear words:

The dominance of Wladimir Klitschko, Vitali Klitschko, Mike Tyson, Lennox Lewis is so great, that their records will stay among the best of the best EVEN if a higher weight class was established.

 

How many undefeated opponents did they beat in world title fights?

Let's compare "quality of opposition" not in terms of "bum'ness" (= the whole career win:loss ratio) but in terms of "undefeated-at-bout-ness".

However, we face three problems:

The first problem is that an opponent in his first fight has a record "0-0" and is undefeated. It would be ridiculous to regard such opponents as quality opponents just because they are unbeaten. Therefore we need to set some threshold which I decided to be "unbeaten in at least 15 fights". That way I exclude greens who have a record of "14-0" and less. I think that's a reasonable minimum.

 

The second problem are rematches. Take this example (which really happened):

• Evander Holyfield beats Riddick Bowe (34-0) -> Riddick Bowe becomes now 34-1
• Evander Holyfield rematches Riddick Bowe (now 34-1)

It such a case Evander Holyfield would hurt himself by beating and then rematching Bowe (since Bowe is not undefeated anymore), whereas in the opposite case…

• Evander Holyfield LOSES against Riddick Bowe (34-0) -> Riddick Bowe stays 34-0
• Evander Holyfield rematches Riddick Bowe (34-0)

…Evander Holyfield would have fought an unbeaten opponent TWICE hence would be rewarded for LOSING the first time around.

In other words: We must compile an "undefeated record ASIDE" statistic, which disregards losses/wins to each other.

 

The third problem is that world championships against undefeated opponents nearly never happen.

Thus after you compiled all these figures you are not able to actually rank boxers, because most of the world champs wouldn't have faced a single undefeated opponent (e.g. Joe Louis) or only 1 undefeated opponent (e.g. Muhammad Ali).

Therefore I made 3 columns:

• One with "-0" opponents (= undefeated)
• another with "-0 and -1" opponents (= undefeated or only 1 loss)
• and another with "-0 and -1 and -2" opponents (= maximum 2 losses).

I think that's a fair approach.

Let's check first the overall (= championship or not, sub-200 or not) figures:

Already in this stat it's astonishing to learn that household names like Joe Louis had not a single win against an unbeaten, somewhat experienced (= 15 fights or more) opponent, and Ali had only 2 of such fights.

Mind you, we are not even talking about world championships or heavyweight fights 200+ lbs. We are talking about the whole career record, including bums and cruisers.

Let's see how these figures decrement once we exclude sub-200 lbs fights and all non-championship fights:

Again you see the same results that we have seen before: The Klitschkos, Mike Tyson and Lennox Lewis are in a league of their own.

And what do you know? Was Ali cherry-picking opponents who had been beaten often? Wladimir Klitschko has the best world record in this statistic (and counting). He won against TWICE as many "little beatens" as Muhammad Ali.

What Wladimir Klitschko is doing here is UNPRECEDENTED!

"I like the challenge of fighting an undefeated guy."

Wladimir Klitschko

and

"It's always exciting fighting an undefeated guy, because he's always determined, he's always coming and pushing because he's undefeated and he want to keep his undefeated record."

Jonathon Banks (trainer of Wladimir Klitschko) before the bout against undefeated Mariusz Wach

 

However this stat is AGAIN unfair to modern heavies, as we can illustrate in this example:

Ali has faced six (see in the column above) opponents (in world championships) who had 15 or more wins and were -0 (undefeated) or were -1 (one loss) or were -2 (two losses).

One of these 6 opponents was Sonny Liston who was 35-2 at bout.

Take now Sam Peter. Sam Peter was 34-2 when he met Wladimir Klitschko. That looks very similar to Sonny Liston's record at first glance.

However, Sonny Liston's 35 wins consist mainly of cruisers (like Billy Joiner 189 lbs) while Samuel Peter's 34 wins consists of nothing but heavy heavyweights.

So although Samuel Peter's and Sonny Liston's numbers look the same, Sam Peter's opposition has been far heavier and hence Peter's two losses against 36 massive heavyweights (average opponent 240 lbs) are far more impressive than Sonny Liston's 2 losses against far lighter opposition (average opponent 195 lbs).

In other words, in our times Sonny Liston would be somewhere around 13-0 and wouldn't even be included in these "six" of Muhammad Ali.

In fact these "six" consist of Sonny Liston (2x), George Foreman, Joe Frazier (1x), Ron Lyle and Ken Norton (1x) and one should also exclude Joe Frazier who was 12-1 at bout in real heavyweight terms.

Even George Foreman, who was Ali's biggest win (and the best boxer of the Golden Age of Heavyweight Boxing) was merely 23-0 in heavyweight terms (of which 22 were bums and/or former cruisers) hence he was approximately on the level of Alexander Povetkin (albeit 10 lbs lighter than Povetkin), but that's another issue.

OK, back to topic:

Let's compare undefeated fighters in a theoretical ultraheavyweight division 215×2:

 

Streaks in heavyweight world championships

Streaks are some of the most useless stats but since they pop up in discussions from time to time let's take a look.

Important note: Fighting bums does not break the non-bum streak. And fighting sub-200 opponents does not break the 200+ opponents streak. Additionally I have excluded special circumstances like "Winning by DQ", "No contest" and "Ending by accidental head butt". In other words: a DQ, NC, headbutt does not break your KO'streak.

Again the same picture:
Yes, ancient boxers like Joe Louis have such long streaks, but only because modern boxers are not allowed to fight such opponents like Joe Louis' opponents.
Once we compare apples to apples it turns out that Wladimir Klitschko's streak is already twice as long as Joe Louis', Mike Tyson's or Muhammad Ali's.

 

World championship fights against Southpaws

Fighting against Southpaws is extremely difficult, which is aggravated by the circumstances of a title bout, since it's against southpaws with a proven quality.

Wladimir Klitschko, one of the best (if not the best) KO'ers of all time, couldn't KO southpaw Chris Byrd, southpaw Ibragimov, had difficulties in KO'ing southpaw Tony Thompson and was KO'ed by southpaw Corrie Sanders.

Southpaws are difficult opponents, hence let's check how many southpaws these champs faced:

 

Again the same picture, but even more accentuated: The Klitschkos (and Evan Fields) fear not even the most difficult opponents while Tyson and Lennox Lewis didn't even face ONCE a non-bummy southpaw in their entire career. However high the KO'ratio of the Klitschkos is, it's actually even higher because KO'ers like Tyson or Lennox Lewis didn't fight against some of the most difficult opponents.

 

Belts

Another way how to compare champs the number of belts.

This story is still evolving (since Wladimir Klitschko is still boxing and his brother holds the WBC belt).

Only that much:

Wladimir Klitschko has held
more belts
for a longer time
than any other champ before him.

 

Nationalities fought

Although we talk about world titles one important fact tends to be overlooked: How much "world" is in a world title.

In other words: Although past champs were called _world_ champs they were mainly US champs since it was ILLEGAL for Soviet boxers to box.

Currently Americans blame it on the "dire state of the division" that there is no American heavyweight champ.

But that is fooling oneself. Up to the fall of the iron curtain EVERY champ was American. A few years after the fall of the curtain EVERY champ was ex-Soviet.

A similar picture at the Olympic Games which was the only place where Americans could be exposed to boxers of the world: Since approximately 50 years no American has won a gold medal at heaviestweight.

Is American boxing in a dire state since 50 years?

The only exception was 1984… when the Soviet bloc boycotted the Olympic Games.

Americans have to face it: All their famous boxers of the past are untested.

All the glorious fights took place in a reserve.

All the Alis, Foremans, Joe Louises have not been exposed to the global professional competition in such a breadth and depth as modern boxers are exposed to.

This even applies to boxers during the transition period directly after the collapse of communistic empires. After Lennox Lewis faced Mavrovic (who started to box professionally in 1993) he said it was the hardest fight of his career and then Vitali Klitschko effectively retired Lewis.

Ali's division gave you an illusion of American greatness ("Not a heavyweight division but the heavyweight illusion") when in reality it was merely a contest on the level maybe of the current European heavyweight boxing.

Dear Americans: No, the division didn't get worse. It got BETTER because it got BIGGER and more GLOBAL.

In fact, had it gotten worse, an American would hold the belts since Americans were always so great, wouldn't he?

And, no, it's not true that "Klitschko hasn't seen such opponents like previous champs' opponents". It's vice versa: Previous champs haven't seen such top opponents like Klitschko's opponents, let alone opponents like the Klitschkos themselves.

Therefore all the above statistical results have to be even more adjusted to the advantage of modern boxers, because modern world champs are true _world_ champs, while previous champs were protected by politics.

But we shouldn't blame past boxers for it.
It wasn't Ali's fault that the heavyweight division of his time was so bad.
Ali could only beat what was in front of him.
He struggled a lot, but in the end he won.
We should respect that.

 

Summary

Make no mistake: What the Klitschkos are doing, is unprecedented in heavyweight boxing. Especially Wladimir Klitschko's figures are so extremely good, that we can draw two conclusions:

1. Wladimir actively SEEKS the best of the best. He actively seeks the most difficult opponents.
2. Wladimir is better than the best of the best.

What Wladimir Klitschko  is doing is unprecedented in the history of boxing.
Already now, he has broken countless of heavyweight championship records
…unless, of course, one counts bums and 175-pounders.

In the history of heavyweight boxing (from 18xx+) nobody has compiled records as impressive as the Klitschkos. Only a few other fighters (like Larry Holmes, Mike Tyson and Lennox Lewis) come close.

And we have merely crunched some general numbers and haven't even inspected the doubtful opposition of some other champs, e.g. Muhammad Ali.

What makes the Klitschkos' records even more impressive is the fact, that they are so good, that their dominance would even survive a newly established "ultraheavyweight" division (or however you want to name it).

 

See also Wladimir Klitschko – Best world heavyweight champion of all time?

Statistical analysis of heavyweight world championship records -OR- Joe Louis, Wladimir Klitschko, Muhammad Ali: Who has the best world title record?, 4.4 out of 5 based on 34 ratings