Who ranks higher historically - Wladimir Klitschko or Floyd Patterson?

[Ezzard]

Imagine the kicking and screaming there would be if Wlad had won his title by KOing ATG Bernard Hopkins for the HW title?

Sorry, I forgot Hopkins would KO Wlad in under 60 seconds.

Why do this to yourselves?

[Jaywheel]

The thread is who ranks higher historically, not who would win a h2h matchup. Who cares how a CW would do against Wlad?
The resume just isn't there.

[Ezzard]

But the arguments are that Floyd is greater because be beat an aged LHW champ. If Wlad had beat Hopkins nobody would regard it as proof of his greatness.

[keithmoonhangover]

No matter how weak Vladimir Klitschko's title defenses were they certainly were not as weak as the pro debuting Pete Rademacher, the unheralded Roy Harris, club fighting Tom McNeeley and Brian London.

I'll stick to the facts....
In his prime Patterson only lost to Hall of Famers
Patterson beat a Hall of Famer, who outweighed him to win the title.
Patterson avenged one of his losses twice against a Hall of Famer.

In his prime Wlad only lost to guys who are not in the Hall of Fame
Wlad never beat a Hall of Famer.
Wlad only avenged one of his losses, who isn't in the Hall of Fame and was coming off a loss.

Considering how diluted the Hall of Fame has become and is going to continue becoming all the more diluted it don't really hold much water for me when people talk about the Hall of Fame.

If it is a critique against Rocky Marciano for having fought Archie Moore because they always bring up Archie's age, then it is an even greater critique against Floyd Patterson.

Mind you I like Patterson but in my view he fought far better opposition following his championship reign. He's literally the only case I can think of in boxing history where a man was better or got better after being champion.

And we don't really need to remind people that Archie was originally a middleweight who was the light heavyweight champion when he fought Rocky Marciano and Floyd Patterson. Wins against men your own size or near your own size is one thing it's something else entirely when you are fighting men twice as big as yourself.

Which is why I keep bringing up time and again it don't matter who has the better resume of wins because head to head it's very difficult to imagine somebody 6 ft tall and 190 lb being able to do anything to the Klitschko brothers. Can you really make a convincing argument that Floyd Patterson would have defeated either one or both?

It's not about if he beats the Klits in a fantasy matchup. It's who ranks higher.

Ingo, Ali and Liston all deserve their place in the IBHOF IMO. Lamon Brewster and Corrie Saunders and Ross Purrity are never getting in. Surely you rate Liston and Ali as more forgivable losses?

[Ambling Alp II]

You would think so. And you would think Patterson having the better wins would matter too. Then again, where there is a Klitschko, there is an excuse.

[Ambling Alp II]

But the arguments are that Floyd is greater because be beat an aged LHW champ. If Wlad had beat Hopkins nobody would regard it as proof of his greatness.

Silly comparison.
Archie Moore proved he could fight at hw. Had Hopkins done that, and Klitschko then beat Hopkins, then yes it would have meant something.
In real life, all Klitschko had worth mentioning is beating Chris Byrd and three embarrassing losses. Quite the legend.

[keithmoonhangover]

But the arguments are that Floyd is greater because be beat an aged LHW champ. If Wlad had beat Hopkins nobody would regard it as proof of his greatness.

Archie outweighed Floyd for that fight,. Floyd weighed half a stone more than the LHW limit and Archie was still a dominant champion at the lighter weight.

Comparing it to Wlad-Hopkins is just silly. Unless you think Jean Marc Mormeck is heading to the IBHOF?

[DrDuke]

But the arguments are that Floyd is greater because be beat an aged LHW champ. If Wlad had beat Hopkins nobody would regard it as proof of his greatness.

Silly comparison.
Archie Moore proved he could fight at hw. Had Hopkins done that, and Klitschko then beat Hopkins, then yes it would have meant something.
In real life, all Klitschko had worth mentioning is beating Chris Byrd and three embarrassing losses. Quite the legend.

Out of all your anecdotes, this one is still uncommented: why on earth Chis Byrd is the best whom Klit defeated? What about Povetkin?

[gilgamesh]

No matter how weak Vladimir Klitschko's title defenses were they certainly were not as weak as the pro debuting Pete Rademacher, the unheralded Roy Harris, club fighting Tom McNeeley and Brian London.

I'll stick to the facts....
In his prime Patterson only lost to Hall of Famers
Patterson beat a Hall of Famer, who outweighed him to win the title.
Patterson avenged one of his losses twice against a Hall of Famer.

In his prime Wlad only lost to guys who are not in the Hall of Fame
Wlad never beat a Hall of Famer.
Wlad only avenged one of his losses, who isn't in the Hall of Fame and was coming off a loss.

Considering how diluted the Hall of Fame has become and is going to continue becoming all the more diluted it don't really hold much water for me when people talk about the Hall of Fame.

If it is a critique against Rocky Marciano for having fought Archie Moore because they always bring up Archie's age, then it is an even greater critique against Floyd Patterson.

Mind you I like Patterson but in my view he fought far better opposition following his championship reign. He's literally the only case I can think of in boxing history where a man was better or got better after being champion.

And we don't really need to remind people that Archie was originally a middleweight who was the light heavyweight champion when he fought Rocky Marciano and Floyd Patterson. Wins against men your own size or near your own size is one thing it's something else entirely when you are fighting men twice as big as yourself.

Which is why I keep bringing up time and again it don't matter who has the better resume of wins because head to head it's very difficult to imagine somebody 6 ft tall and 190 lb being able to do anything to the Klitschko brothers. Can you really make a convincing argument that Floyd Patterson would have defeated either one or both?

This particular argument doesn't matter.

Who we THINK would win a fantasy matchup is irrelevant because it'll never happen. We can't rank people off of maybe's, no matter how certain we may be of the outcome of said fantasy matchup.

To me you can discuss "Who would win between so and so" all day long, and that's all well and good, but when ranking a guy you have to use tangible evidence.

After all. Upsets happen in real time all the time.

[HomicideHenry]

I'll stick to the facts....
In his prime Patterson only lost to Hall of Famers
Patterson beat a Hall of Famer, who outweighed him to win the title.
Patterson avenged one of his losses twice against a Hall of Famer.

In his prime Wlad only lost to guys who are not in the Hall of Fame
Wlad never beat a Hall of Famer.
Wlad only avenged one of his losses, who isn't in the Hall of Fame and was coming off a loss.

Considering how diluted the Hall of Fame has become and is going to continue becoming all the more diluted it don't really hold much water for me when people talk about the Hall of Fame.

If it is a critique against Rocky Marciano for having fought Archie Moore because they always bring up Archie's age, then it is an even greater critique against Floyd Patterson.

Mind you I like Patterson but in my view he fought far better opposition following his championship reign. He's literally the only case I can think of in boxing history where a man was better or got better after being champion.

And we don't really need to remind people that Archie was originally a middleweight who was the light heavyweight champion when he fought Rocky Marciano and Floyd Patterson. Wins against men your own size or near your own size is one thing it's something else entirely when you are fighting men twice as big as yourself.

Which is why I keep bringing up time and again it don't matter who has the better resume of wins because head to head it's very difficult to imagine somebody 6 ft tall and 190 lb being able to do anything to the Klitschko brothers. Can you really make a convincing argument that Floyd Patterson would have defeated either one or both?

This particular argument doesn't matter.

Who we THINK would win a fantasy matchup is irrelevant because it'll never happen. We can't rank people off of maybe's, no matter how certain we may be of the outcome of said fantasy matchup.

To me you can discuss "Who would win between so and so" all day long, and that's all well and good, but when ranking a guy you have to use tangible evidence.

After all. Upsets happen in real time all the time.

Lol... Gilgamesh are you really going to make a precise and concise argument that Floyd Patterson could beat the Klitschko brothers? I'd love to hear this.

[gilgamesh]

Way to miss the point entirely.

[HomicideHenry]

No I get your point but nobody wants to ever factor in how these people really would have fared against other people. They just want to compare the records and that don't tell the whole story as to what their worth actually was overall.

I will concede Floyd Patterson had the better record in terms of quality wins but that doesn't automatically mean that he would have won anything against the Klitschko brothers. Having a better record does not equate to anything.

[gilgamesh]

I would argue that he DOESN'T have a better record than Wladimir Klitschko. He fought a lot of tremendous fighters, but he doesn't really have a whole lot of really huge wins. He's the first ever 2 Time Champion, but over both of his reigns he wasn't nearly as dominant as Wlad was during his reign.

You don't need the Wlad could kick his ass argument.

If you ever need that argument in a Historical Ranking context. You're reaching.

If we put it in the Mythical Matchups thread, and you say Wlad vs Floyd, you'd pick Wlad. That's all well and good, and so would I for the record.

[Ambling Alp II]

But the arguments are that Floyd is greater because be beat an aged LHW champ. If Wlad had beat Hopkins nobody would regard it as proof of his greatness.

Silly comparison.
Archie Moore proved he could fight at hw. Had Hopkins done that, and Klitschko then beat Hopkins, then yes it would have meant something.
In real life, all Klitschko had worth mentioning is beating Chris Byrd and three embarrassing losses. Quite the legend.

Out of all your anecdotes, this one is still uncommented: why on earth Chis Byrd is the best whom Klit defeated? What about Povetkin?

Yeah what about Povetkin? He was a professional fighter, wasn't he?
Byrd wasn't a legend, but at least he beat Tua.

[Ambling Alp II]

I would argue that he DOESN'T have a better record than Wladimir Klitschko. He fought a lot of tremendous fighters, but he doesn't really have a whole lot of really huge wins. He's the first ever 2 Time Champion, but over both of his reigns he wasn't nearly as dominant as Wlad was during his reign.

You don't need the Wlad could kick his ass argument.

If you ever need that argument in a Historical Ranking context. You're reaching.

If we put it in the Mythical Matchups thread, and you say Wlad vs Floyd, you'd pick Wlad. That's all well and good, and so would I for the record.

The problem is that you have never said why Klitschko's ietter.
Since Patterson had the better record and his losses were to better opponents, inquiring minds want to know how Klitschko is somehow better?

[gilgamesh]

Silly comparison.
Archie Moore proved he could fight at hw. Had Hopkins done that, and Klitschko then beat Hopkins, then yes it would have meant something.
In real life, all Klitschko had worth mentioning is beating Chris Byrd and three embarrassing losses. Quite the legend.

Out of all your anecdotes, this one is still uncommented: why on earth Chis Byrd is the best whom Klit defeated? What about Povetkin?

Yeah what about Povetkin? He was a professional fighter, wasn't he?
Byrd wasn't a legend, but at least he beat Tua.

Povetkin knocked out Byrd for the record

I know Byrd was a little past it, but it's worth mentioning.

I pretty much disregard Povetkin's title reign on account of he was the "WBA Regular" Champion and when he fought the Real Champion he got knocked down 4 times, and lost every round.

That being said Povetkin has a lot of really solid wins over top contenders. He wasn't ever the #1 guy. But there were times when he was probably legitimately no worse than the 3rd best Heavyweight in the world, and he has the wins against other guys on his level to back that up.

He beat Eddie Chambers, Ruslan Chagaev, Carlos Takam, Dillian Whyte, David Price. Knocked out past it Byrd, Rahman.

He has a solid and respectable record. I consider him one of the better fighters of his era. He's like the Jerry Quarry of his time.

[gilgamesh]

I would argue that he DOESN'T have a better record than Wladimir Klitschko. He fought a lot of tremendous fighters, but he doesn't really have a whole lot of really huge wins. He's the first ever 2 Time Champion, but over both of his reigns he wasn't nearly as dominant as Wlad was during his reign.

You don't need the Wlad could kick his ass argument.

If you ever need that argument in a Historical Ranking context. You're reaching.

If we put it in the Mythical Matchups thread, and you say Wlad vs Floyd, you'd pick Wlad. That's all well and good, and so would I for the record.

The problem is that you have never said why Klitschko's ietter.
Since Patterson had the better record and his losses were to better opponents, inquiring minds want to know how Klitschko is somehow better?

I mean Patterson won the World title. Made only 4 title defenses, one of which was against a Debutee (A Gold Medalist I know, but still) before being dethtroned by Johansson. Then he wins the title back, and after 1 defense against Tom McNeeley he promptly loses it in spectacular fashion to Sonny Liston. In attempting to regain it he gets flatted again by Liston both times in 1 round.

So that's not a particularly impressive record in title fights.

His best WINS, which is the all important thing are: George Chuvalo, Eddie Machen, Ingemar Johansson (2x), Archie Moore, Bonavena. A draw with Jerry Quarry, and ya know what I'll even mention that he was robbed against Joey Maxim.

That's his best wins. There's nothing there that's better than Wlad's record.

Wlad's best wins. Povetkin, David Haye, Byrd (2x), Ruslan Chagaev, Sam Peter (2x)

Those are all comparable wins to Patterson's best.

And when Wlad fought the guy who dethroned him, he lasted the distance, and then put up a valiant effort in trying to regain the title.

So just going on best wins. Wlad's right there with him, then when you get down to the numbers. Which has to be taken into account. Wlad smashes him.

Your argument from what I gather seems to be that Floyd is better because he got beat up by better fighters

[Jaywheel]

Yours boils down to title defenses against meaningless opponents. To me they are close, but Wlad has worst losses to lesser opponents and the wins are similar in value.

And for the Povetkin argument, Byrd did beat Tua, Vitali and old Evander. Povetkin has ancient Rahman, the rest isn't much better than Byrd besting Jimmy Thunder.

[gilgamesh]

Yours boils down to title defenses against meaningless opponents. To me they are close, but Wlad has worst losses to lesser opponents and the wins are similar in value.

And for the Povetkin argument, Byrd did beat Tua, Vitali and old Evander. Povetkin has ancient Rahman, the rest isn't much better than Byrd besting Jimmy Thunder.

I mean, the big wins I mentioned for Povetkin were over ranked guys. What more can you ask of him?

It's unfortunate I guess that he couldn't hop in a time machine, and go whip Chuvalo and Oscar Bonvavena's ass as well, but such is life ya know.

He's a solid fighter in his own era. That's all you can ask.

And for the record, I would argue that Title defenses are never "meaningless". Wlad certainly had some guys that were weak opponents even for the era he was in, Mormeck and Ray Austin for instance, but he also really didn't miss out on anybody of note that he should've fought.

He didn't fight his brother for obvious reasons, but for near 10 years he dominated the division, unified the title, gained general consensus as the Heavyweight Champion and KEPT holding it down for quite a while.

Patterson's record in World TItle fights is 8-5.

I'll give it to you that Floyd has a better Non-Title fight record than Wlad, but that's about it.

Wlad runs away with this to me. Aside from comparable wins, he also just flat out has as many wins as Patterson has fights total, and he has less total losses, and he fought to an older age.

I mean...I already broke down the numbers of Wlad's record in the Wlad/Mike Tyson thread. So I'm not gonna go into all that again.

Not sure what you need here. All the evidence is there.

[Seamus]

Let me take this opportunity to praise Floyd Patterson in a way that unfortunately a few guys here will take as an insult. In all sincerety, Floyd Patterson would have a made a pretty darn good Cruiserweight. Marciano and Quarry too.

[gilgamesh]

Let me take this opportunity to praise Floyd Patterson in a way that unfortunately a few guys here will take as an insult. In all sincerety, Floyd Patterson would have a made a pretty darn good Cruiserweight. Marciano and Quarry too.

He absolutely would've. I think it's safe to say any guy of Cruiserweight stature who managed to become Heavyweight Champion would've been a formidable Cruiserweight.

[DrDuke]

Yours boils down to title defenses against meaningless opponents. To me they are close, but Wlad has worst losses to lesser opponents and the wins are similar in value.

And for the Povetkin argument, Byrd did beat Tua, Vitali and old Evander. Povetkin has ancient Rahman, the rest isn't much better than Byrd besting Jimmy Thunder.

Alpy boi, re-login.

[Jaywheel]

Wlad should have been DQ'd for that disgrace of a fight vs Povetkin. Quite telling about his career that you consider this the best win on his resume.

[margaret thatcher]

Imagine the kicking and screaming there would be if Wlad had won his title by KOing ATG Bernard Hopkins for the HW title?

Sorry, I forgot Hopkins would KO Wlad in under 60 seconds.

Why do this to yourselves?

agree, it's like when people argue someone's a great hw , and then cite them beating a guy like bob fitzimmons who was the size of a modern jmw or mw

[margaret thatcher]

For a reason. German promoted smoke shows like Ottke and Erdei. Vitali was a durable robot, Wlad had a good offensive arsenal and a glass chin. Neither has a great win, nor did they win in spectacular fashion against good opponents.

ya, seems that's what twists panties in this section. i get it, but gawdt damn it's just too easy