Top 5 Heavyweight Champions in the 2000s | A Brief Chronology of the 2000s Heavyweight Championship 

Vitali Klitschko 6' 7″ 250 lbs KOs 87% with 80" reach only lost twice due to horrible cut and torn rotator cuff. He never hit the canvas and was never behind on judges scorecards after the 2nd round. He had excellent power with granite chin and great determination with PhD-intelligence. Vitali would have been a Huge factor in any era.

Every Rummy video must mention Golota. 😉

The best boxing channel on RU-vid. Greetings from Croatia!

Great list, I agree 💯, I sure would've loved a rematch between Lewis and Vitali!🥊🥊🥊🥊🥊

One has to consider Wladimir Klitschko's long reign as champion to be among the likes of Joe Louis, Muhammad Ali, and Larry Holmes. Consider the 20+ title defenses--in every single fight, his opponent worked just as hard and was as determined to win as he was. Yes, he has lost fights, but he came back. There is an old saying, "show me a fighter that has never lost, and I'll show you a fighter who has never fought anyone". Some say that Wladimir was never truly tested during his long reign as champion, but is that really a fair criticism? That is more a testament to his skills and hard work that he put into preparing for his fights. And he was in a memorable war at the end of his career with a gallant, though losing performance against Anthony Joshua. With the passage of time, he will be remembered as a great champion.

And still the best damn boxing channel on this platform great video.

I'll be damned I watched the 50s to 90s videos for this just this week and wondered when the next one would come out and here it is.

For the overall body of work in the 2000s it has to be Wladimir.. Byrd, Mercer, McCline, Peter, Botha, Brock, Brewster, Austin, Thompson, Iggy, Rahman, Chagaev, Chambers..

Great content as usual from the Big Rum 💪

WBO wasn't recognized as a major world title until 2007. You had 2 undisputed champs in 2006 having only 3 title belts.

Rummy the GOAT 🐐

Love your work 👍

Great video!

Love your show!!

Great video

Excellent Episode 👍

Thank you Rummy from Sydney, Australia. Always top content mate.

Definitely Rummy i agree with you 💯 Taiwo watching from Nigeria🇳🇬 👍🏾

Awesome video Rummy.

People moan about this Era of Heavyweights seem to forget this era. 🤦🏻‍♂️

Well done Sir…..as usual 👏 👏👏👏👏

Another great Rummy video!

Very cool

I always give a like before watching and I'm never disappointed.

Great to start the day with a Rummy video

Totally agree. I always thought Valuev wasn’t this great fighter, but maybe I should rewatch some of his fights again.

A new video from Red Rum is like Christmas Day.

The decade I missed! I was an entrenched boxing fan in the '90s, went full-fledged hippie through the 2000s and picked it back up in the 2010s. I mean, if I could miss any decade, I'm kind of glad that I missed this one! 😂

Lewis is the clear number one

Very interesting, thank you! I pretty much had a decade away from boxing for the 2000's so missed almost all these fights and many of the champions too! But to be honest, if I had to miss a decade this was a good one to miss!

Sounds like the right top 5 to me 🔥 🔥 🔥 🔥

I agree Lennox was #1

Great video as always!!!

I have been the first to like and enjoy one of you wonderful clips. Today I'm second. Love your work Geoff ,and you sound exactly like a pugilist from the '50's. Cheers and love from The Great Southern Land ❤.

Great video! I wish this one was an hour long like the 90s one though, lol.

Can't wait for the "Top 5 Heavyweight Champions in the 2010's" Hopefully Rummy makes it soon.

Just subbed, I thought i was subbed but been subbed since the start with my old channel. Top quality vid as always Rummy. TKO6 hehe, i remember the days on the forum. Lennox is the right choice. Quality opposition throughout and that Vitali win while basically semi-retired was no mean feat. For the record i think he's too much for Wlad h2h too. Too much aggression for him in that match-up. But that's another topic.

Great video this era is complicated and there is lots of room for debate I personally would swap Chris Byrd and Vitali and because I see Chris Byrd as a higher quality boxer at this time due to his equal amount of title defenses and his victory over Vital Klitschko therefore I also put Wladimir Klitschko over Lennox Lewis but this era is just complicated as hell

Agreed ✅ well done ! Tons of pronunciation hurdles there !

I 100% agree on that Top 5 💯👌

Top of the 2000's era: 1. Lennox Lewis 2. Wladimir Klitschko 3. Vitali Klitschko 4. Chris Byrd 5. Hasim Rahman 6. John Ruiz 7. Lamon Brewster 8. Nicolay Valuev 9. Oleg Maskaev 10. Ruslan Chagaev

RUMSFELD! Lennox had to be number 1, look who he beat! he’s a proper heavyweight legend. the klitschko ruled the 2010’s, but the 2000’s belonged to lennox. gratzie!

Fair enough 👌

Wlads 8-0 is better than Lewis 6-1. Numbers aside he has a edge in unifications which was the criteria for putting Tyson over Holmes in the 80s. By the time Tyson fought Lewis he had struggled against lesser opposition and lost thrice, him being highly rated was name-recognition. A undefeated champ, silver-medalist and southpaw like Ibragimov is easily on par with Grant, Tyson or Rahman. Chagaev was also a undefeated ex-champ stripped for reasons outside the ring and the Peter win aged well. Creating a new lineage out of absolute chaos is a better individual feat than any of Lewis and if you add the numbers favoring Wladimir and unifications favoring Wladimir he is a easy choice over Lewis. Ratings were also massively pro-american biased with the first three Alphabet-organisations all being US-based with close ties to people like Don King. Eastern europeans were rated below their worth both Klitschkos and many of their opponents. Choosing not to count the WBO when it was already held in esteem in europe and other parts of the world is in and of itself a pro-american biased choice, people thought Jeff Lacy would beat Joe Calzaghe on the same grounds. But even with this heavily pro-american skewed system Klitschko wins and he wins in would-be-tie-breakers and there is no head-to-head loss to upset it. Lennox always said he was underestimated because he was canadian or a brit, but non-native english speakers never got HBO commentator jobs to build their own legend like Lewis.

The Klitschko brothers are still criminaly underrated. If they were American or British, we would always hear about them instead.

Lewis was a beast but he was VERY Smart to not rematch Vitali and retire cuz even tho he gave him a pizza face, he was getting worked in there and would’ve had a great chance in the rematch! To bad we didn’t get to see that fight. Truly the only fight I wanted to see in the 2000s…Again 😂😂

Vitali is clearly #1 because of that entire time span of that decade and the unfortunate loss to Lennox, that wasn't a loss because of lack of skill but rather a lucky punch by Lennox. Otherwise he would have lost by points. And thats the issue here. Win is a Win and it was right to stop that fight, but Lennox knew he couldnt beat him afterwards, so he retired. Another thing to consider.

Could we get a vid on the best boxers P4P in the 2000s?

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I think your top 3 is spot on, they were so far above the others I think positions 4 & 5 are almost irrelevant.

7:20 No. That established a new Ring Mag champion. It's not the same thing. A new lineage begins when someone becomes undisputed

In my opinion Vitali was the best of the bunch. Granted he had two significant injuries in his career, and had political aspirations that kept him from boxing for a while, but I think a healthy Vitali was the best there ever was.

Sheesh. The Eastern Europeans made quite the dent in the heavyweight division this decade. And today, their presence is still felt.

You should do one on where are they now.

Yes Lennox & Klitschko brothers certainly there. After that I guess we choose from Fury, Wilder, Usyk, Joshua.

"At the end of the day, I'm an american, so clearly the non-eastern-european guy is the number one for me, as I saw him back in the day on HBO and these were clearly the best times ever, as I was young and my back didn't hurt." :DDD Honestly, the older I get, the more I understand these sentiments. :DDD

This is why they call the 90s a Golden Era…

"In the 2000's there were 17 men who held claim to at least a portion of a major heavyweight championship" way to expose the absurdity of the 4 belts system right off the bat

If you made this video about modern heavyweight champions it be 2 min long

I loved the klitscho boys!! But I agree that Lewis is #1!! 🤜

The 2000-2010 is legendary bad era !

Yep....

I thought the 80s Heavyweight championship was complicated with the title changing hands numerous times but it's got nothing on 2000-2010.

If i remember correctly Valuev didn't really land any shot against Holyfield.

Great video Rummy. I do find the post Lewis era in heavyweight boxing to be somewhat boring and overrated. I think this era (2004-2016) was pretty boring with a few exceptions. Boxing has picked up since.

6:43 "somewhat controversial"??? One of the biggest robberies in boxing history!

Lennox record looks great with certain perspectives. However, he fought legends so late. Holyfield in 99, Tyson in 02. Didnt fight bowe, foreman, and go knocked out by boxers that have no right beating a “top 10” hw. He’s great but I do not consider him the greatest hw boxer at all considering this. Def not top 5 and Lennox being number 1 in 2000s hw is insane when he had 7 fights in the decade and got flat lined in one of them.

I fully agree with you BUT Lennox's victory over Vitali has a bit of an asterisk... it was a cut TKO and Vitali was winning the fight

Цікаве відео. Дякую ❤️

Lewis only had a handful of fights in the 2000s but he still beat prime Shannon briggs, prime vitaly klitscko and prime hasim rahman.

crazy how many nobodies won belts in this era.

Lennox is the best.

I find it suspicious that Rummy Corner and Boxing Encyclopedia make a 2000's heavyweight video in the same day. Perhaps they are in collabs with each other in giving us 2000's content. Or maybe this is just a coincidence.

Technically, the WBO wasn’t officially recognised as a major world championship fully until February 2007. That was when the other major 3 governing bodies all finally recognised its rankings. The WBA was first to recognise them in 2000, followed by the WBC in 2004 and then finally, the IBF, who held off recognising the WBO until February 07. So, even though Hopkins is considered the first 4 belt, undisputed champion, he technically was already undisputed and didn’t need the WBO to be considered as such, same with Taylor.

100% correct… I believe LL is the closest HW to the great Mohammad Ali …… tremendous boxer, digs deep when needed and one of the best jabs ever seen in boxing with Larry Holmes ……

Andrew Golota was screwed a few times and had Bowe beat on all cards and got himself disqualified then he quit against Tyson

Somewhat controversial, Johnny Ruiz against a Vanda. Evander

Vitali dislocated his shoulder during that so called loss for those who don't know

How can you name victory over Vitali was any good. Vitali was winning on points and if Klichko was not cut he would have beaten Lenox. Despite the doctor deciding to end the fight and give the win to Lenox he did not earn that win and the crowds reaction proves my point. Lenox got booed and Klichko recieved a standing ovation from the crowd.

Not a bad list, but I guess I wouild have Haye in their over Valuev, and also vitali seconde Wladamir third.

2000s was the beginning of European born fighters dominance in the Heavyweight division specifically Britain and Ukraine. The heavyweight division is unappreciated because Americans don’t dominate it anymore.

Valuev? Why???

I have Wladimir as #1, Lewis as #2, Vitali as #3, Byrd as #4, and Chagaev and Ibragimov tied at #5. Lewis is better overall than Wlad, but in the 21st century Wlad has a deeper resume.

RUMMY! We need a fantasy fight of Duran vs Tank Davis - (yes WE know the answer is Duran but we need to explain WHY to these kind folks) 😉 PLEASE SANTA RUMMY ?

Dream Match: Ken Norton vs Joe Frazier Dream Match: Manny Pacquiao vs Canelo Alvarez (Light Middleweight or Welterweight)

Wladimir’s # 1 Hands Down

Hi Rummy, question. With Lennox Lewis supposedly considering a "comeback" what does that mean for the lineage? Will we need a unified super duper lineal title fight? Is his claim to the lineage still plausibly valid like some of the earlier lineal claims which were settled in the ring? What's the procedure here?

To me the WBO belt became just as good as any of them, the day Riddick Bowe dropped his WBC belt in the garbage

1:18 😂😂

🇵🇷❤️🥊🥊

Vitali is the number 1. Don't care what anyone else has to say.

No he wa lucky they stoped lewis was hittin him with great uppercuts.

Usyk Fury Wlad Joshua Vitali

GOD, but I hated that decade for heavies. Unwatchable.

vitali is the last legend. heavyweight boxing has been dead since after lennoxs era.

I'd take Vitali over Wladimir all day every day. Wladimir had the better "resume" but Vitali was the better fighter.

Which heavyweight era is worse? 00 or 10?

John Ruiz one of the best example of pro american-bias, producing paper-champs. Holyfield lost to LL and Ruiz had lost several times. Holyfield vs Ruiz had no business being a title fight. Ruiz being gifted the belt he lost after RJJ vacated it is just funny. He was also gifted the win over post-prime Golata. In total he lost to: Sergej Kobozev, Danell Nicholson, David Tua, old Holyfield twice, Roy Jones Jr, old Golata, post-prime James Toney, Chagaev, Valuev twice and David Haye.

Wow they had more than one fight every 2 years...😂

Undisputed worst decade I can think of. Especially after Lennox-Vitali and Wlad being upset by Sanders. No real significant fights until Fury beat Wlad.