The AdS/QCD models are known to be closely related to the QCD sum rules in the large-Nc (called also planar) limit. Rewriting the theory of infinite tower of free stable mesons expected in the large-Nc QCD as a five-dimensional theory, we scrutinize to what extend the bottom-up holographic models may be viewed as an alternative language expressing the phenomenology of planar QCD sum rules. It is found that many features of AdS/QCD models can be thereby obtained without invoking prescriptions from the original AdS/CFT correspondence. Under some assumptions, all possibilities leading to simple Regge trajectories are classified, and it is argued that the most phenomenologically consistent model is the one called "soft wall model" in the holographic approach, with a preference to the positive-sign dilaton background.
Resonance sum rules from large N[sub C] and partial wave dispersive analysis