The AdS/QCD models are known to be tightly related with 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.Comment: 33 pages, a considerably modified version, a part of conclusions are
changed, to be published in Int. J. Mod. Phys.