Sonny Liston vs. Vitali Klitschko

I'm not going to get in the middle of this debate because I admittedly don't know enough about these classic fighters. But I will say that George Chuvalo said that the hardest puncher he ever fought was De John, and this is a guy who fought both Frazier and Foreman.

In terms of the overall discussion, I don't mind saying that Liston fought better opposition, but at the same time, were Liston and Vitali to get into the ring, I'd still pick Vitali to beat him. Vitali had the tools to have beaten far better fighters than he fought. I don't hold the Byrd loss against him, and the Lewis loss was more a case of an ATG H2H monster refusing to loose, than anything else.

Rusty or not, that version of Lewis would have been hell for many fighters, and Vitali gave him all kinds of trouble, mostly because of his reach, speed and chin.

 

I agree with this assessment. :good I'm a Sanders fan, and one thing that Corrie always did well was land his straight left bomb. He found the range in the first round, but then Vitali adjusted and controlled the distance beautifully to make Sanders miss by a tiny bit for the rest of the fight. I've never seen Corrie been made to miss so much. Sure, he was pretty damn old, but his eye was still good, imho. Klitschko has to get credit for derailing Sander's gameplan.

Vitali's control of distance, mental toughness and his granite chin make him a very good defensive fighter in my eyes. An extremely awkward challenge for anybody, especially because he is so big and strong. In my opinion the better of the 2 Klitschkos.

 

Yeah?

And opinions are like assholes, everybody has got one, and most are sh it.

 

You said Patterson retired in his mid 30's.


"Patterson retired in his (mid) thirties "


I just proved he didn't, he was 4 months shy of 38 .



It's quite simple.

 

Lewis wasn't rusty. He had merely trained for Kirk Johnson who he obviously thought could be blown away in a round or 2. Vitali ( who by his own admission had kept himself in good shape for over a year ) jumped at the chance to fight Lennox when Johnson pulled out through injury. All this did was bring forward their scheduled fight from Dec 2003, to June of that year.

 

You are correct.
Vitali was in training to fight Ross Purrity, in fact he went to camp before Lennox.

"The fight between Lewis and Klitschko was to take place in December 2003, and Klitschko signed for a tune-up fight on 21 June 2003 as part of the undercard of Lewis' fight with Kirk Johnson for the IBO title, as the WBC would not sanction the fight for their title. Johnson, however, pulled out of the fight due to injury and Klitschko, due to his being in training for a fight on the same day as Lewis, took the fight on short notice"

 

Machen fought plenty of guys bigger than himself.
Billy Hunter
Tommy Jackson
Manuel Ramos
Henry Clark
Duke Sabedong
Ernie Terrell
Cleveland Williams
Mike DeJohn
Bob Baker
Nino Valdes
John Holman
Johnny Summerlin
Williams, Baker, Terrell,Clark,Valdes ,all had good jabs too.
Machen, getting his life back on track and returning as a ranked contender after a complete breakdown is truly an astonishing achievement.

 

Top start I do believe Machen was good enough to make the top 100.

Judging on Machen's record vs. the best four punchers he fought, ( Frazier, Liston, Ingo, and Williams) Sanders takes Machen. Corrie not only had size and power, he was extremely fast. Fast-handed punchers are seldom counted, which was some of Machen's best stuff.

One thing I have noticed is fans of fighters from the 1930-1960's are quick to excuse multiple losses, and focus only on wins. Well since everyone fought everyone, decent fighters will have their share of wins from this time line.

It is my opinion that elite level fighters should have a winning record vs. top ten opponents, and few if any losses to journeyman.

McGrain feels Quarry was a great win. I agree. It happened in 1966, so we can assume Machen was not a shot fight prior to 1966.

Prior to 1966 Machen lost to or drew to

Ramons 9-6
Mildenberger 47-2-3
Drew with Rush 11-1
Patterson 39-4
Terell 36-4
Drew with Williams 53-4
Drew with Johnson 64-8
Liston 30-1
Folley 49-3-2
Ingo 20-0
Draw Folley 39-2-1

Outside of the Quarry, most of his best win were vs declining fighters who I noted were on losing streaks.

The best conclusion is Machen was not elite level, he was a solid fighter capable of occasionally beating top ten fighter in or near his prime, but more often than not lost or drew to top ten fighters that were near or in their prime.

 

And since Machen was under 200 pounds, it was not that hard to be bigger than he was.

The best big fighters Machen fought that were in or close to their primes were Liston, Williams, and Terrell. He did not win a match. Today these fighters would be considered small heavyweights.

Tommy Jackson was decent, but he usually weighted between 190-195 pounds. Hardly big. More like tall and skinny.

Valdes was pretty big, But Machen beat him when he was on the decline for sure.

 

He was probably comparable to Greg Page in that regard.

 

Liston had two defences, one was successful, one was not ,that might be because he was facing the concensus no 1 or 2 of all time while he himself was past prime. Vitali's opponents have been decidedly underwhelming. the fact that they were rated means jack sh*t because the heavyweight division stinks.

 

Anyone who watched this fight especially in the first 2-3 rounds knew Lewis was rusty, regardless of who he was training for. All you had to do was watch how off his timing was.

 

Mendoza

"Vince Lombardi on statistics" "end with a stat"

Winning and losing isn't a statistic, which is why I put it in quotes. It is the bottom line result. Lombardi in another quote put it best--

"Winning isn't the most important thing. It is the only thing."
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"Who outside of his brother did Vitali miss out on?"

Good question. Vitali fought professionally from 1996 to 2012. I concede that many folks on this thread know more about this era than I do, but I'll put out a challenge to you and anyone else to answer it.

Who were the top ten heavyweights active between 1996 and 2012 other than Vitali and Wlad and how many did Vitali fight? More importantly, how many did he defeat?

my list--Lewis, Byrd, Holyfield, Tyson, Tua, Ike, Ruiz, Rahman, Povetkin, Chagaev

That's my list but I'm interested in being corrected.

 

Winning and losing isn't a stat, though,

but more the bottom line record,

and it is the one thing we can judge fairly objectively--did the fighter fight the best of his era and did he beat them.

How he would have done if flipped through time into some other era is pure opinion.