T.K.O. in 6

Vitali was WBC Mandatory and his schedule was being line up alongside Lewis's. On the very same night Lewis was scheduled to fight Johnson, Vitali was supposed to fight on the undercard against Cedric Boswell. The situation changed when Johnson pulled out injured and Vitali and Lewis agreed to bump up the mandatory fight to an earlier date to replace the Johnson fight.

Both men were training to fight different opponents on the same day- opponents who were vastly inferior fighters to either Lennox or Vitali - and both agreed to fight each other instead on short notice.

Vitali does not get a pass for his defeat on preparation time. He had exactly the same amount of time as Lewis did.

Worse still, for Vitali, only one of the fighters had been claiming to have been preparing for a fight against the other for over a year - and it wasn't Lewis.

Wlad is an exception. Most Heavyweight Champions are retired or much diminished by their late 30's - even Vitali wasn't the fighter he used to be by that age.

Lewis was overweight. His optimum weight was in the 240lbs. When he came in over 250lbs he was sluggish. He hadn't fought in over a year and was the heaviest he had ever been. He'd weighted in at 249lbs for Tyson, he came in at 256lbs for Vitali.

There's no "almost" in boxing. Vitali failed.

Vitali came in fresher, was the hungrier fighter and dominated the opening round but the best he managed was to wobble Lewis in the second. He couldn't even knock Lennox off his feet let alone knock him out.

From the third to the fifth it was competitive, the sixth was clearly Lewis's round.

Vitali wasn't hurting Lewis anymore by the sixth, he was reduced to having to clinch desperately to avoid being hit any more. He didn't have anything more to give. He came in too quick and kept up too high a pace and had exhausted himself. He was in no better state than Lewis was when the sixth round ended.

The biggest payday of Lewis's career was the Tyson fight and would have been the Tyson even if he fought Vitali a second time. Vitali did not have the drawing power to match Tyson - nobody outside of boxing circles cared about him - and any fight between them would never have match the revenue brought in when Lewis fought Tyson.

Vitali had his chance to prove he was the better boxer and he blew it. He wasn't good enough to get the job done on the night. Lewis was.

 

And whose fault was it that Lennox came in at a career high 256 lbs? Given that after each of his stoppage defeats to McCall and Rahman he repeated the same thing, that he would never underestimate an opponent and fight poorly prepared again!

 

Mind humoring me and drawing up a list of heavyweights champions who were fighting the quality of opposition that Lewis was at 37.

Try and keep it under a dozen or so.

 

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/sjbAyQU2W-E/hqdefault.jpg (the crushed)

http://www.mightyfighter.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/vitali-eye-2.jpg (the crusher)

atsch

 

Geez, how many times do people debate this fight?

Vitali was up by a whopping margin of 4-2 after 6. Wow. 4 rounds to 2, which could have easily been 3-3.

Lewis was exhausted after 6, and Vitali was falling all over Lewis at the end of the 6th after taking a short right hand inside. Vitali was either hurt or very tired himself, or both.

The fight was up for grabs, but Vitali was badly cut so they rightfully stopped it. Kind of an unsatisfying conclusion for the fans, but it is what it is.

 

One thing I found very annoying is that that overhand right landed, as you said, none of the commentators mentioned it, and Lampley was saying "That's all Lewis can do to keep from failing over" when in fact it was Vitali that was hanging on and Lewis was actually trying to create distance between myself and Vitali, because he knew Vitali was hurt. How all that could have been over looked is a mystery to me.

 

I can see why Vitali fans obsess about this....the man deserved a rematch. But it's not at all accurate to say that he crushed Lewis. He surprised, out-hustled for a couple of rounds, and won the event from Lewis, but in the end it was his face that was ripped open, not Lennox's. Lewis won fair and square. But yes, there should have been a rematch before the end of that year.

 

I guess I'l do it...


















































TKO to the 6

 

Vitali managed to outland the older, geriatric Lewis and almost died in the process.

Nothing to write home about.

 

RJJ Griffin 1

 

I guess one good thing about this fight is it keeps boxing in the limelight. We can all agree on that!

Not only did Vitali take the fight on short notice, he was training for a 10 round fight vs a no name. Vitali outboxed and hurt Lewis, but lost on a cut.

A rematch was needed. Lewis said on air and in the press he would give one. But he knew better and balked. What if Schmeling never gave Louis a re-match? What if Frazier never gave Ali a rematch?

Punch stats from the fight:

Landed:
Vitali 156, Lewis 102

Lewis was very tired after round six.

 

so was Vits,,,,

not saying that Vits would of faded, just pointing out that they both appeared very tired, not just Lewis imo.

 

The only fact here is, Vitali loss by TKO with a face that looks like a bomb is explode. And this was not from a lucky punch, because Vitali had three badly blody cuts.

Vitali had a very good start, but Lewis comes better in this fight with every round. The Uppercuts hits Vitalis head to the wall and he was nearly done after round six.

The next fact is that a Prime Vitali can´t beat an overweight out of Prime Lewis.
Prime Lewis would have killed Vitali! So simply is that, I know its hard for Klitschko-Fanboys.. still today

 

Um, there was some controversy on how the cut was caused. Some say it was laced from an illegal backhand blow. There was also a meeting of the head shortly after the punch ( but before the blood ) where the top of Lewis' head, rubbed against Vitali's eye region.

Video will show you the meeting of the head, but for the illegal backhand, view below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtdOteT5G0Q

Vitali was not in his prime. He became better post Lewis.

Yes, the cut was bad, but it was not very swollen or bleeding much at the time of the stoppage.

Why didn't we see a re-match? Can you name one fight in the past 20 years that deserved a re-match over this one?