Vitali Klitschko vs Jess Willard 15 rounds

Vitali became a solid fighter after Lewis, he gained confidence from that fight & I favor him in the rematch. I think he bangs Willard around in rugged battle taking over around the 7th-8th round dominantly and stopped Jess somewhere around the 9th, 10th round

 

Difficult to be sure, but not impossible. If the speed of the film is adjusted such that the rounds are three minutes in real time, the running time should then be correct and you should still be able to gauge the time between when a punch is thrown and returns, even if the low frame rate throws you off a bit. To my eye Willard looks considerably faster in the film I linked than Vitali does in the Sam Peter fight janitor linked, and still seems faster to me if I deduct a bit from Willard in compensation for any illusion created by the film.

That's not necessarily to say he was indeed faster, but there is zero, I repeat zero reason this could not really be the case, and I certainly see no reason whatsoever it should be dismissed as far fetched a priori.
At the very worst the film does not show him to be a lumbering oaf.

 

And yet it was still insightful and useful. He described in clear detail some of the important, fundamental differences that separate Vitali from Willard, two men who bare some obvious similarities that may confuse the less perceptive among us. His post offers a very good starting point for Reason123 and anyone else who doesn't recognize or understand these things. Shouldn't be necessary--you'd think that this stuff would be obvious to all who fashion themselves serious boxing fans--but here we are. I could throw some clips together to support each of SQ's assertions, but I see no value in wasting my time on something so tedious, and the people who disagree with me either wouldn't watch it or would accuse me of cherrypicking anyway.

 

Look just because some don’t see what you see doesn’t mean they aren’t serious boxing fans or don’t have perspective. You or anyone else on the forum do not decide what does or doesn’t look good.

 

Those are not the salient differences I see. What a I see is that in Willard's time clinching and infighting are allowed to go on much longer, and the "pouncing" style reflects this. They also tend to hold their hands low more often, presumably because body blows are much more punishing with gloves that are little more than horse hair mittens. That may not be the actual reason, but I'll tell you what the reason almost certainly isn't: It it isn't because what seems comically obvious to you is entirely unapparent to them.

Whenever you see people in the past or in another country doing something that just strikes you as absurd on its face, there is a very, very good chance you don't understand why they're doing it. That's not at all to say the reason is ultimately a good one, but it is to say it's almost certainly more complex than you realize.

 

See, now that's much better. I'm going out to dinner, but I'll have some things to say later.

 

The similarities between JW and VK are that both were tall and both held their hands low. Other than that, VK is a well schooled boxer JW is a guy who walked off a farm, started ‘boxing” and beat some fighters who were even less well schooled and/or smaller. VK was an Olympic caliber amateur who was fighting better fighters than Willard when he was a teenager. This is a ridiculous discussion.

 

Nice. Will be interesting to see whether any of the doubters actually engage and address your analysis in good faith.

 

Indeed it is. It's a matter of ideological self-preservation for some people. Convincing themselves that Vitali and Willard were somehow equivalent helps them keep guys like Dempsey and/or Johnson on lofty pedestals relative to the more recent heavyweights.

 

A good breakdown indeed For the Willard fight, the second is pure fantasy Peter isnt trying super hard to get inside on Vitale there in the fifth. He just doesn’t seem very proactive to me. It’s not because of what low hand V is doing.

 

Why do people even give a **** about Jess Willard? The guy fought over 100 years ago, or any other fighters from that era? There's almost no footage, what there is filmed by handmotion cameras. It's a complete waste of time, to compare him to guys like the Klitschkos, Lewis, etc. These guys had extensive amateur backgrounds, modern training techniques, etc. Willard and those guys used to fight on docks, in saloons, not even in real rings. It's a complete waste of time.

 

Yeah the bum didn't even fight any Black fighters except an ancient Jack Johnson. Just like Dempsey and Tunney drew the color line also. Any guy in the top 10 over the last 40 years would have beaten these bums a$$'s