Dusseldorf Fury is one guy who would make Vitali look like a club boxer. Vitali wouldn't know how to box a tall multi dimensional switch hitting opponent with a longer reach.
Dont lie. Nothing was confirmed in round 3. Nobody knew about any injury until he quit and he certainly never looked like he was carrying any injury pre-quittage. The fact he had a rematch clause over Byrd and chose not to use it says more about that fight than his supposed injury does. Byrd took that fight fight on a weeks notice without ever seeing any footage on Vitali. A better prepared Byrd starts quicker in the rematch hence why Vitali chose to fight Timmo Hoffmeister instead.
Wouldn't it be safer to pick someone from Vitali's own era or later who were actually tested against skilled big men? Ali, Liston, etc never faced rated opponents the size of Vitali, they are totally untested against skilled super heavies. Reasonable picks would probably be Anthony Joshua Lennox Lewis Wladimir Klitschko Tyson Fury maybe Ivan Dychko, Filip Hrgovic, and Daniel Dubois
It is very hard to tell. When you talk heavyweights the size difference in the eras separates the eras. Vitali was after Lennox who sort of started to become the bigger heavyweights.. Bowe was big but they started to get bigger, and the right hand of Lennox with that size was too much for most guys he fought. The weight and size of Vitali makes it hard to match him with Frazier. Were they really the same weight? If Frazier were the same size as Vitali or weight or mass, then I would say we could match it better and Frazier would probably win.
I don't know only one case when Wlad,Ali or Holmes beat a good very tall fighter. Especially Holmes is overrated who never looked better than Tyson against at least decent tall fighters. These (Wlad,Ali ,Holmes)fighters' including Lennox (The Vitali fight proved) jabs would be useless against Vitali. . Tyson is underrated here who could outclass some decent tall fighters and he wasn't a limited jab by jab one dimensional fighter considering he was fast and he had special skills. Otherwise Tyson had only once time skill problem with a very tall fighter when his slow and shot version fought the prime Lewis. I hope nobody tries to bring Douglas (he isn't very tall) and McBride (Tyson won more rounds and just he quit without an acceptable boxing reason) examples . It's bizarre when a klitschko fan says Lewis having the best chance against Vitali considering klitschko outboxed him easily and his Vitali win is based on lucky circumstances.
Not a bad primary list. Frazier might have to do it tough tho. I might favor him over Wlad. I'd add Fury in there and maybe Joshua too. Louis wouldn't be without a chance imo.
Is that what you think Mod? You're mistaken, off the top of my head Ali lost more rounds vs Kenny Norton than Vitali did in his entire career. He lost more round to Jimmy Young, and Doug Jones. ( 4 or more ) than Vitali did to any of his oppponets. Holmes lost more rounds to Gerry Cooney than Vitali did to ANY opponent. You can say the same for Tim Witherspoon, and Mike Spinks Joe Louis lost more rounds to Billy Conn ,Max Schmeling, Ezzard Charles an Joe Walcott than VItlai did in his entire career combined. How much further do you want me to go?