Would this have helped or hindered Wladimir s career? The upside is that he wouldn't be in his brothers shadow, but the downside is that there were so many heavyweights, many of them being dangerous fight s for wlad (Lennox, arreola, Briggs) etc , that he wouldn't have been able to fight them all unless he had like a 60- 70 pro fights in his career . How would Klitschko have faired if his brother stayed in kickboxing and politics? Explain how his legacy would have went down: for better or worse?
Wlad probably never wold have been a champ. Lennox beats Wlad easier than Vitali. No calls for a rematch because Lennox KTFOed Wlad quick and easy. Lennox goes on for maybe 3-4 more years as champion. Wlad doesn't hook up with Steward and never learns the jab and grab. Wald racks up a few more losses and quietly fades away.
Definitely not. Lewis wanted to retire well before he fought Vitali. Judging by the way Wlad has handled his losses, he bounce back from a Lewis ko and probably go on to dominate the division just like he did in real life.
Vitali fighting the likes of Aerts, Hoost, Hug, Lebanner, Cro Cop, Bernardo, Filho, Hunt etc. In the 90s a very interesting hypothetical scenerio in and of itself.
He loses to most. He just wasn't on that level. Sapp/Vitali circa 2003/4? Now that's am interesting scenario! ;-)
He does decent in k1 gets legs chopped by guys like hoost. Maybe wins a few close sd vs hunt and more boxing heavy opponents. A good win on semy. Idk
As a side note, this is going off topic, but I used to enjoy ESPN's PKA Full Contact Karate back in the 1980's, I remember watching guys like Bad Brad Hefton, and Jerry Rhome. For some reason full contact karate never gained the popularity of the sweet science, but I liked it.
I recently discovered Hefton after digging into the PKA a bit. You're right -- they actually were a rather impressive lot, those "shiny pants" kickboxers. A couple of them grabbed belts in boxing, despite that not being their initial sport, so they didn't lack for talent. I don't know why the American kickboxing scene collapsed, though. One theory I thought was kind of interesting was that the PKA-type guys like Roufus and Moncayo got obliterated by Muay Thai / Dutch style international opponents. Which would make sense. The proposed solution I saw was the PKA keeping its original judo throws, which would have given some level of parity with the international styles by adding weapons they lacked. (I.E., leg-kick fighters facing above-the-belt kickers with judo throws would each have additional tricks in any compromise ruleset, unlike the actual situation where the PKA guys outright lacked weapons the international guys were familiar with.) I thought it was an interesting suggestion, but I dunno.
EDIT: Never mind. Just saw your reply For some reason the forum included your response in the quote function.
Yeah, the 8 kick rule I always assumed was to keep pure boxers out until the PKA competitors built up enough expertise in full contact. And then it just stayed there. I doubt they needed it once the competition got good enough. Certainly Don Wilson used kicks well enough against Jimmerson, although he used low kicks in that fight as well. Ultimately I might agree with the judo thing I mentioned earlier,, as far as competitiveness with other styles goes. Urquidez's approach -- incorporating throws, which he did against the Japanese kickboxers in a quasi-K1 ruleset -- was the only way the PKA athletes would have leveled the playing field against other types of kickboxing that allowed knees, leg kicks, etc. And even then, maybe not. But I doubt that anybody anticipated American full contact karate getting defeated against Muay Thai back when the first full contact rules were written in the 70s. Van Damme's "Kickboxer" and the subsequent success of the UFC probably didn't improve things either. I'm watching one of the Hefton fights on the Corley channel on YouTube now. He seems to have some limitations, but he's a very good and athletic kicker. He's good as well at producing just enough space for his kicks, at ranges you might not expect them to be viable. My own, totally inexpert impression is that Hefton has problems on the inside; he just sort of covers up like Joshua is accused of doing, rather than inside fighting effectively or clinching. Seems a bit hittable, too, although on the plus side he has good stamina and is pretty precise. Power seems decent, but he doesn't always sit down on his shots or something. Was clinching prohibited in this ruleset?
As an aside, there's a surprising amount of instructional material just sitting around from the 80s generation of full contact karate guys. Aside from books, Theriault, Benny Urquidez, Bill Wallace, Joe Lewis (who was kind of a transitional figure, like Wallace), Peter Cunningham, and Don Wilson all created videos explaining how to kickbox, at least as it was practiced in that era.
