Vitali is overrated

Absolutely.

Made out to be on a way higher level than he was.

What he was, was unbelievably well conditioned and consistent. Two incredible attributes to have, of course. But I feel they inflate the level he was at at his best. I don't think he's s much higher level than the likes of an inshape Pinklon Thomas or Tim Witherspoon. However, what's impressive about Vitali is that you never have to say, 'an inshape' Vitali. You just knew he'd be there to win, and in the best condition possible.

 

I see as much underrating as overrating around here, tbf. Kinda' balances out, if you ask me.

Imo Vitali is a guy not completely out of his depth h2h with a who's who of ATG heavies, but lacks the resume. He legit lost to a legit ATG in LL and wouldn't beat up his lil' bro to grab what little other available glory existed in his era. I don't blame him.

 

No denying his resume is lacking I don't rate him highly as an ATG because for me it's what you prove in the ring by who you beat that counts the most when assessing someone's greatness not what they could potentially do if they had fought the right opponents.

But having said that I still think he's a head to head monster. I unlike most have always been more impressed by Vitali than Wlad. I get it Wlad was faster, more powerful, more explosive, had better fundamental techniques. Vitali in contrast was slower, more awkward, he just had an ugly style but there's another fighter I think that fits that description right now and that's Tyson Fury. Vitali like Fury isn't pretty to watch but damn he's effective and Joyce too, most were more impressed by Dubois' ramrod jab and power and I get that, but more subtle skills are what takes a fighter to a higher level and Vitali has that in abundance.

Vitali was great at utilising his height and reach, always staying just out of his opponents range. He would lean slightly forward, so he could lean back to evade and then be perfectly balanced to throw a counter, it also tricked his opponent into thinking he was closer than he really was. His head movement was very good in general which allowed him to have the low hands style he adopted.

He had a busy upwards jab which he threw from the waist so it was harder to see coming and use his lead hand to block his opponents vision to set up the right hand, either by throwing a light jab or simply extending it and keeping it in his opponents face. He had a wide variety of punches, he wasn't just a jab and right hand and he kept you guessing as to where he was going to throw and often create openings and traps. He'd throw a straight shot but then come round the side which was exposed by your attempted block, or come round the side and then come up or down the middle when you again exposed yourself with your block. He'd jab an opponents glove on purpose much like Usyk does to ingrain a movement pattern and then use that as a trap to set up a shot.

His footwork is the best of any super heavyweight we have seen, better than Bowe, Lewis, Wlad and even Fury. He would constantly side step after throwing to create a new angle forcing his opponents to continually reset, Vitali rarely got forced to the ropes because of this.

He also knew how to use his size. Wlad had to be taught this by Steward. Vitali already had this in his arsenal, framing, collar tying, posting with the lead hand. If you rush him he'll extend his hands and try to redirect you like a matador does bull and once he's spun you around try and catch you with a shot and you spin to face him. I've even seen him try and pull your guard down like Loma does to open you up for punches.

Now of course I rank Wlad higher than Vitali as Wlad clearly has the better resume and more accomplishments. But if they had ever fought Vitali would have beaten him and even Wlad has said so before.

 

Any tall guy can look good against small slow moving plodders. An example of this is Wilder against Stiverne I. . Wilder outboxed Stiverne on the back foot just like Vitali would.
While Vitali was good and a lot better than Wilder on the backfoot , to say he has the best footwork out of all the SHs is ridiculous and is exactly why a thread like this was created.
The reason being is Vitali was clunky and awkward on the front foot. So you can say he was better when guys like Fury and Lewis had great footwork on the front and backfoot.
Another thing , Lewis didn't have to reset very often as he walked Vitali down in a straight line. Vitali wasn't able to "step aside" and make a mummified version of Lewis "reset"

Frank Bruno had better success at sticking to a jab and move against a better primer version of Lewis. Fury would have boxed rings around that version of Lewis.

 

Fact is Vitali out boxed Lewis on the outside forcing Lewis to adjust and step in with his jab to move him to the ropes and then land the right just like when he caused the first cut. Lewis himself was an exceptional out boxer the number of people who out boxed him you could count on one hand and still have some fingers left and so Vitali being able to do that and make Lewis adjust for me says just how good Vitali was and obviously Lewis wasn't some small slow heavy like Stiverne. I think Vitali more than proved his boxing ability vs Lewis.

When has Vitali ever been forced to be on the front foot? Byrd nope, Lewis nope, Sanders nope? Fact is nobody ever out boxed him from range so he was never really forced to cut off the ring vs opponents because he could out box them from range. So this idea he was bad on the front foot I find odd as he was never forced to fight that way.

You're right Lewis didn't have to reset though. Lewis simply stepped in with his jab, forcing Vitali to lean back too far and compromising his movement. Lewis is one of the greatest heavyweights ever for a reason and figured out Vitali's flaw. Vitali's tendency to lean forward put the weight on the front foot worked against him vs Lewis' step in jab. It's fine when you only need to lean back enough to be perfectly balanced but with Lewis' bigger reach and by stepping in it forced Vitali to over lean backwards and that meant he was the one that needed to reset his feet to move and he wasn't balanced anymore. It was a simple adjustment for Lewis but one nobody else ever figured out vs Vitali.

 

You're right he never needed to because he never fought any alethic movers who had the legs to use the ring. . How the hell can you say he has the greatest footwork when he never faced guys with even remotely similar footwork to Holyfield , Holmes , Ali , Fury etc.

There is enough technical flaws in his game to know that he would be the one needing to reset against a lateral elusive mover such as Holyfield.
Example , Chris Byrd. . Vitali had to step back constantly against Byrd to get himself into his preferred punching range. Byrd wasn't moving around the ring but he was giving him angles from a stationary position and Vitali struggled to land clean or with any sort of variation.

Go watch Wlads effort and it was clear that his front font attack was far superior to Vitalis. Wlad put Byrd in the deep end from round 1. . The guff in skill was enormous. Byyrd admitted himself that Wlads style was all wrong for him. With Vitali , Byrd could anticipate what Vitali was going to do as he was very predictable coming forward.

Furthermore , Wlad produced an impressive backfoot performance against Ruslan Chagaev. He walked Ruslan onto a wall of leather without the use of clinching. . Who has Vitali beaten that was better than Prime Ruslan Chagev? Nobody.

And just another example. . When Vitali tried to walk down Corrie Sanders he caught a hellacious counter that very nearly put him on the deck. .He never took a forward setp for the rest of the fight. Face it , Vitali was average on the front foot. He would be hopelessly incapable of trying to pin down somebody like Fury or Ali. .
You need a variation of punches to track down guys like that and Vitali threw only basic punches because his legs were stiff and clunky. .

 

Vitali's lean back low guard defence was exposed against another big and athletic guy in Lewis. It worked for stalking small and slow plodders. Wlad defence is more bulletproof against other big and athletic guys.

 

Ohh, and made Lewis retire cos he did knew that he will not won rematch vs Vitali. Fight vs Vitali not as short notice replacement opponent.

Again casual westerner flowchart. He had beat Sanders, WBO World HW title holder who had beat Wlad via stoppage.
More than this, he when was 40 y.o performed vs Chisora better than Parker and Usyk.

He finished Sanders in distance.
Despite common narrative in forums is that Wlad had sent brother to fight vs him, reality was different.
Sanders had won WBO World Heavyweight title by finishing Wlad in distance.
Then he challenged Vitali for WBC World Heavyweight title and Vitali finished him in distance.

 

Wlad was no ATG either He owed his success to Manny Steward & his size

 

Ohh, and made Lewis retire cos he did knew that he will not won rematch vs Vitali. Fight vs Vitali not as short notice replacement opponent.
Fight was made on a few days notice when Kirk Johnson pulled out injured. Name me any other world champ that put his title on line against his #1 contender in those circumstances?

 

Well, he most likely had assumed that with such short notice Vitali will be easy opponent: that he will KO Vitali in 1 st round maybe.

 

If Lennox was 100% he probably would have

 

Overrated in both resume and h2h. His career feasting on slow, plodding, zero defense muscle bound sluggers and obese plodders has been broken down dozens of times and doesn't need much revisiting. He enjoyed being gigantic and facing mostly smaller and/or older shopworn opponents.

There is an incredible lack of real counter punchers, movers, technicians, or boxer punchers. How do we know how good a boxer is h2h if they lack variety in their opponents? Yes his era wasn't particularly great, and he sometimes struggled with layoffs due to injuries, but he also didn't exactly go out of his way to fight some of the guys Wladmir ended up fighting. Where was he when Haye, Povetkin, Pulev, Chambers, Chagaev, etc were making noise in the division? He also neglected to pursue a rematch with Byrd and didn't do himself any favors by refusing to fight his brother. Retired literally right when the division was heating up with new young prospects such as fury, wilder, etc.

His does hit hard but it's incredibly overblown. The fact he fought so many slow stiff zero defense opponents and yet so many of them stayed on their feet after taking dozens of flush bombs tells the whole story. Can't imagine someone like Tyson, or Wladmir, or even Joshua unloading bomb after bomb on those same opponents and getting nowhere.

As for his lean back defense and ring generalship, again, we didn't see him against a large variety of opponents to know how effective it truly was. He worked hard and was always in shape, so credit to him for that. But it's a big mystery how effective he truly is h2h against the absolute best. Sorry, but going 0-2 against the only elite fighters he faced isn't convincing regardless of the circumstances.

 

Most likely.

To be elite to be punched in the face you at first should be from proper country.

Others better had picked another way to earn for a living: customers for this entertainment business mainly are westerners and they need to see as elite fighters from their countries.

 

He wasn't stiff at all. Might have had awkward movement, but he wasn't stiff.