Is Vitali Kiltschko an all time top 10 heavy weight?

Byrd is a very underrated fighter. . He fought the who's who of the era. ( funny that Lennox would not fight him) .

Very talented and was a legit champion.

Both Klitschko's dominated him. The 2nd fight with Wlad is incredible, he tried every technique to beat him and still got destroyed. Vitali would have crushed him as well.

Byrd is underrated, but so are the K bros. As good a spoiler as Byrd was, he would never beat the Legit ATG Wlad or Vitali.

 

Stop! You can't say Byrd is a good underrated fighter then say both bros passed him around like he was nothing. You're belittling him which makes it look worse for the bro who lost to him.

There's no dispute that Vitali never best Byrd, ever!
He had the choice to prove he was better and he did not want to do it. Facts!

And remember Ike Ibeauchi simply bulldozed through Byrd. Vitali performance looks teriible in comparison to Ikes. Ike would very likely do better than Vitali in h2h match ups for that reason

 

He needs 2 big wins to get in. So no.

 

Wlad and Vitali did pass Byrd around like a used rag doll with one eye missing and then proceed to beat all the stuffing out of him.

Byrd was damn good too. No shame in being dominated by the K bro's. Lennox would have beat him had they fought as well. Not trying to diss on Byrd though.

 

Ikes performance was a domination. Vits performance bared no resemblance to Ikes whatsoever. Byrd was never even stunned in the fight because Vitali couldn't hurt him.
I think you're trolling tbh

 

So does this mean you agree Vit is not a top 10 ATG?

 

This is your thread and it isn’t about Lewis. Your posts are usually amazing but ring ranked opponents by volume doesn’t mean a thing when everyone you fight isn’t very good.

 

100% agree. Lewis is a lock for the top 10. Anyone who has him outside their top 10 needs to be questioned. But Vit, as great as he COULD have been really shouldn’t be in the top 10 imo. Don’t get me wrong he is a H2H monster, but what he achieved and who he beat just doesn’t stack up for me. It was a terrible era of fragmented belts and the best contenders and champions rarely fought one another. I really like Vitali, but he just doesn’t have a signature win or multiple signature wins on his resume. Victim of his own era and refusal to fight Wlad. If he had bested Wlad, whole different ball game.

 

Sorry but i disagree with you there seems to be a long running myth, that Vitali dominated Byrd and Byrd was lucky to win. That isn't quite the case Byrd vs Vitali was a very competitive fight, and if you look at the stats the fight was fairly even aswell, this is how i had it.


Chris Byrd vs Vitali Klitschko

1 Vitali
2 Vitali
3 Byrd
4 Vitali
5 Byrd
6 Byrd
7 Vitali
8 Vitali
9 Byrd
10 Vitali doesn't come out for the 10th round

86-85 Vitali

I'm a man of my word here's my scorecard after rewatching the fight @Showstopper97

A few things i want to point out about this fight, Byrd basically nullified Vitali's jab by parrying it constantly with his right jab. Which is huge weapon to take away when your fighting the much bigger man. It also shows Vitali's jab was nowhere near as good as Wladimir's, who had a pretty potent jab where as Vitali's was just poking it out there.

I also felt like Vitali was a bit too tentative in this fight, he didn't really impose himself on Byrd. And he allowed the much smaller Byrd who isn't a big puncher, to start backing him up after the 5th round.

As i said before to @Showstopper97 i've never understood where this myth came from, that Vitali was "dominating Byrd". For me it was a very close tactical fight, and Byrd was starting to come on in the 2nd part of the fight. As Vitali was starting to tire from all the missed punches, and i think Byrd deserves more credit for his performance especially since he took the fight on late notice. Yes the injury to Vitali's shoulder was unfortunate, but Byrd had tired Vitali out and Byrd was coming on strong, backing up Vitali and hitting him with the left hand.

 

I don't see that. Lewis was hitting his stride more and more with each passing round. He was figuring Vitali out and the tide was definitely turning by round 6.

 

Well to be fair Michael Grant was very hyped up at the time, he was 6'7 considered the new big American Heavyweight star. And he had some pretty solid wins going into Lewis fight vs Golota, Izon, Savarese. You can't really fault Lewis for fighting Grant who was much bigger fight than Ruiz or Byrd. And just for reference i had a look at the Ring Magazine Heavyweight rankings, and Grant was rated higher than Byrd and Ruiz wasn't even in the top 10 at that point. And Byrd had recently got dismantled by Ibeabuchi.

Lastly Ruiz and Holyfield were going back and forth in 2000-2001 fighting one of the worst trilogies of all time, and Lewis instead fought Botha and Tua who destroyed Ruiz in 20 seconds. I don't really see anything wrong with that opposition.

 

Foreman has better wins, including Frazier and Norton, not to mention a unique comeback at mid forties to have a second reign. That plus the H2H 'eye test' puts him up there for me.

Few title defences notwithstanding, Liston had a very decent resume before he ever met Patterson.

You couldn't be more wrong. I'm a big fan of both K brothers, but especially Vitali. If you check my posting record, I have defended both brothers many times on this forum.

By the H2H eye test (always speculative) I rank Vitali in the top 5 or 6 alltime.


But as I said above, for whatever reasons, IMO he just doesn't have the names on his resume to rank higher than where I placed him.

 

Your scorecards do not match mine, or the judges.

Vitali was dominating the fight, and was fighting with a horribly injured shoulder.

After 9 rounds Vitali had suffered a torn rotator cuff and despite being clearly ahead on the scorecards (88-83, 88-83, & 89-82) he had to retire on his stool due to the pain.

The only reason Byrd started to do a little better late was because by that time Vitali was without an effective arm. Vitali was so far ahead he could have taken the next rounds off and still won the fight. ( hence the controversy )