Byrd's win over Vitali: facts and analysis

Byrd took the fight on 10 days notice and claimed to have never seen Vitali fight.

Compubox: Vitali landed 132/502 (missing 370), Byrd landed 124/284 (missing 160)

Byrd was much more economical and consistently made Vitali miss (defence being a factor in scoring), which could easily have caused Vitali’s allegedly serious shoulder injury (another potential explanation is that it was caused by a punch to the shoulder area). It’s likely no coincidence that Vitali allegedly injured himself and unarguably lost against his trickiest and most elusive opponent.

Vitali failed to hurt Byrd over 9 rounds.

If Vitali had an injury starting in the 3rd round as he claimed (which the commentators didn't notice), why was he throwing punches with both hands throughout the fight? And why did he wait around at ringside post-fight doing interviews rather than immediately going to the hospital? He was supposed to be in agonising pain: “It hurts too much, stop the fight”.

Also, if Vitali’s “serious injury” were genuine and he injured himself by throwing and missing too many punches as many speculate, why wasn’t he more economical in future bouts? According to Compubox he threw 1013 against Kevin Johnson for instance, even though Kevin was trying to replicate Byrd’s gameplan and Vitali could have won comfortably without throwing nearly as many.

Boxrec: 87-84 Vitali, rounds 5 and 9 clearly for Byrd, 3 (Vitali), 7 (Byrd) and 8 (Vitali) swings

Ibeabuchi TKO5 victim, 6’, 211 lbs, underpowered Byrd was a wide underdog and clear B-side in Germany against 27-0, 27 KO’s superman WBO titlist Vitali; it’s no surprise that Byrd was only given two rounds by the judges. And scorecards don’t necessarily have much relation to the competitiveness of the fight.

Vitali (who had never been in a competitive pro boxing match previously) quit with three rounds remaining, having got the worst of it in most of the previous five rounds, especially the 9th.

Why did Vitali quit? Likely because the fatigued Vitali was concerned about being dominated for the remaining nine minutes or even being punched to a stoppage loss by the much smaller man. Preferable instead to quit and invent/exaggerate an injury to muddy the waters. The fact that Vitali quit after nine rounds suggests that he either didn’t believe he was winning by a sufficiently wide margin to cruise the last three rounds or that he was on the brink of collapse (or both).

"If Vitali had continued and was knocked out nobody would have believed he had an injury." - Peter Kohl, Vitali’s promoter

"Pernell Whitaker, Floyd Mayweather, and James Toney = zero torn rotator cuffs instigated" - NoNeck

This argument was used to undermine the claim that Byrd's slickness was responsible for Vitali's "torn rotator cuff" (and Holyfield's) but it can also be used to support the position that Vitali's injury was likely either bogus or greatly exaggerated (and old Holyfield didn't quit).

Revealingly (especially given his colossal ego) Vitali never pursued a rematch with Byrd, letting the better stylistically suited Wlad “avenge” his defeat for him. Vitali fought Hoffmann 6 weeks after Wlad-Byrd 1; he was back in a pro ring within 8 months of losing to Byrd (a quicker turnaround than between his next fights with Norris and Puritty, Bean and Donald) and had signed to fight Hoffmann within 6 months of the loss, despite the alleged serious injury, surgery and recovery period.

 

The point of the piece could easily be misconstrued also. Byrd was the slickest southpaw ever at the time and stylistically could beat a large number of "ATG's for all we know. Vitali was quality but has been massively overrated by K2 fanboys and Lewis fanboys for obvious reasons.

 

"I had Byrd way behind either winning 2 or 3 rounds"

Boxrec scoring has Byrd winning 3 but he can plausibly be given 4 or even 5 if you give him every close round in addition to those he clearly won. The punch stats suggest and the video shows a very competitive fight and boxing scoring is significantly subjective anyway. How much credit do you give Byrd for his defence, which contributed to Vitali being gassing and demoralised, possibly injured too?

"The narrative"

I agree. But you are making narrative claims too, such as:

"Could Byrd stop or drop Vitali with 9 minutes to go? I am not sure, if Vitali decided to bite down and survive I think he likely would have though he would have taken some shots."

This is completely irrelevant because Vitali quit. He didn't have the heart to risk humiliation by Byrd, so he invented or exaggerated an injury instead. Byrd simply broke Vitali's will. Many don't want to believe this because Lewis failed to break Vitali's will.

Vitali also didn't have the skill, power, athleticism or pro experience (Byrd was Vitali's first deep water fight) to dominate Byrd as his brother did. Even Vitali's engine was failing him in the 9th round.

 

A great P4P win in my book. Usyk was much closer in size to Joshua than Byrd was to Vitali. And Usyk's 12 round schooling of Joshua didn't really have historical precedents in terms of Joshua's size, athleticism, power, accomplishments etc.

 

Is that in the rulebook?

 

Vitali got taken into deep waters by a slick operator and drowned. Even semi-slick Kevin gave Vitali plenty of trouble. Vitali's massive ego is what made him quit actually, like AJ vs Ruiz. Didn't want to have any more humiliation. Wlad didn't have Vitali's fighting instincts but he actually had more heart. Maybe he had to as the little brother, Vitali never faced any challenges from his sibling growing up.

 

McCall and Rahman are also retconned as massive punchers. In reality they were decent-good punching fringe contenders who lost to K2 era gatekeepers but smoked the absurdly overrated Lewis with a single power shot, the end.