I just asked because you said you thought he had a much better resume than Louis and Holmes who make most top 5 lists so I just assumed but I seem to have been wrong.
Seemed fairly final at the time. Vitali saying that he would like to end his career on top and his manager, Bernd Boente, stating Vitali "...is done for good." Vitali was also talking about his future in politics. It wasn't being framed as a sabbatical.
He was probably flirting with the idea of politics as well I get the impression that was always his passion.
Wlad particularly was super boring except fir the classic war with Joshua towards the end where i think he was tired of reading critics and anted to prove he could bang too and boy did he! Vitaly was superb. As he showed in the Lennox Lewis fight you always had to be careful with him. They were good at what they did and almost invincible with their styles. That is what counts,
This has probably already been addressed on here, and feel free to direct me to the thread, but does anyone out there think Wlad would have lost specific fights had the referee not allowed him to hold? Saying he was frustrating to watch is an understatement. I enjoyed watching Vitaly fight, and rate him rather high H2H.
This x1000. Wlad and Vitali aren’t a collective, they’re two different guys with two different resumes. It’s like combining Lennox Lewis and Riddick Bowe and acting like their combined record is one fighter doing all of it.
Lennox Lewis and Riddick Bowe are not kinfolk. Legacy wise it harms them both a bit but there is no shame they are literal family and should not be forced to fight eachother since both were champion
They were really good but the era was the weakest ever. Why? Because nobody fought each other. You can’t tell who’s good unless the top ranked men fight other top ranked men. Was the height of individuals guarding their zeros w their lives and it showed in every weak title defense that those opponents weren’t worthy. I like that guys are fighting each other again
Vitali managed to lose his toughest fights, and Wlad managed to lose to second and third raters. Yes, Wlad sorted his game out, but still depended on a negative, borderline illegal gameplan to defeat guys who were mostly diminutive in comparison. Not a huge fan. Wlad top 15 for longevity and Vitali arguably top 25, although, with his light resume, you could argue that he wasn't. H2H is all hypothetical. If you want to give them H2H points, you can, but no one has to agree.
Rent free bra, rent free. You're showing signs of evolving tho - no baseless racism claims this time!!!!. Hoorah for you. Next step........walking upright.
I’m not saying they should have been forced to fight each other. I’m saying that you can’t consider them together as if their resumes were what one person did anymore than you could Bowe and Lewis or Louis and Dempsey. Each is an individual fighter with strengths and flaws and both stronger and weaker points of their records.