hmm i disagree here.. Remember the Sanders fight? Sanders conditioning was shitty like usual.. but the man came to fight and was willing to take punishment.. And he absorbed more punishment than Arreola..
:good Borges is 100% correct. He's just too immature, plus has a potty mouth! And you the hell has he beaten? A major stiff like McCline? Arreola was simply outclassed by a better/bigger/stronger/smarter fighter in VK.
Borges should have left out that comment about Vitali and Frazier - aside from that - I agree with everything he said. I don;t think it's a lock that Vitali would beat Smoking Joe either - because he doesn't have the hand speed and ferocity that George Foreman used to knock Frazier into the air. I do think Joe could possibly wear down and maybe even knock down the big man. Back to Arreola: If you're not going to come into a fight for the heavyweight championship of the world in proper condition - then when are you going to be in condition? Never. Arreola wasted his opportunity. I saw his little stunt at the weigh in as a weak attempt to distract people from how out of shape he still is. unless Arreola performs a major overhaul - I expect him to go the way of the post-Lewis David Tua. Either get your ass in shape or enjoy your extended visit to the where-are-they-now bin, Cristobal.
The side disparity is far too great for Frazier to be even remotely effective. As a matter of fact he probably wouldn't even land more than a few punches all night and to little effect. A prime Vitali would outbox and pound him into submission. The only heavies that have a chance would be guys like Tyson and Foreman because of their power early but if the fight went deep both would lose by clear decisions or late TKOs. Lewis despite his shaky chin will probably always be the hardest fight for Vitali because of his power, size and talent. Although not nearly as accomplished in terms of resume as the great heavyweights of the past, in a head to head contest very few would have a chance against Vitali.
He's exactly right. You're not going to hold off Frazier with a lame jab, he's going to bob and weave and come up under it with something bad for you. You want to talk about what Foreman did to Frazier? Foreman was a charging, rampaging bull. VK is faaaaar from that. Foreman would walk thru VK, he would be a small roadbump on George's path to the belt. American heavyweights SUCK right now, period.
And Frazier never fought anyone with Vitali's combo of size, reflexes, leaning - back defense, accuracy and chin. Frazier wouldn't be remotely competitive against Lennox, he was a great fighter in an era when 6'3 was big. Frazier's style was based on taking two to land one, that would be suicide against Vitali. Besides, how does a smaller fighter slip a jab that comes from down below like Vitali's jab? That element in Vitali's style alone makes it very difficult for smaller fighters to get inside or even train well for him, because it negates the crouching low - approach of slipping a jab to get inside.
Vitali has underrated speed, because a tall, lanky fighter will look slow, liek a big airplane looks slow during takeoff. Vitali is far mor accurate than Foreman not to mention five inches taller. The height difference between Vitali and Gomez would be the same as between Vitali and Foreman, how is Joe going to land his hooks when Vitali leans back? Vitali fought some fairly fast fighters like Hide or Sanders and noone has used speed well against him. To beat Vitali, a fighter would need absolutely incredible speed, excellent defense or match him in physical strength like Lennox.
Well, I never said that Frazier would win. I would like to think he would...but I wouldn't bet my house on it. But I would bet my house that Frazier would last longer than 2 !!! Vitali is not a Foreman style puncher...he wears opponents down. If Arreola had Vitali backing up then imagine a prime Frazier. In a hypothetical Frazier-Vitali fight that did end in 2 then its a Frazier win...and I don't think there is any other way to imagine it.
Yeah, that was totally stupid of Cris. "If Phelps can smoke marijuana why cant I have a beer?" He couldnt even make a worser comparison than this and besides Phelps lost a lot of sponsors from this incident. The last Espn boxing podcast said it best, "if your job requires you to wear a suit and tie then wear a suit and tie, if your an athlete then take care of your body and stay in shape."