Vitali has more work to do

I agree. If Vitali wants to cement his place amongst the best heavyweights in history he has more to do. Ideally, as you say, Haye would add to his resume as the 'premier' heavyweight challenger at the moment, especially since there is no question about whether he'll step into the ring with his brother. One of the two definitely needs to step into the ring with Povetkin, but it seems as though Sascha is the one that's holding up those fights rather than the Klitschkos.

Unfortunately there just doesn't seem to be anyone out there, aside from Haye, that seems to stand much of a chance against either of the Klitschkos. Toney and Briggs, for all their posturing, would both lose wide decisions - Briggs stands a fairly good chance of getting stopped due to his lack of mobility. Valuev is a circus sideshow rather than a serious challenge. Tua is a decade or more away from his peak form where he gave us that incredible war against Ibeabuchi and was blasting out top contenders with his vaunted left hook. Adamek is quite simply far too small. Boytsov, Ustinov and Dimitrenko do not have quality resumes. Peter has already been beaten by both. Chagaev has already lost to the younger Klitschko in dominating fashion. So who is there? The WBC top 5 are Solis, Valuev, Povetkin, Boytsov and Adamek.

Haye, Solis, Povetkin... the list is short. Hopefully Vitali can get another fight in before the end of the year. I respect that he's stayed so busy since his comeback. I would like to see him in the ring with Solis ASAP, as the #1 WBC contender. Then after that, perhaps Haye, and if Povetkin can find a way to secure a fight and win against Wladimir, and Vitali takes him down, then you can definitely make a case for Vitali being a great heavyweight. We can't fault him for his lack of available opposition. He's ducked nobody, stopped everyone short of Timo Hoffman and a Kevin Johnson that seemed to want nothing more than simply survive, never been knocked down, rarely ever been so much as buzzed much less hurt, and is still dominating opposition at near 40 years old.

 

Vitali has done the best with what little he has in this era of heavyweights. If he had never retired he might've accomplished a little more but at his advanced age the only other real threta out there (besides his brother Wladimir) before he retires is David haye. If he ever faces Haye and beats him convincingly and retires that puts Vitali in prety decent standing among the heavyweight greats.

 

Hard to argue with the points made thus far. His list of notable wins is pretty bad and I don't know that beating Haye really cements much given Haye's current credentials at HW. But as pointed out there haven't been too many around for him to beat that would really help and I agree Haye is prolly the best right now left to beat.

 

I broadly agree.

I rank him far higher because there has never been anything close to a Johansson KO on his record.

By the time Patterson was 33 years old, he had dropped points decisions to Jimmy Ellis, Jerry Quarry and Joey Maxim, had drawn with Quarry, and had been knocked out by Ingemar. And that's without even mentioning Ali or Liston.

And by the time a 33 year old Walcott challenged Louis for the first time, he had dropped points decisions to:
Elmer Ray,
Joey Maxim,
Johnny Allen,
Roy Lazer,
Tiger Jack Fox,
George Brothers,
Billy Ketchell, and
Henry Taylor.

Additionally he had been stopped by Al Ettore, Tiger Jack Fox and Abe Simon.

That's about as many defeats in a 55 fight career as Vitali has lost rounds in his 42 fight career.

All of these guys that you put Vitali in with, in the second tier, they all have mighty struggles with or losses to subpar competition. Vitali doesn't, not ever. I mean, can you honestly see him losing 11 fights to the Walcott competition I listed by the time he was 33, when he can come back at age 36 after a 4 year layoff with no warmup fights, and defeat a beltholder by way of massacre?

And not only that, you say he is "aiming at being mentioned with guys like Walcott." Which means that you put him clearly behind Walcott. Which I find ridiculous, given that Walcott was clearly far, FAR more beatable at every stage of his career than Vitali is at any stage of his.

:hat

 

Interesting. If Vitali hangs around to beat up all of the contenders, and Wlad's beaten leftovers, he very well could improve his legacy by quite a bit. This is problematic for at least three significant reasons:

1) The longer Vitali hangs around, the more he will be destroying his brothers legacy by doing this.

2) Beating guys like Chagaev, Ibragimov, etc. won't really be that significant, seeing as how Wlad has already beaten them comprehensively. Then there is the danger that he beats them worse than Wlad (unlikely perhaps), in which case, see 1.

3) Vitali is still dangerous and being avoided like the plague by fighters aiming to prove themselves. There is no guarantee that if he hangs around anyone significant will want to fight him.

He plans to retire soon. I think that's the right thing to do. He had his chance to have a great career, now is Wladimir's time. He even handicapped himself by retiring for almost four years, running for Mayor of Kiev and "healing." Maybe that's what he needed to do, but it clearly wasn't the best thing for his career or legacy. Vitali is a great fighter, but the longer he stays around, the more he will inadvertantly hurt his brother's legacy.

 

Vitali and Vlad are fighting the best fighters out there. How can they get Haye into a ring? Haye is still running.

 

This doesn't work. You cannot critisize Walcott like this. Most of these losses occured early in Walcott's career in the 1930s when he had a family of 6 to feed, no time to train, and hardly a sandwhich to eat for 48 hrs. Not to mention contracting typhoid fever in 1933. Walcott did not have the nicy cozy rich modern training benefits vitali was accustomed too. When Walcott did start getting full meals in his stomach and world class training oppertunites by 1945, walcott started tearing up the division. Walcott essentially cleaned out the heavyweight division from 1945-1947. He continued on top for the next 7 years winning the world heavyweight title at age 37. If you compare resume to resume, Walcott beat the much better competition than Vitali did.

 

Yeah we need 5 GREAT fighters to appear out of thin air so Vitali can secure his legacy.

They keep lining em up and he keeps knockin' em down.

When he KO's Haye it will be written off as W against a no chin **** talking over hyped fairy(which is exactly what Gaye is).....point being it will never end simply because there isnt enough comp to push him.He aint the first great HW to suffer from a lackluster division.

 

Remember Joe Louis' "Bum of the month"? Larry Holmes fought some real jokes! Tyson fought Tillis?! Many more push overs. Lewis got his arse kicked by an unknown, Mavrovich! Etc.

 

I'm a big fan but to me Vitali is a big what if. Injurys....the loss to Byrd....then he finally gets the belt then he is hurt retires....comesback when its too late anda all the comp is gone and the best wont fight him

To me Wlad is closer to being great he has a long reing he is dispelling his critics and question marks he can keep winning and work toward being great Vitali missed too much never had a great run or signature win.

Wlad does not have a career defining win but just keeps plugging away

 

People do forget that the greats had their share of bums

Ali Dunn, Coopman, Evanglista.......

 

Ali was out on his feet and Angelo Dundee saved him by cutting his glove to give him time to recover!

 

yeah vs Cooper and he looked awful vs Quarry but Quarry got a cut

 

And the Jones debacle with Ali too