Chris Byrd vs Vitali Klitschko: My Scorecard with Comments

My scoring for Vitali vs Byrd:

Round 1: Each fighter lands 2 punches. The rest is ineffective aggression by Vitali and good defense by Byrd. 10-10.

Round 2: Vitali lands a couple at the start, then Byrd lands a couple of good counters later. Byrd makes Vitali look like an amateur for the rest of it, landing a few counters. 10-9 Byrd.

Round 3: Vitali has Byrd cornered for 30 seconds, and can not land one decent punch. So far in the fight, Byrd has taken punches only to his gloves! One good punch lands for each.

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10-10.

Round 4: Vitali misses a series of punches, and Byrd lands a crisp overhand left. Vitali lands 4 decent rights as Byrd moves in on him. 10-9 Vitali.

Round 5: Byrd chases the big man around the ring for the whole round, taking zero punches and landing about 5 clean shots on Vitali's head. 10-9 Byrd.

Round 6: They trade ineffective punches as Byrd moves forward the whole round.

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10-10.

(After 6 rounds, they have landed almost the same number of punches, but Byrd has landed several clean effective ones, and Vitali zero.)


Round 7: Byrd blocks almost everything Vitali throws, and lands a few counters.

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Vitali has 25% accuracy so far, compared to Byrd's 39%. 10-9 Byrd.

Round 8: Byrd feels Vitali is getting weak, and presses forward, but gets hit with a few good counters. 10-9 Vitali.

Round 9: Vitali still can't land a clean punch, and Byrd plays games with him as he counterpunches Vitali into pure frustration. Byrd is now walking Klitschko down.

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10-9 Byrd.

Vitali quit on his stool. All excuses are just words. He could have fought with one hand. Ali and Abraham fought with broken jaws. Marciano fought with two noses. Vitali could have relied on his other arm. He didn't think he could avoid getting stopped (tired, anyone?).

Jim Lampley: "I can't beilieve it."

Then don't, Jim!

Larry Merchant: "All he had to do was stay on his feet for 3 rounds."

Then maybe it wasn't really his arm. Maybe he was just exhausted. He quit. Period. There's a reason, and we may never know it. But he quit.

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: 88-86 for Chris Byrd.

The fight was in Germany: don't look at the official scores - please give me your score and no one else's.

 

After Wlad stopped him, that was the end of his career. But Byrd has some good wins on his resume. It's no wonder why Lennox Lewis wanted no part of him.

 

You obviously don't know how they steal fights. The judges can be from any country, but they get PAID to score it for the hometown fighter.