How on Earth could Vitaly be so successful?

Thanks for the compliment, but I'm really not. :good

 

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Those reflexes of his were pretty amazing. And yea, they could be described almost as "Ali-like".

He also was just a huge, extremely strong guy. Huge puncher, knew what he could get away with in the ring.

 

For starters, he is a better boxer than the original poster gives him credit for. He wasn't beating a prime Byrd on the cards by being a slacker when it comes to boxing. Vitali can box.

That, combined with all the other aspects arleady mentioned..............His immense size, lean-back defense, fast reflexes, good stamina, iron chin, KO power in both hands, as well as the fact that he is an overall very tough guy.

He and Wlad, are both, probably the best great big (over 6 feet 6) heavyweights to ever lace up a pair of professional gloves.

 

Vitali was a big, coordinated, hard puching, durable heavyweight. Yeah, he had a bad moment against Byrd, and came up short against Lewis, but he may have had more success if his career wasn't cut short by the injuries.
Wlad is better technically, but Vitali was much more durable and would have beaten Wlad if they ever fought.

 

everyone gives lewis props for doing his best work in the late 90's and on. i don't think it's fair to act as if lewis was only "1/2" the fighter he was when he lost to vitaly. not in absolute prime obviously but lewis had picked up a lot through experience to compensate. vitaly did well because of reflexes, size, strength, and relative speed for his size.

 

1. He was huge and he knew hot to use his size. The skill of using someone size is not Granted ;-) and a lot of other boxers seem to know nothing about it - just watch Valuev or Grant. If you watch his fights you may got an impression it is his main (only?) skill, and I won't really argue.

2. HW was quite weak at this time, and he still didn't fight the best fighters of his era. He could have really tried to clean out the division, instead the only top fighters he fought (and lost BTW) were Lewis and Byrd. I wonder what is his biggest win - fat Johnson, safety-first Donald or retired golfer Sanders. As I said he fought mostly much smaller boxers, and most of them were bums, shot or at least past prime. With the exceptions like Byrd... but we already said he lost this one.

3. When something went wrong, he had (unlike his brother) quite good chin to survive difficult moments (Sanders). Since I already said he fought small opponents in weak era and was always careful to select them anyway, things usually didn't go that far.

 

good post.

vitali was a moderately skilled, "could have, should have, would have" type of fighter.

as it is, his brother's achievements are far superior than the fun facts of brittley.

 

Excuse me,...but are people now so delusional that they think Lewis lost to Vitali??atsch

For the record,..Lewis won against Vitali (it was Vitali who lost because his face was ripped up in a bloody mess like a menstruating vagina and his eye socket was as big as an anus ****ed by a winebottle. His eyeball was about to pop out on the canvas).

And that was against a Lewis who looked terrible (worse than against Rahman I). Nowhere near the shape he demonstrated in his previous fights....all because of his lay-off and age. It's a good thing he could inflict damage by exploiting some of those style flaws

Vitali put up a fun fight against old Lewis,...but he's getting way too much respect for that and that alone (cause that's all he really did). Fighters like Mercer did way better against a way better Lewis...but they aren't getting near that much respect as vitali, now are they?

 

:good I wholeheartedly agree Vitaly's eye in the LL fight looked like someone took a razorblade and tried to cut his eyeball out of his head:-( and he wanted to keep fighting! good thing it had to be stopped or he might have lost his eye:nono LL under estimated him in my opinion, if they would have rematched and both trained 100% for it Lewis would have knocked him out, Vitaly got to much respect for a fight he clearly lost:deal
And i still don't understand how he could have quit against light hitting Byrd:huhthat will haunt him till he goes to the Grave! **** he was so far ahead all he had to do was fight 2 more rounds and just jab with 1 arm, and he had the fight won..:-(

 

It's kinda strange that Vitaly is best known and respected for a fight that he LOST:deal