What the hell was Chris Byrd thinking in his rematch with Wlad?

My favorite part of the fight was when Lederman was bitching about clinching while Wlad was beating the **** out of and on the cusp of stopping Byrd. Lampley interrupted him, called him out on his **** as Wlad dropped Byrd lol.

 

A small southpaw with no power against a giant heavyweight with one of the straightest right hand and a powerful left hook.
Big props for Byrd, he always step up to the challenge.

 

I believe his plan was thinking wlad would gas.

At that point, many still doubted wlad.

But if you go back and watch that fight in hindsight, there was something different in wlads eyes like he figured it all out and was going to kill Byrd.

 

Byrd and Wlad get a lot of credit in my book for consistently stepping up and taking tough fights, even if they were at a stylistic disadvantage.

We need more of that.

 

According to him he took advice from his cousin Lamon Brewster who told him that Wlad would wilt if he pressured him. What I remember most from that fight was the lightning quick 1-2 Wlad dropped Byrd with in the 5th.

 

His American handlers have been pumping up Byrd's ego before the fight. They told him he KO'd Vitali and Wlad is now such an easy target after the loss vs. Brewster. HBO thought the same. You just have to "get into close quarters" and "apply some pressure "and Wlad will fall apart.

 

Byrd always fought in the pocket close up.
That was his style, make then miss andand a flurry before cycling away and closing the distance again.

The idea is obviously to remove any leverage Wlad had. Especially with the way Wlad had thrice been stopped it seemed like a good plan.

What no one knew was Wlad had morphed from this defensively naive trigger happy offensive machine to probably the best defensive champion we've ever had.

 

The HBO guys legitimately thought Byrd made Vitali quit through his "rough housing" and "brutal infighting". They made Byrd out to be some sort of brute force monster.

 

Well done.