It wouldn't make any sense for @Kamikaze to claim that Vitali beating Burns is as certain as basic mathematical propositions. For one thing, you need numbers to exist before you can even start debating Burns/Vitali. That aside, somebody can be pretty darn certain of something without it being 100% irrefutable. I'm pretty sure that Lennox Lewis would KO Joe Grim when Grim was a toddler. I would rightly view anyone who believed otherwise as nuts. Am I 100% certain? No. Maybe Lewis suffers a freak heart attack before punching Grim-as-a-toddler. But I'm 99.999% certain Lewis wins, and that's more than enough for debating on a boxing forum.
OK, but then what happens when somebody extends that logic to fights where the upset would be no worse than some that have happened?
The best we can do with hypothetical match ups such as Vitali vs Burns, is say: "IMHO, I think it's likely that Vitali would win this fight." We can't really say anything more than that about the outcome. As we all know, anything can happen, and often does, in a boxing match. We've all seen weird outcomes, strange injuries, and unexplained endings. Although a particular outcome can be extremely likely to occur, with human beings involved, there are no certainties. To the OP, I do consider Sugar Ray Robinson the GOAT, IMHO, of course.
So, bringing this back around to Burns/Klitschko, somebody would have to make a really exceptional case to convince a reasonable person that Burns has a shot. Vitali has almost a hundred pounds on an in-shape Burns. I can't call to mind a single full contact combat sport where that level of size difference isn't considered a big disadvantage. Vitali fought in the steroid era, against opponents close to his own size. He was trained by boxing coaches who understood the century of advancement in gloved boxing technique. Pretty sure I remember reading in Burns's own book that he viewed a hooks-and-crouching style as a recent American innovation. Tommy didn't even compete under the same rules. And it appears from the Boxrec stats that there were fewer boxers competing in Burns's day. I can't imagine how Burns would be given anything close to a 50-50 chance here.
Then you will be wrong once in a great while. EDIT: But people don't organize their lives or make decisions based on extremely improbable events. Do you stay indoors for fear that a random bolt of lightning will hit you? Refuse to eat because someone might have poisoned your food at the factory? I know I don't.
Also, I'm unaware of any mismatches quite as severe as Vitali/Burns where the underdog won. Not even Klitschko/Puritty was nearly as bad as a modern rules fight between a 168 pound fighter from the early 20th century versus Vitali.
I've always been under the assumption that a pick made in a hypothetical match up is based on the mutual understanding that a freak occurrence may derail the prediction. Just like it is when you're predicting real fights. A freak KO may happen, or some injury, but you don't have to state that every time.
Exactly. I have yet to see "Dempsey by KO (unless struck by lightning)" as a fantasy fight poll option.
Heck, a guy could win over another guy twice in a row, pretty decisively, which is pretty good evidence that he would win a third fight, too. In Fact, that could make us feel pretty safe about predicting the outcome of the 3rd fight. About then we get clobbered with something like the Charles vs. Walcott 3 fight. I do agree that Klitschko over Burns would be my pick, too, but I sure wouldn't bet my left arm on it.
For all we know, the laws of physics stop working tomorrow. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_induction). But I am not prepared to bet on Burns on the off chance that a local abandonment of the laws of physics transforms Vitali into an onion. There's a level of common sense that has to go into these things, IMO. It's not enough to hold up the fact that somebody can't disprove a position with 100% certainty. We don't bet on fights on that basis. If we can't even say that Vitali beats Burns, the predictions/arguments about closer matchups in this forum are pointless.
There it is, the dumbest thing I will read all day.. H2H ability is speculative at best, where as records show what actually happened... You have to be trolling.
We really don't need Vitali to turn into an onion for him to lose a fight with Burns. One rotator cuff onionizing whille swinging down at a couching burns could turn the trick.
