Who would win in a 15 round fight, (Prime) Wladimir Klitschko or (Prime) Vitali Klitschko?

Neither could fight inside. Vitali is more willing to trade but his defense is worse too.

 

Vitali

 

The only thing I would say is the specified 15 rounds gives Vitali longer in there with a punchers chance...

If it goes the distance Wlad wins - and a Wlad KO wouldn't be a huge surprise either.

Ultimately, it comes down to exactly what you point out - Wlad has the far, far better resume and is way more proven of the two... There's also a good chance that Wlad would punish Vitali's tendency to lean back away from punches (much as shot Lewis did).

This is realistically a 70/30 Wlad fight.

 

Vitali didn't rely on the inside primarily but he was better at it and he would fight his opponents off him more than Wlad. Wlad also has advantages like fighting a wider range of styles and having better punching power/technique in both hands and probably faster as well.

Neither were very easy to hit statically both were among the hardest heavyweights to land clean on ever but it's true Lewis did somewhat expose Vitali's defensively.

 

Have you got the brothers mixed up here?

 

What about Wlad vs Lennox Lewis 10 minutes after the Vitali fight. If we set the scene with a saudi arabian entering the ring postfight Vitali and telling Lewis that he will tripple his purse if he fights Wlad then and there and Wlad also being incentivized to go at it, so really both men unprepared but Lewis having just gone through a few hard rounds, what happens?

Even after all those rounds with Vitali the winner of this fight would still be Lennox Lewis.

It's quite the thing that the successors of Lennox Lewis were so far behind him in ability that he would literally have beaten both of them on the same night.

 

For me, Wlad sparks Lewis. Timber!!!!

 

No.

It looks like many here have, though.

 

Lewis wasn't capable of fighting potentially 18 rounds in a night at that stage - to have beaten Wlad after TKO6 on the same night would've been a very tough ask, and he'd have had to get him out of there early... Heck, it's very possible that he'd have gassed if it'd gone past 10 with Vitali at that point - he was basically done when that fight happened.

I think there's an assumption that Vitali was the better brother and so 'if he could beat Vitali in 6 then he'd beat Wlad in less' but that assumption is questionable (Wlad achieved more, had the better resume by the end of their careers, etc) and also ignores that if it weren't for cuts he wouldn't have beaten the (IMHO) lesser brother in 6 either.

The idea that shot Lewis beats both brothers coming into their prime in one night is nonsensical to me - he's the far greater fighter prime for prime, resume, etc, but let's not be silly, here.

 

If you favour Wlad over Vitali i think you're trolling

 

Vitali is more popular... That doesn't mean he was better.

I trust resume as an indicator of overall ability - Vitali looked better at times, but Lewis aside (which he lost) didn't fight against nearly as high a level opponents... And looking good against lesser fighters isn't proof of actually being better.

 

Wlad is far more popular, not even comparable.

But Vitali is clearly superior.

 

On a side note, Lewis looked in quite poor form against Vitali so it's not hard to imagine Wlad duplicating what he did in even more devastating fashion while taking less punishment. And no, I don't think Wlad is better than Lewis, just sharper and harder hitting than Lennox was that particular night and man did he still do some damage.

 

I think you have that completely backwards on both counts.

Vitali was better to watch, and he's far more popular on here... Wlad was clearly more proven and therefore more likely than not the superior fighter.

 

Wlad is rated above Vitali for overall career even here just not if they faced each other in a fight as we can see in the poll.

I would also say the popularity of both is a bit understated.