41/45 wins by KO suggests real genuine power. I look at Briggs as a mutual opponent of his and Lewis and although he really caught Lewis well earlier on Lewis showed him the doors in round 5 dropping him 4 times when Briggs could arguably be described as prime. 12 years later Vitali couldn't put Briggs down despite battering him like a ginger step child. Where do we rate Vitalis power?
Vitali was a strong, heavy handed, but mostly arm, puncher. He could probably throw a relatively slow, short, straight, arm punch as hard as, or harder than, most HWs in history. What he lacked was the fast twitch muscle fibre-type, explosivity of his brother, and numerous others, which meant he rarely threw with significant leverage and/or a high proportion of body weight behind his punches. TLDR summary - for an arm puncher he's about, if not quite, as heavy handed as it gets, but he didn’t have elite 1 punch power, precisely because he was mainly an arm puncher.
He appeared to become even more a arm puncher in his comeback. In his first career his punches looked snappier.
Yes, he had a bad back which hindered his explosion. As we all know, power starts at the ground, and with his compromised back in that chain of transfer the finished effect was dimished. That said, he always punched like a kickboxer, more like he was creating space and peppering. Though coming from a 6-7 super athlete, I am sure it still hurt.
Although he had 41 KOs, a lot of the stoppages against better fighters came late in fights and were more knockout by cucmulative damage than by one punch power. I would say he had good power but nothing to compare with the big power punchers.
I think that his KO% is slightly inflated, by his thin resume against elite opposition. I think that his arm punching style sometimes took a bit out of his power as well. You are looking at a very punishing hitter, but not in the same class as Lewis or his younger brother.
The fact a lot of people in the boxing community broadly think Vitali hits harder than Wlad confirms that boxing has one of the dumbest fanbases in sports. If you have a reputation for being a tough guy then you hit really hard. If you don't then you don't, apparently.
Sanders should probably be HOF. He KOd WK & Carlos DeLeon.. Wlad is a top 15 HW & Carlos a top 10 CW.
He had very good power, but I think his strength was attrition and the fact that his power stayed with him through the later rounds. Vlad has the more explosive power but less of a chin and stamina and had to learn to be patient and set a pace. Vitali like Foreman had 2 careers and dominated what was there at the time. He usually kept you honest with a few power shots early then dragged you into the mid to late rounds and pressed again. In honesty they actually fought a better group then some of Holmes title defenses but far more scrutinized. Vitali while not an elite puncher like Foreman, Marciano, Louis, Tyson, should fall into the top 10- 20% of punchers He had a long kick boxing career and transformed well into boxing. He also took a punch very well.
Wlad did, Vitali didn't. He mostly fought second and third tier heavyweights. He was very aware of his previous injuries and had a risk free second career.