Is Vitali really an H2H monster?

It was the worst Lewis yet he gutted it out, showed huge heart, spirit and good old fashioned bottle. That was the defining fight of his career for me, against his most damgerous opponent and boy did he have to go to the well...

 

Yes, however he wa

Yes great effort, but he looked even more gassed than Vitali & should have not come in at 256 lbs., so great effort, but without the cuts I am not confident he could continue turning the tide.

But if Klitchko is considered the most dangerous opponent of Louis...you must have him rated very highly indeed.

 

I can see your point, but it’s damn strange that an inactive and even more overweight Mercer—who couldn't beat guys like Jesse Ferguson or Marion Wilson—performed much better against a far superior Lewis. Mercer actually has a terrible résumé, even compared to Vitali’s. McCall, Mavrovic, Rahman, and Bruno all performed better than Vitali did; so I don't understand why it’s Vitali’s fight with LL that defines him as an H2H monster, while the others—who fought a better version of Lennox and were quite competitive (sometimes very, very much so) or even outperformed him—don't get the same recognition.

 

His H2H status is not defined by one fight, it is defined by his career...and that is why I don't habe him nearly as high as Vitali, Usyk, even Mercer H2H, NOT ATG. When we imagine these mythical lists we are surely using the absolute best version of any fighter, a mythical version who has 100% of the attributes they have shown for 100% of the fight we imagine. My 100/100 Lewis has more flaws than my 100/100 Vitali, Usyk or Mercer whilst being comfortably higher than them all on my all time top ten list. My 'method' of looking at H2H fighters may be unorthodox; I don't know how others make theirs, but I am consistent with myself and that is all I can be.

Lewis beat Bruno, Mercer, zelko etc in fights he was supposed to win. He was younger, fitter, fresher. He didn't have to 'go to the well' to do so. He never took punishment like he did in the Vitali fight and whilst that fight DOES NOT DEFINE his H2H status, it was the one that convinced me he was a handful, had heart...I'd always thought him a little 'flaky' in my younger days. Another fight that showed Lewis as a fighting man was his war with Briggs. Jeez, he showed he liked a fight in that one, didn't he. Dumb, foolhardy, but devil may care. Lewis was a bit of an anomaly. A boring, methodical chess player, a seek and destroy marauder (Ruddock), a bar room brawler (Briggs) and an ageing gun fighter going out on his shield but turning it around with four bullets in his chest (Vitali).

It is this range of crazy that means I mark him higher in a H2H list than many..

....for what it is worth, Holyfield and Bowe both rank very highly in my H2H list.

Anyhow, we seem to be going round in circles. Lots of people don't rate Vitali, and that is absolutely cool. I do. Its a funny old world ain't it? I read and respect y'all opinions because as JS Mill posited, ' if the entire human race shared one opinion and only a single person held the opposite view, society would have no more right to silence that lone individual than that person would have to silence the rest of mankind'

Thanks for your thoughtful reply as ever. Have a wonderful day, Px

 

Of course he was .. huge size, exceptional chin, terrific condition, decent enough puncher , strong overall skills , good speed .. he was a better , faster , superior conditioned, more defensively gifted Hrgovic ..

 

No, I don't think so. When (visibly out of shape) Lewis was eating right hands at will from Vitali, all night long, Lennox went to plan B and opened up on Vitali. Vitali looked bad there, stiff, held his head wrong, and he got stopped. Lewis could have never opened up on, say, a Holyfield et al. like that. He tried it in round seven of II and just about got knocked out for it.

I didn't think he looked good against Byrd. Fighting the southpaw messed up Vitali's shoulder. Byrd, who was not naturally left handed, but fought southpaw, was forcing down the Klitschko jab with his forward/strong hand- easier for him to go down than for Klitschko to come up when they touched- thus a shoulder injury to Vitali.

 

I'm glad you brought up about Vitali's jab vs Byrd I noticed it aswell when I rewatched the fight a few years ago.

Byrd was able to constantly parry Vitali's jab and take it away from him.

That's one of the reasons Wladimir did so much better against Byrd in comparison.

Wladimir has a much more potent jab with better technical skills aswell as hitting way harder.

Byrd once said in a interview Wladimir hit like 4 times harder than Vitali.

Put it this way if Wladimir fought the same version of Lewis that Vitali fought.

Do you think Lewis could just eat right hands from Wladimir the same way as he did vs Vitali ?

 

I normally come out firmly against a fighter being a head to head monster, if their results in the ring don't back it up.

I have never had much time for the argument that Frank Bruno or David Tua were head to head monsters born into the wrong era for example.

However in Vitally Klitschko's case I think that the argument has some merit to it.

He has convinced the man who is hard to convince.

 

I don't think he could take right hands at will from Wlad like that. No more than 2 rounds of it, really.

How would Wlad react if Lewis threw caution to the wind and went for broke like he did against Vitali? Hmm..

 

He is not. Lewis was past prime and out of shape and still beat him.

 

...on a cut after being battered for most of the fight....please, lets have some context...

 

OK, let's leave off that literally nobody can hit multiple times as hard as a large HW with decent power.
It could have felt that way to Byrd.

Lewis likely could not eat so many rights vs. Wlad.
But he would likely fight more cautiously, & might not have been 2 rounds behind vs. Wlad,a higher volume puncher for sure.

Vitali also did not need to be sometimes gifted way too much clinching to protect his chin.

But nobody says Wlad did not accomplish much more.
Yet even if Wlad is better H2H, Vitali can also be one.

 

Yeah, let's. Vitali won the first 2 rounds big. Then Lewis changed the strategy and you can argue he won 3 out of the next 4. So he wasn't being battered for the most of the fight. The only one battered was Vitali, looking at the state of his face.

 

Once Lewis decided to shut it down, it got shut down.

 

Absolutely. A great show of heart and old fashioned bollocks by Big Len..