Wlad is simply a top athlete effective in his comfort zone. Vitali is a phenomenon

90% of all Klitschko talk is about the Brothers as, well, brothers, but rarely about the fighter Vitali is or Wladimir is. Yet their style, gifts, attitude and temper couldn't differ more - they got height, power and Klitschko in their name, and that's about it. The reality is that despite their dominance, there's one athletically gifted enough fighter who can box great in a single boxing dimension, and doesn't have the opposition who could bring him out of that, and there's a boxing phenomenon, a natural talent, an exceptional fighter. Vitali is much better.

With all due respect to Wlad's fans, he's not even a very good all-round fighter, he's just gifted with better reflexes and coordination than let's say Kelly Pavlik, but still effective only at a single distance, while learned how to effectively tie up outside of it. Just take a look at the Sam Peter fights and see Wlad struggling to set and maintain distance for his great jab and monster right, he was tense because Sammy had just enough foot and upper body movement to not give clear target. Wlad could only unleash serious, accurate punishment when Peter slowed down enough to become more statinary, and it took some time.

Round one, minute one and second one, Vitali Klitschko is walking right into Peter's face with both his hands down, and starts tagging him almost at will while Peter can do nothing about it - that's something entirely different! On the other side of the coin, if you take a look at defense in Klitschko fights, you'll notice that Wlad's chin as a target is pretty stationary, no great head or upper body movement, it's just simply too FAR from the opponent and ties up when they get closer, rather an ugly yet effective tactic, but there's little more in the arsenal at shorter distance. Vitali's chin as a target is all over the place. It's right in the punching zone of the opponent, yet it's nowhere when they try to find it. Great upper body and head movement, superb punch estimation and very good timing. His MW equivalent would be Dmitry Pirog.

Opponents said of Wlad that they see the punches coming, they are just too damn fast to avoid. But because Wlad needs to set distance and works mainly in stright lines, they are somewhat predictable, just at this level unavoidable. Vitali's punches come from all kind of awkward angles and he doesn't need to set his feet to get the snap at the end of them. His version of the 'jab' or left hook and the right hand is totally unpredictable and finds target almost at will at this level. His opponents say the exact opposite of Wlad's: they don't see them coming and they keep coming like a mother****er. :yep

In my opinion a prime Lennox Lewis beats a prime Vitali Klitschko (if no cuts) by close decision, or beats him 6.5 times out of 10. Yet in round one, you could see Vitali working that natural, improvisation style and finding target pretty well. Of course by the 4th, Lewis started to get to him, but if you use your brain, you'll understand that for this kind of style, you need 100% eye-sight, and it can't be very effective with blood all around your face. It's a highly competitive fight all the way through without the cuts. Still, in my opinion, with Lewis' talent level and adaptability, he beats Vitali twice as many times as he loses to him. However: IMO Wladimir Klitschko doesn't win a single time and ends up on the canvas in most meetings, because at that level, despite a few competitive sharp-shooting rounds, his style is there to get figured out, and Lewis would start working the angles and use reach and timing and power to get to the chin, and unleash hell.

Wlad has the better resume and his HOF ticket IMO is already secured, but he's only so great in his comfort zone. Vitali's comfort zone is as big as the ring, he's just so much more natural. Just sayin'.

 

And not reading the opening post that puts it into perspective is not?