I don't know where you see that he has *always* been an arm puncher. I have only seen that be prevalent here in the last few fights..............since his comeback, at the lastest. He was KOing Danny Wiliams and Kirk Johnson with alot more body behind his punches then he uses now. He used to bear down with his torso and twist at the waist before, yes. He has not *always* been reliant on the armpunching, no.
Vitali's punching power is way over-rated. He throws arm punches but because of his height advantage he is usually punching down which gives the impression of more leverage when in fact he is as agile and as goofy as your average big guy. Lewis exposed this in their fight by walking through some of the sharpest and heaviest punches Vitali has thrown in the ring against any opponent. Lewis has literally no respect for Vitali's power, but as we have seen, Vitali had plenty of respect for Lewis's. After we just saw the inability of Vitali to take out a virtually defenseless Briggs, there are no doubts in my mind that Vitali's power is far far over-rated.