A work in progress, how does Vitlai Klitschko rate as an ATG heavyweight?

Vitali has a VERY thin resume his best wins are over a finished Rahman a blown up Hide who Bowe crucified,a fat Kirk Johnson 260lbs ,a fat Williams 270lbs and Peter who was never much anyway and whose performance was a disgrace.Corrie Sanders was an in and outer who ,apart from koing Wlad had done little of any note. Vitali has left it too late to make a run as an ATG in my opinion,cautious matchmaking in his prime years has robbed him of a chance to be anything special ,imo,as **** as the heavys are I see little chance of him catching the division alight in the future

 

If David Haye upsets Wlad, then Vitali will likely be the next man who the public demands to see fight Haye. Should this happen, Vitali could unify the belts, plus perhaps put some additional matches together against Chagaev, Valuev, etc, and finally establish a great legacy.. Its a long shot for sure, but certainly not impossible. Men have done more in their 40's, than what Vitali is aiming to do in his late 30's.

 

If Vitali kos Haye and kos Wlad I still would not rate him an ATG.Its too late to come out of the cotton wool now.

 

Too late? Was it too late for Foreman to improve his legacy when he beat Michael Moorer? Was it too late for Walcott when he became champ at 37 after beating Charles? How about Bernard Hopkins after beating Pavlik this past fall?

Yeah, I know, the argument you are likely to put forth is that all of these men had previously cemmented their legacies at earlier stages. I do feel however that their late career accomplishments boosted their positions in history, and that Vitali's could as well.... You can't deny that if he unified the title, defeats the best talent out there, and becomes one of history's older champions, coupled with his statistics that he can't be top 20-25.

 

I like Vitali,I picked him to beat Peter ,which you can verify by going through my posts.I think he was the steel in his make up that his more fluid brother lacks,but because of overcautious match,making and a series of injuries leading to extended time away from the ring ,I think he had left it too late to establish himself as an ATG.Haye has an out side chance with any heavy but there is not sufficient quality out there for Vitali to cement his claim to greatness.You can rank him where you like whether that makes him great depends on you perception of the word and the company he would be keeping. Personally I think GREAT is the most overused adjective in boxing .

 

Vitali's dominance has been helped along by the era; not just the quality of fighters (lack there of), but their poor conditions and the cleaner rules, which forces a more amateur style of conduct.

The 'break' enforcing clinches and general lack of developed styles has helped Vitali along in out boxing a slew, certainly when compared to the men of the 70's & 90's, of zombies.

Gamer men and varied styles would put the aesthetically mundane yet statistically defiant conduct of Vitali to the test. It really is hard to say where the giant Ukraine’s deserves to sit when his career is destined to revolve around his loss to a champ at the tail end of his career.

The guy can fight, but nobody else really can. In direct response to the threads prose, top 15 seems too giving.

 

Seconded.

 

He's big and has good jab and fair right. I don't think he would have been competitive with the ATGs.

 

I agree with most of what you said in terms of his accomplishments. I don't agree with some of your comments as they pertain to the Lewis fight. Certainly the doctor thought Vitali's vision was being impaired and unless you have some kind of medical background that allows you to over ride a ring-side physician I think I'll defer to his judgement over your biased opinion.

And this is only a personal opinion, but I do think had that fight been allowed to continue, Vitali would indeed have suffered his first KO loss. That said I would likely favour the younger motivated Vitali over an old unmotivated Lewis in a rematch..but then again that was the situation going into the first fight and Lewis managed to pull it off, so who knows?

That aside, I think H2h he's definately in the top 10. On a career basis, top 20-25, so I certainly think he falls somewhere in the top 11-20 category, exactly where I'm not sure.

 

In considering ATG status, I consider a guy's demonstrated abilities in the ring above anything else. I asked myself, given the fighter's athletic, physical, and fighting abilities, how would he fare against the other ATG's?

Vitali, like his brother Vlad, has demonstrated considerable ring ability. Vitali would have been too much for most heavyweights in history, I believe. However, Vitali's limitations as an athlete and a fighter are also apparent, too. For this reason, I exclude Vitali from a ranking alongside guys like Louis, Ali, Holmes, Tyson, Lewis, and certain other ATG's.

I would rank Vitali anywhere from 20th to 40th on an ATG basis, which isn't too shabby.

 

I think based on his size, skills and chin as a heavyweight he ranks pretty high. Of course many were better fighters but I think he is a very tough match up for most.

 

You need great competition to be an all time great. You need to dispatch former all time greats with dominance to be mentioned in the same breath as having that potential. Were we saying Brian Nielson was on his way to all time great status when he was undefeated with wins over Tim Witherspoon and and Larry Holmes?? Please stop. Vitali will never be an all time great. His biggest claim to fame will always be a LOSS to Lennox Lewis. He will go down in the history books somewhere mixed into the second half or bottom of the first half of heavyweight champions. His story would have been a lot different if he was fighting inside the top 10 in the mid to late 90's, but wait his promoter knew that too.:good