I see a lot of similarities between the two fights. One fighter is way more active, throws more, lands a bit more, is an agressor and applies constant pressure. His opponent circles the ring looking to box on the backfoot, makes his opponent miss and fires eye catching counters that back him up. He's also way more efficient with his shot selection. And yet the common narrative is: Klitschko dominated the fight, but Beterbiev maybe didn't deserve to win. Just some CompuBox stats: Klitschko landed 132 of 502 total punches (26%) and 115 of 326 power shots (35%). Byrd connected on 124 of 284 total punches (44%) and 82 of 163 power shots (50%). Thoughts?
I don’t see any similarities. Vitali literally could have stood in the middle of the ring and not thrown a punch the last three rounds and beat Byrd. That was the opinion of the HBO announcers after the fight.
Because he was winning on the scorecards, just like Beterbiev won on the scorecards. But people argue all over the place regarding cards not being accurate. And that was the opinion of these guys back then. Perception changes over the years.
Yes as I keep saying it's a huge myth Vitali was dominating this fight. Byrd had 7 days notice and was fighting against a fighter with a huge size advantage in his backyard so obviously the judges scorecards wouldn't of been kind to Byrd as Byrd was expected to lose. Vitali won the early rounds but by the 5th round Byrd was starting to win rounds and back up the bigger man. Byrd was able to consistently land his left hand whilst neutralising Vitali's jab and making him miss punches. I've always said I credit Byrd's defense for instigating the injury to Vitali's shoulder so hence I consider the win a legit one considering Byrd had all the disadvantages coming into the fight. I personally had the fight 5-4 to Vitali at the time of the stoppage but Byrd was coming off his best round of the fight.
You are mixing up brothers. Wlad dominated Byrd not Vitali. Vitali was winning because Byrd wasn't landing anything of substance either up until the point Vitali got injured. For a defense to be effective, you need to actually land your counters. Bivol was much more successful countering and attacking Beterbiev. Completely different fights.
Byrd did land his counters and landed effective punches that's why his connect rate was over 40 percent and Vitali was down in the 20s. It was Vitali having trouble landing effective punches on Byrd.
I am talking the first 4 rounds before Vitali's shoulder got injured. Byrd was not effective in early rounds. It was a closer fight after 4th. Scorecards did not reflect that because majority of boxing judges cannot score good defensive work if their life depended on it. We just witnessed it in Beterbiev - Bivol fight.
The thing is I credit Byrd's defensive work for instigating the shoulder injury remember Holyfield also had a shoulder injury after fighting Byrd.
