This. Chris Byrd had Vitali hitting air most of the fight. It took Lewis a while to warm up, but once he did he landed his uppercut at will. The result being Vitali's face being an ugly mess.
^ This as well. Vitali slowly started losing control against Lewis after the second round in which he looked like he was about to finish it. Lewis did well for himself from round 3 onwards. You could argue Vitali wasn't even in the lead by the end.
No, that's completely not true. Byrd definitely won his fair share of the rounds and I've seen scorecards on here that call it a draw, or even a close win for Byrd. Vitali was ineffective for a lot of the rounds, Byrd done a lot better than the scorecards indicated.
Vitali was winning rounds against Lewis because of workrate and literally using his face to block punches, not because of boxing skills. The bigger, more accurate punches in the fight were landed by Lewis because he was the superior boxer.
Lewis had not looked good for Tyson, nor the first Rahman fight......the last time he was sharp and up for it was the Rahman rematch because he had something to prove. Lewis thought he could skate in against Vitali and get a quick one in and that wasn't the case. By the end of that fight Vitali was as exhausted as Lewis and utterly pummeled and brutalized.
vitali was very tall/strong and diseptively good at intangibles. his brother is faster and hits harder /is more skilful /but vitali could make mistakes and not worry as he had confidence in a rock solid chin and IMO would find a way to win. vitali was sort of like carl froch / looked beatable on paper , but get in the ring with him and boxers found out he was better than they thought. he was the best 6.7 /6.8 man boxing has seen
Lewis outboxed him over the last 3 (and arguably 4) rounds of their 6 rounds competed. So it's easy to imagine that others besides Lewis could do the same. Unfortunately for Vitali, he lost the 2 biggest names he ever faced, regardless of technically never being "outboxed" on the official cards. And outside of those 2 names he lost against, he never fought anyone especially noteworthy. :smoke
To be fair, the fight was difficult to score. Vitali was landing more punches, Lewis was landing better punches. It really comes down to personal opinion. But I do chuckle whenever Klitschko fans try to make it seem like Lewis was getting dominated and just opened the cut on accident or with the laces of his gloves and razor sharp dreadlocks...
Vitali clearly won the first 2 rounds, but after that, the fight was very competitive. Agreed with what you're saying. Some people act as if it was a lopsided shellacking. :smoke
all fine got bored in retirement went back to work back in semi retirement , hence im back here noticed no lounge and rumsfield the mod and farmboxer has not reached a billion posts