i duno what fight you were watching but it looked to be heading towards a Lewis stoppage. Which incidently, it did!
Vitali is 4 years older than Lewis WAS at the time. While there are NO fighters out there right now who compare to Vitali at the time of the Lewis/Vitali fight, I couldn't imagine anyone beating him, even at 42/43. Yeah, Lewis walked away from his title and his career on a TKO/cuts victory over Vitali, the FACT is that Vitali is the BEST win on Lewis' resume, and while Lewis was beaten 2X in his career, no other fighter was beating him as badly as Vitali was that awesome night in 2003. And yes, Lewis will probably always rank higher on the ATG list but not b/c he was better by any stretch, but b/c Vitali suffered a misdiagnosed back injury while training for a prime Haseem Rahman in 2004 and retired for nearly 4 years. He missed out on Toney, Holyfield, Valuev, Byrd2, Brewster, Ruiz and McCline. All big names, and all KO victories for Vitali during his hiatus.