How does Vitali Klitschko do against some of the greats?

Dr Z,

Your insinuation that Joe Frazier showed anything less than the heart of a lion in The Thrilla in Manila is one of the most pathetic and sickening - though laughable - positions to ever be shared on these boards.

Changing your name to "Mendoza" was actually a good opportunity for you to revise such a blatantly embarrassing and bizarrely vindictive opinion.

You failed to do so. And your credibility plummets again.

As for Vitali, yes, he showed heart, yes, he's tough. And he STILL lost to the only great heavyweight he ever fought, who was aging before our eyes in the ring that night.

I'd say Tyrell Biggs showed more heart in his career than Mike Tyson ever did. Tyrell Biggs showed loads of heart in his career, one of the gutsiest heavyweights I ever saw. Still, Biggs against Tyson was shown up as having no hope of winning. The quality of "heart" alone will not suffice.

Danny Williams has the heart of a lion. Wouldn't do him much good against any sort of all-time great though.

We can only judge Vitali by what he did in the ring. I've set it out quite clearly in my other post.
I have no wish to focus on "negatives", I happen to think Vitali was good.
But people coming up with him beating these great fighters simply flies in the face of all reason and evidence. He failed to prevail at that level, and he never proved himself against a vast field of solid contenders. Even in a weak era, most of the significant contenders are absent from his record, and his best half-dozen wins are mostly against fringe guys.

There seems to be a huge gulf between what he did and what any of the ATGs did, a HUGE gulf. And a definite setback against the fading Lewis has to be considered as vital in assessing his chances.

Having said that, Vitali appeared good enough to be taken seriously by any ATG. I'm not saying he'd be a meaningless tune-up for any of them. He's respectable.

 

Well someone had to say it.

 

I agree.

Vitali was rather good, but not great. The ATGs should take him seriously, and then starch him.

 

He was coming on strong after his fight with Lewis, Johnson,Williams,Sanders, all impressive wins but he lost 4 years of fighting and we know at his age now, he will never get back to where he was. He would have been problems for anyone in top form, the guy had a weird style,power and a good chin, his biggest flaw was that he was injury prone and (cut in 1 fight at least)

 

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i assume your a vitali fan,hes not a great fighter.

 

Spot on....

 

Liston got his Jaw Broken by Marty Marshall early in his career and fought the duration of the fight, Tyson was getting beat by Douglas from pillar to post and he never quit, in fact managed late in the fight to make a brief turnaround only to lose. Frazier's relationship with Eddie Futch suffered after the decision to throw in the towel in Manilla. These fighters showed heart in thier career. You dont become the undisputed champion if you're a quitter.

 

I think Z just says a lot of things to get a response from people. He's not a fan lacking boxing knowledge so I figure he's just winding people up.

I remember him telling me that Vitali would be fighting in December of 2006.

 

Vitali doesn't have what it takes to beat an ATG. He's not a great puncher. He doesn't have great skill, and he's lacking in the heart department. He's a good fighter, but any top 30 heavyweight would have their way with Vitali.:good

 

O please he would whoop someone like max baer or sharkey and he could always ko a guy like patterson.

 

Well hes better then you though aint he mate :good haha listen to the "experts" on here,get real the guy would give fits to most of the greats,he was a huge strong man,and he could take a good shot and had a fair amount of power himself.

 

It's possible, but don't bet on it.

 

I believe Vitali's status has been blown out of all proportion by certain fans (mostly newcomers to the sport I assume) and some writers and TV pundits because he was in the right place at the right time.

Around 2002-03 it began to dawn on the boxing community of fans, promoters and pundits that no new great heavyweight in the making was around to replace Lennox, Evander and Mike.
WLAD Klitschko was apparently the best bet, but that idea crashed and burned when he faced Sanders.

I was around these forums back before Lewis fought Vitali and even most of the Klitschko-huggers were conceding he was likely to lose, and that he hadn't really beaten anyone.
Seriously, overnight with losing gallantly to Lewis the whole line on Vitali changed. Klitschko-huggers went crazy and after a while everyone drifted more towards that view of him.
The reason being - there was no one else to look at in the heavyweight division. HBO, the magazines, pundits needed someone to label "the best heavyweight in the world", but obviously Vitali earned it partly by default, rather than the way Lewis, Holyfield and Tyson had once earned their status and defended it.

In essence, Vitali went back after the Lewis fight to doing what he was doing before. TKOs of Johnson, Sanders and D.Williams were NOT TKOs of the division's finest, though Sanders was a top contender.The other top contenders and titlists (Ruiz, Byrd, Brewster, Rahman, W.Klitschko) were apparently either so unmarketable or unreliable that for an 18 month period Vitali Klitschko had everyone's vote of confidence.

I'm not saying he wasn't a good fighter, I'm not saying he wasn't technically the best in the world after Lewis announced his retirement. Maybe he was, but he never really did much with it - not even against "the best" top-ranked heavies of a very weak field. Roy Jones Jr. and James Toney were beating ranked heavyweights then, that's a bit of perspective.

 

Actually the opposite is true Sonny's Jab. Most TV pundits instantly pounced on Vitali Klitschko when he lost to Byrd. Most fans of heavywieght in the 1990's felt Klitschko was just a white hype type, but those who followed the amatuer game knew this was not the case.

I never said Frazier lacked heart Sonny's Jab. I have said Frazier had a ton of heart many times. Please show me I directly said Frazier lacked heart? If you can't then it’s not my credibility that is on the line, it’s yours. If you read my reply, I simply inferred you’re talking negative, and not balancing things out. Hence the good for the goose remark.

I'm crushed I'll never get your " stamp of approval ", but then again I suppose any fan of the towering Ukrainian is just a " nut hugger ".

And one more thing to note, it’s not Vitlai's fault he never got a re-match vs Lewis. $15,000,000.00 was on the table for Lewis to re-match. Lewis after talking 8 months of smack about a re-match balked at the idea of a re-match. He knew his time was up. And make no mistake about it. Though older, Lewis was still more formidable than any other man his age in his history of heavyweight boxing.