How much Vitali quitting against Byrd should be hold against him ?

Of course people haven't forgotten this - but I don't see it being used to take away from Duran's greatness.

 

Because Duran had an ATG career where as Vitali lost to the two best fighters he fought in Byrd, Lewis. And vs Byrd he had huge advantages in size and couldn't make much of an impact on Byrd, and vs an older Lewis he couldn't get the job done.

 

I'm not arguing, that Vitali was an ATG, or had a stellar career that could be compared to many of the old-timers. I'm solely arguing, that it's unfair to brand him a coward, because of this one fight... when nothing else in his career hints at that.

 

I don't think anyone is branding Vitali a coward, I just think Byrd deserves more credit for the win.

I believe Byrd's defence caused the injury similar to when he fought Holyfield, and the fact he was late replacement and the much smaller man as I said.

 

When Duran quited he had shame trust upon him for a long time I believe. But he still has the undefeated record of SRL to boast about. And he went on to do great things to mitigate the quit job.

As been said , there was nothing wrong with Vitali quitting if he couldn't continue. He always had a rematch opportunity to turn the loss into a win. But he didn't even do that , instead he stepped aside and fought Hoffman while his brother took the rematch. That a huge red mark on his career and would be for anybodys career.

A few reason I believe he dodged the rematch.
His style didn't gel with Byrds. He couldn't land a hard shot.
Byrd took the fight on just a weeks notice and had no camp, preparation or gameplan.
A well prepared Byrd familiar with Vitalis style would have been a more difficult fight.
Wlads speed and power was harder for Byrd to cope with

A guy doesn't avoid avenging his only loss for no reason. Those are valid reasons to explain why Vitali ducked the fight.

 

Yes he was on his way to a decision victory. He could have finished the fight and should have.

 

Given that his PhD is in sports science, yeah, this makes a lot of sense.

 

There is Vitali's mystery. He lost two strong fights, although in an unusual way. We don't know what his best win is. We don't know if the best boxer is the "Klitschko Era". And we can confidently say that H2H is a monster.