How on Earth could Vitaly be so successful?

because he fought journeyman, and contenders who were fat, old, or both fat and old.

of course, when he faced a champ who was both old and overweight, he lost.

 

In addition to being a World Boxing Champion he was also 6 times World Champion in kick-boxing, so I am assuming he did at least something right.

IMO as have a very minor background in kickboxing, his boxing style was largely affected by his kickboxing style. Couple of examples. Very low hand and streight punches. Such a mixup resulted in a totaly unorthodox approach.

I also think in addition to his size advantage, good power, high output and great stamina he also had very good reflexes for a man his size.

 

brittley was huge. he was what, 6'8 and 250? pretty long reach.

that usually allows u to make mistakes and get away with it.

he was usually able to do that and win, except when it came to chris byrd and lummox lewis.

 

I think he had very good upper body movement. After the first round of the Sanders fight you really see him lean away from punches in a very unorthodox way. Another thing Vitali did that was unorthodox was when a boxer held his hands up peekaboo style (see Eddie Chambers during the entire Povetkin fight) instead of trying to throw uppercuts, work the body to drop the hands...or try to jab and punch between the two hands, Vitali almost always looked to land hard shots to the side of the head, which most fighters dont do. that combined with a good chin, size, work rate, power and tenacity made him a tall order to fight.

 

Vitaly was extremely good at anticipating punches and that's what the basis of his defence was.

 

His size. His chin.

Sometimes unorthodox styles can be effective.

 

Successful?
He was fighting Danny Williams in that fight...:roll:

A prime in shape/young Lewis would've capitalized on ALL of those style flaws.

The errors were never capitalized because he always fought small guys or out of shape/non-skilled big guys (with half-exception of Lewis who was skilled...but not in prime).

People are forgetting that in boxing he never really did anything special (He got TKO'd against an old outshaped Lewis, picked up a vacant belt against an outshaped golfer Sander and then voluntary defended it against a Danny Williams who beat an old Tyson and never should've gotten a titleshot. After that he did nothing. Never a mandatory defence...)

 

Vitaly was a very unorthodox fighter which made him hard to fight. He had very good reflexes and was extremely accurate for a big guy who was extremely busy in the ring. He is definitely not the fighter you want to watch tapes of and teach his style to a new fighter, but I think as someone else mentioned, his kick boxing background is what gave him his unusual style. You can't say anything about his fighting as he really never lost a fight!!! Both loses were due to stoppage of either injury and/or cuts and in both cases he was winning the fight on the cards!!

 

Vitali might have THE BEST reflexes, that I have ever seen in a big heavyweight. Also, he is an extremely smart fighter.

 

He was a tough guy, who came around at the right time, the division was just saying goodbye to Lennox and we were left with the weak division we still have today. Vitali had a good chin and power, pretty good defense, and good workrate, I will always consider Vitali better than his brother Wlad.

 

Looks can be deceiving. First of all, a tall, lanky fighter will alway look slower than he actually is, see Pavlik as another example. The visual cortex would make us believe that a small airplane is faster than a jumbo jet, simply because in relation to its own size it is faster. Herbie Hide was considered very fast, but he had no practical speed advantage against Vitali.

Second, Vitali mastered a style that worked perfectly for his body. He threw consistent, accurate power punches, while he didn't put as much power into one punch to protect his hands, he threw most of his punches with 80% power, which was very difficult for his opponents to handle. He broke his hand twice from hitting the heavy bag in training, so he adapted from one - punch power to consistent power punching. With his frame, his leaning - back defense actually worked quite well, very few fighters were able to land good punches on him. Plus a great combination of chin and mental toughness. And for those who say he fought only bums: He beat a lot of good fighers, who weren't great but of the caliber of fighters that other great heavyweights sometimes lost to or struggled with. Never knocked down AND never behind on the scorecards at the end of a fight - that is unique in heavyweight boxing. Yes, he has two losses, but not because the other guy was clearly better.

Looks can be deceiving. I used to train sprinters and two of the greatest sprinters of all time, Jesse Owens and Michael Johnson, did everything wrong in their running style...