is vitali klitschko the greatest heavyweight ever?

Lennox Lewis and Chris Byrd both beat him. Frazier, Foreman and Ali would beat him. His brother probably would too. Holyfield and Tyson could have in their prime too.

So basically, no he isn't the best heavyweight ever. That will lie with Ali until someone comes up and absolutely dominates everyone.

 

I think vitali fans are on a good 1 now..lol...goat at hw...lmfao....when COWS CAN FLY

 

or open a huge cut above his eye and the ref could stop it...

 

So now we're back to the old "TKO's don't count" argument. :roll:

I've got an idea...... KO's are basically brain injuries, so I have just decided that KO's don't count either since it's only an injury.

Victories should only be decided by who gets the loudest cheer at the end, and who sits down hardest on their stool between rounds.






Happy now Klithuggers?

 

Many of you are so damn boring and predictable. In some cases thousands of posts, with the overwhelming majority of them having some negative crap to spew about the Klitschkos. God forbid anyone should think that two huge, powerfull, modern era heavyweights that are technically sound, fit and fight intelligently could possibly compete with any fighter from any earstwhile era.


And NO Vitaly is not the greatest all time heavyweight fighter. But he would most certainly present problems for any of them.

 

Show you the proof ? What the **** are you blithering about ?

Proof ?

A mathematical proof, mabe with one or two differential equations in there ?



We're talking about HYPOTHETICAL matchups, here.

There IS no ****in' proof.

That's why they're hypothetical.


It comes down to opinion

I have Lennox in my top five h to h, AND by accomplishment.

And the Klitschko-Lewis fight could have gone either way.

Lennox won it fair and square, but he (wisely) retired rather than give Vitali the rematch he so desperately craved.

(Good thing for Lennox that Rahman and McColl weren't like that).

And while Lennox was getting on, he matured late and was still at near the top of his game when he fought Vitali.

I would pick prime Lennox to win H to H over prime Vitali, but he certainly wouldn't win ten times out of ten.


"Who has he beat..."

would be a fair question in assessing his ATG status. And because of his decent (but less than stellar resume), I don't have him on my ATG list.

But hypothetical h to h scenarios are based on who you think he WOULD beat.

 

No, he isn't.

He may have had the potential to be close to it but there was too much time off due to injuries as well as a weak crop of challengers for him to cut through. Add in some bad luck against Byrd and Lewis and there's just no real case to be made for him against people like Ali or Louis.

I have huge respect for Vitali and his accomplishments but he doesn't have the resume to back up this kind of argument.

Head-to-head, he could have fought anyone and done well. Anybody. This is the guy, after all, who forced Lennox Lewis into retirement.

Vitali has the physical talent, skill and mental make-up to be the best ever, or one of them. His body just betrayed him a bit too long and he came along at a time when the division was lacking in top competition. It's too bad.

All of that said, I do feel he is one of the ATG heavyweight fighters. The level of his dominance is unmatched. He doesn't lose fights except to fluke injuries/cuts, he KO's people at an absurd rate and he hardly even loses rounds. He is an efficient destroyer.

 

Many fights where stopped on cuts. Bul**** argument. Lewis cut Vitali wiht his hands!!! It was a legal TKO win for Lewis.

Many TKO´s are not so clear, because the fighter stands on the feet, when the ref. stop the fight.

Vitali won against Puritty by TKO because the fight was stopped by a cut, for example. And the cut of Puritty was not that worse.

Lewis won and the fans and Vitali of his own should accept it.

Vitali lost against Byrd because of an shoulder injury, Holyfield got the same injury against Byrd and he fights to the end. Nobody knows how much pain Vitali had, but he quit.

Wlad was injured before the Chagaev fight. Wlad fights against Chagaev with injury and won.

If Wladimir coninues winning and fighting top Ten contenders for the next 3 or more years, he will be Top 10 ATG.

I hope Wlad can unify more titles to improve his chamion status.

 

He's beating weak opponents! No he's not the greatest :nono

 

Very nice, balanced homily, dude.


But I believe the OP was 'takin' the ****, as they say.

Trying to reel in a few of the anti Klitschko crowd (successfully, it appears).


Pugilist64 used to do the same thing with the anti-Calzaghe crowd.

It made for some comical threads, especially when some didn't grasp the levity.

 

Not a chance. Consider this - people can still recognise Muhammad Ali to this day, but how many people (outside Ukraine and Germany) would walk past Vitali without batting an eyelid?

Vitali would be too slow against the likes of Ali. Even a FIT Corrie Sanders would have run him close. For such a big man, Vitali lacks that one-punch KO, which tells him he lacks true co-ordination.

Wearing down the bums he has is hardly an achievement.

Remember too that fighters like Jack Dempsey and Joe Louis feasted on big men, so I wouldn't write them off against Vitali.

Maybe I'm biased towards the old-timers, but Vitali doesn't even make my top 20 (and neither does Lennox Lewis - anyone who turns his back an opponent and runs across the ring doesn't deserve a top mention).

 

Without commenting on Vitaly, but why the **** do you think that people in Germany or Ukraine matter less then xenophobic Americans?

 

:deal

 

No