Klitschko fan, quotes of the week!

Lennox Lewis is arguably one of the top 3 all time HW's based on head to head matchups, are you comparing him to either Klitschko? I guess you rate them highly by default right?

 

Vitali retired for 4 YEARS and fought the current WBC Heavyweight Champion Samuel Peter without a tuneup, that had never been done successfully before..................

I win.

 

What annoys me about the Vitali vs Lewis debate is that it hides a fight that IMO was the last GREAT HW title fight, them boys went at it, andin time will be recognised for what it was! Kilt and Lewis went through hell in the them 6 rounds! I still think Lewis wins that fight 9 times out of 10 though, my personal bias showing up!lol!!

 

There's nothing pedantic about the post. It was in response to the FALSE statement that Vitaly fights 'once in forever.'

A general statement that is false is best falsified with data.

IF you find that pedantic, you need to become more familiar with the word.

No, see, actually I didn't.


IF, like you claim, I had based my count on his retirement date, he would have had three title fights in 27 months.

But, contrary to what you claim, I counted his retirement as the date of his last fights, NOT the date he said I quit. Hence I posted:

As I mentioned already, I counted both guys up to their last fights.

You're wandering down a different path now, Sandman. I can be as bold as I wish. The point I was responding to was Drexyl's claim that Vitaly rarely defended his title.

The relative merits of the belts might be of interest at some point.

But my post was in direct response to the blatantly misleading and false statement that Vitaly fights once in forever.

I have shown pretty clearly that that was not the case.

By any standards.

Including my #4 ATG, Lewis.

 

Once in forever is obviously not a factual statement now is it? That's like trying to define "donkeys years"

Vitlay has had more than one fight, so obviously it's false.

Yeah, that's my fault. I was mixing your post up with Phirsoles' or whatever he was called. That was my mistake.

I also think he's been a bit inactive, but since his comeback he's been OK. (and good compared to a lot of modern heavies).

The 8 months to his first defence (voluntary) against Danny Williams, and then all of the toing and froing with the Rahman "fight" is what gives him the impression of inactivity.

Not sure when that fight was scheduled for, but I think he was struggling to get his mandatory done in his first 12 months of being champ.

 

Agreed. But while it was not meant to be factual, it was meant to imply that the man fought very rarely.

And my point was that this wasn't true.

He has always been an active champion save for his injuries. And even accounting for those, he compares favourably in that department with most, including Lennox.


Drexl (and FW and others) are free to dislike the dude. They can argue about his style, or his level of excitement, but the cheap shots that are based in fiction are a bit much

Fair enough.

I've done that before now.

At that time, he was trying hard for a rematch with Lennox. And he finished up taking Williams because Williams beat another guy he had wanted to fight, Tyson.

Yes.

His mandatory was eventually Rahman, but he got a host of injuries over the next year or so, requiring three separate surgeries, and retired.


The fact that he came back after a four year lay-off, at 38, and healing from injuries, and beat Sam Peter (now classed a bum, like Gomez and Arreola, AFTER Vitaly disposed of them) is quite impressive.

(BTW, the worst cheap shot came from Chris Arreola, who claimed Vitaly behaved like a woman in some way during their fight. In a a fight where he totally outclassed Chris and gave him a serious beatdown. And a fight that ended with Arreols bawling his eyes out. Does the man have no sense of irony ?

That was cheap, and lowered my earlier respect for Chris, earned during the fight)


I rank Lennox 3 or 4 alltime, and don't have either Klitschko in my top 10 at this point, but the Klitschkos are clearly the best around right now, and IMO, Vitaly is the better of the two.

And there's little serious criticism I can think of in terms of performance and in choice of opponent, given the choices available.

:good

 

Emanuel Steward (2005): “He does have the skill. And he’s very effective in an awkward way. He has an unusual gift that I’ve watched it in training, that really sets him out greatly. Not from being big, he has a little bit of the clumsiness to a degree, he’s not as physically coordinated as his younger brother. But he has this unusual sense of feeling a punch before it comes – but can still move in an awkward direction as far as to neutralize it – and throwing a weird punch at the same time. I saw him do that in the gym so effectively. And its something that can’t be taught. You can just feel the guy getting ready to throw a left hook and he’ll throw a counterpunch, like, from underneath the left hook and move his body at angles that I haven’t seen. And that’s what makes him effective. He’s very effective with that _style_.”

Stacy McKinley: “Vitali Klitschko is probably the best thinking fighter heavyweight since Muhammad Ali. He’s a very smart, intelligent fighter. Very smart,” said McKinley last week in an interview we did in New York City. “He can box, he can throw punches from all angles. He can move. He can take a punch. He’s tall. He’s busy. He’s very hard to hit. Good thinker. Oh, he’s a helluva thinker.”

McKinley got a close up view of the WBC Heavyweight champion in Berlin last year while working with Samuel Peter. “That’s what I said when I fought him with Samuel Peters. I said, Don’t try to think with this guy. Don’t try to out-box or out-think this guy. Get in there and fight this guy. But he want to sit back and try to out-think him. You can’t do it. And I told him, He’s probably the smartest heavyweight I’ve seen in the ring since Muhammad Ali. And I’ve seen a lot of good fighters. Larry Holmes and all them were good fighters but they weren’t good thinkers. This guy Vitali is a great thinker. It seems like he knows what you’re gonna do before you start to do it. So he’s very, very, very cagey. I don’t think nobody can beat him.”

When I ask which fight or fights of Vitali were most impressive which convinced him to become a believer, he replies, “Well, the Lennox Lewis fight. The left-hander he fought that beat his brother (Corrie Sanders). All these guys he fought. He’s just so smart. He moves good. A real intelligent fighter.”

Then I suggest something many pundits have not yet begun to accept or contemplate. Is Vitali one of the heavyweight greats of all time? McKinley does not disagree. “One of the greats and that’s what I said. I told him. I haven’t seen one that smart since Muhammad Ali. I told him after the fight with Peters, post press conference. Smartest I’ve seen as far as thinking. Most of the guys can’t think that well. He’s just great, man, a great thinker. Since Muhammad Ali. He’s that smart.”

Does Cristobal Arreola have any chance to beat Vitali? “No,” replies McKinley without a hint of doubt. “Three or four rounds he might get knocked out. He can’t beat that kid. Standing up too straight, he ain’t got the chin or the skills. This guy, like I tell you, he knows what he’s doing. And I was talking to his brother Wladimir, he was down in Miami. I said, Have you and your brother ever sparred together?

“Wladimir said, No, we’re too competitive. I said, Let me tell you something. That’s a smart boy. He said, Yeah, he’s very hard to fight. I said, You don’t have to tell me. He’s very hard. He’s the best heavyweight out there. I don’t think anybody can beat him.”

Does McKinley believe Vitali is the superior heavyweight fighter to Wladimir? “Oh yeah. He’d knock Wladimir out. Wladimir’s got good, basic fundamentals but he couldn’t do nothing with that kid. Kid’s too good, man. And I knew we were gonna have a hard fight with Samuel Peters. I said, Go in and put pressure on, cut the ring off and fight him. Don’t think with him. Don’t try to out-box him. Because you can’t out-think him. You’ve got to fight him. But he tried to think and you saw what happened. It was no contest. He quit.”

 

Angelo Dundee (2004): “He was on the way to becoming champion against Lennox Lewis, the fight shouldn’t have been stopped. But, you know, that’s boxing sometimes. The cut wasn’t in a dangerous place. It wasn’t bleeding into the eye. The younger brother, in my mind, is the better fighter. He’s got so many tools, he throws straight punches. Especially that left hand. He must be a converted southpaw.”

 

This is exactly the point. The initial punch was not something special.

 

Indeed I do. As I have said over and over and over, Vitali was clearly the best heavyweight in the world for a while. Right now it's clearly between him and Wlad.

Why is it "everything or nothing" with the fanboys? If people don't suck Vitali's **** for beating up a complete hobo, then they are immediately branded as a hater. :roll:

Vitali is good. He was once very good. Wlad is excellent. They both fight in a weak era (AGAIN - not their fault) so it's hard to say where they rate all-time.

I won't say Vitali or Wlad would definitely lose to any of the all-time greats that get brought up now & then, just as I don't see how any of the fanboys can say they would definitely win.

And this is why I get irritated by the nuthuggers - they DO say that the Klits would beat X, Y and Z. The simple fact is that there is not enough evidence either way because neither has beaten a career defining challenger (AGAIN - not their fault).

OK?

 

And therein lies the problem. you can't just act like they didn't happen.

He held the WBC belt almost 2 years before "retiring", after fighting one opponent who was not even a mandatory.

SINCE HE BECAME A TRUE WORLD CHAMPION (ie not WBOgus) it's only in the last 12 months or so, and last 3 fights, that he has got to the level of activity that Lewis had for his entire reign until his last year (ie 2+ fights a year).

The "once every never" jibe was just a half-joking dig, but as usual you fanboys take everything personal and get your panties in a twist, then spend the next few days focusing on one off-the-cuff comment and ignore the real issues.

Typical.

 

Do I really need to show you Angelo's quotes about Attila Levin again?

Really?

 

...and do I also need to point out Steward's quotes about the "greatness" of Jermain Taylor?

So McKinley agrees that Arreola was garbage all along?

Thanks for clearing that up. :good

 

I Agree.

We are on a discussion board. Fantasy match ups are fun, and as long as somebody brings reasonable arguments I like to listen.

If somebody says "X was defeated by Y, and if Z copies that strategy and has the equivalent skills to Y, he probably would defeat X too", I think it's valid.

As soon as I say "X = Tyson, Y = Lewis, Z = Vitali", the haters say "no way", and the lovers say "definitely".

Then we'll discuss "skills equivalent?" (and "boxing = math?"...).