Masssively Underrated Win. Chris Byrd deserved more credit. A lot more.

The richness coming from a guy who the wind could blow over and has never fought in his life

 

Someone i used to work with had a very similar injury to Vitali and said it was unimaginably sore, so considering Vitali put up with it for 7 rounds is pretty impressive. If he had fought on he would have finished his career, what's the point in being a what if fighter than a guy who has dominated every opponent he has faced bar one and held the most prestigious title in boxing (WBC belt) for a total of 5 years.

 

Never seen this fight, need to check it out. While I typically don't like Byrd's style didn't he have a war with someone? Saw it on the top 10 lists of the greatest heavyweight fights of recent times.

 

Lucky his opponent had a torn rotator cuff. He won round 5 and round 9 and thats it, lost 7 rounds clearly.

 

As much as I hate the fact Vitali quit, I can't give Byrd much credit.

IMO, the injury was NOT career threatening, and 6 more minutes of slipping shots and potshotting with the jab woulda had him retaining his title and keeping his reputation.
Vitali was overthrowing that R hand from the 3rd on, and yeah, b/c he'd injured the labrum. But b/c he was overanxious for that KO, he cost himself a quality win, and stalled his career.

No credit to Byrd. All he did was slip shots and get lucky Vitali was overanxious.
He backed Vitali up, ONE time. In the 5th. Didnt hurt Vitali, but had enough on his shots to keep him honest. :-(

 

They just ignore this and talk about a feather fisted Byrd 'walking down' Iron Chinned Vitali.

Klitschko should have just stood in the Middle of the ring for the final 3 rounds and let Byrd tee off on him and Byrd still would not have won.

 

Someone I worked with said Vitali quit because Byrd was rocking his world..

 

It's on youtube....a classic quit job...

First it was his hand then they switched to his shoulder..

 

I do have some sympathy with your point of view, given Ali would have been carried out before quitting. In the K2 movie, Vitali is quite honest that the Byrd fight did a lot of damage to his reputation although there is a doctor that states if he'd carried on it could have been a career ender.

 

But Vitali quit and Byrd won. So Chris Byrd deserves credit.

 

Vitali was not getting wobbled. Not even close. Byrd was coming on strong and had Vitali on the backpedal, but little more. Byrd couldn't even hit Vitali with anything strong.

 

Byrd also had Vitali on the run in the 9th, although Vitali was not hit by anything serious. As for the injury, how do you know it wasn't career threatening?

Whatever the truth, it was a bizarre, flukey fight. Too bad they didn't fight a rematch, so Vitali could set the record straight. Under normal circumstances, Vitali would have dominated Byrd en route to a UD.

 

I think at the time of this fight, Vitali still had an amateur mentality, which explains why he regarded a retirement TKO as tolerable. Keep in mind that in world class amateur tournaments, top fighters are routinely retired between rounds for injuries. That's because the coaches want to keep the boxers fresh for scheduled upcoming tournaments. My guess is that Vitali just didn't understand, at the time, that quitting in the pros is verboten.

 

I thought Byrd outboxed him early in the fight, then as Byrd started getting confident, Vitali was landing more. I had it 5-4-1 through 10 for Vitali. but Byrd looked fantastic.

 

I don't and didnt consider it career threatening b/c he had fought hard with it for 6 rds after it happened. You could see he was winging that punch which is uncharacteristic of his typical(for that period) laser guided R hands.

And in your next post, you adress the real reason he quit. So really you answered the question for me. He quit b/c he didnt figure it was that big a deal.

10 yrs later.....we got ppl giving Byrd 4 rounds and a tie rd. Thats how big a deal the RTD was.

Any unbiased fan couldnt give Byrd more that the 5th. And realistically, Vitali dominated that round as well, although BYrd did have his little 30 seconds of winning.:rofl:rofl:rofl