Vitali-Byrd: Serious Question

Mendoza, vitali did not outland byrd for the majority. Just the first 4, the last 5 were clearly outlanded by byrd.

The only argument that vitali is is either workrate (not valid criteria) or that his punches are worth more. But there are many many occasions were byrd had vitali back pedalling and runnin.

Vitali loses some of his h2h prowess in this fight mos def.

 

Chris Byrd RTD9 :deal

Chris TKO'ed Vitali's ass!!!

 

I agree with all of that, especially the last part. :thumbsup

Don´t get me wrong I rate Vitali high, at 22, and h2h he isn´t getting beaten by a Young or a B. Baer or a Firpo, hell, I ain´t even picking a Norton over him h2h. But I think he falls short against the true elite. He has too many holes in his game. His defence and footwork is aweful, the only thing he really has going for him is size, workrate and toughness. This is enough for most hws in history but not for the very best.

Yeah, the corner talk is in German if I remember right, itßs a while since I saw it, so I´d have to rewatch it to translate it. I can do that but it needs to wait for a while, since I´m not at home atm.

I think this fight, or the aftermath, cured him from that "frontrunnerness". Sometimes fighters need those experiences to become better mental-wise - like B-Hop against Jones

 

No one says who do you think wins, Joe Frazier with a torn left shoulder or Jimmy Young? Losses from injuries like this have little bearing on a fighters career standing. Vitali, who took this fight on less than two weeks notice ( He was scheduled to fight Ruddock ) was easily up on the cards prior to the withdrawal from injury. The injury was confirmed, and like I said Byrd was surprised at the ending. When Byrd had the IBF belt, and Vitali had no belt, Don King would not risk a re-match. When discussing Byrd in other threads, no in the past gives him much credit for this win. I wonder why that tune has changed now?

The only think this fight proves is Vitali who was injured with one good arm was beating a prime Chris Byrd. Healthy it would have been very one sided.

 

So VK was supposed to fight a beyond-shot Razor Ruddock in '00?

That would've been one horribly cruel fight. :scaredas:

 

If a random bum off the street gets in the ring with Joe Louis and Joe trips on a banana peel, breaks his legs and loses via TKO should the bum get credit? :deal

 

But you don't get bravery points in scoring; "he's clearly missing his punches and being backed up, but his shoulder is injured so i'll give him the round" it doesn't work like that.

Noone was easily up on the cards, not unless you send every swing round in one direction.

The reason byrd doesn't get much credit is because most people haven't watched the fight in a long time, they see lederman's card (he used the exact same criteria in the alexander, kotelnik fight and got ridiculed). Not just that but people hate the insane idea of combining the brother's into one entity so if wlad can beat byrd twice surely vitali can beat him.

For myself the tune has changed now because I have just rewatched it. You know yourself that polls on the matter would be misrepresented because a lot of the klitschko fans on general are blinkered.

But I put a thread up showing rounds 5 onwards asking how it should be scored and the best someone came up with was 1-4 + 8 for vitali.

I think had the fight gone the distance and byrd would have lost on points there'd be cries of robbery.

And don't play the promoter game, everyone's aware byrd himself got shafted by k2.



From a legacy point injuries usually don't count against you, and if the injury happened in round 3 this would be the same. But from an individual fight scoring p.o.v. this fight is very close.

 

It was not as cruel as the reason as to why Ruddock pulled out in 1999. Ruddock had an unfortunate surgery on a reverse vasectomy that went awry. Anyone who had Byrd up on points in this fight is full of it.

 

Well, VK won the first four rounds easily. This means he only needs to win two more rounds to get a decsion draw. There would have been cires of robbery you say? Pure bunk. Robberies are not 7-5 scores or 6-6 scores. I do not think Byrd won four of the last five rounds. I think those who score it that way are just looking to give Byrd rounds.

 

Everybody would be surprised if you would have said differently, Mendoza.

 

When scoring a fight, 7-5, 6-6, or 5-7 is not a robbery. Ledderman's cards are pretty accurate, and we saw the judges score card. Vitali was up on the cards ( Anyones! ) prior to the withdrawl from injury. If healthy, this would have been a near shut out win or TKO win for Vitali.

 

If the fight carried on as it was and byrd dominate 10-12 that's 3 rounds right there. He clearly won 5 and 9. Already he's got 5 in the bag meaning he needs only 1 of 6-8 (he outlanded vitali in each of these rounds at a better percentage whilst backing him up) for it to be a draw.

So yes i'd say had the cards been read and vitali is winning by 4 points and 6 points it'd be a robbery.

I'm not saying byrd swept the last 5, i'm saying he has an argument for winning each of the rounds. After each of those last 5 rounds you could say "i think byrd took that one"

The point is the fight was still there for the taking, yet vitali had already amassed enough points to win a clear decision and that's wrong.

 

No those scores are not a robbery but that fight was not a whitewash or domination like you want people to believe. My post addressed your last two sentences of your post before btw. It was close and Vitali looked vulnerable in there. When Vitali quit it could have been 5-4 for either one or a draw but the whole fight was there for Byrd to take since he had t done the better work in the previous rounds.

 

This fight goes a great way in debunking Vitali's h2h prowess.

He was missing, getting hit far too easily and getting backed up. He would have huge trouble with guys that can put their punches togeather.

 

Completely irrelevant in the context of the discussion.