Well said. :smoke Vitali will be 39 in August, I think.................he's already come out of retirement, gotten up off the surgical table, cold, and taken out the trash. And as I see it, the only thing left to do is to thrash Haye. Haye, I think most agree, is the only remaining, legit threat/test for Vitali.............I just hope Vitali can get Haye before calling it a career. That'd be a great way to end one of the most impressive heavyweight reigns to date.
That depends. Did everyone consider Vitali at the top of his game before the fight happened? Did Vitali have plans to fight at least 4 more times? Was Haye winning the fight? Did Vitali promise Haye a rematch AFTER the fight? Did Vitali then make Haye jump through hoops such as coming to the Ukraine to visit Vitali's own personal doctor to get his cut cleared, with the agreement that if Vitali's doctor cleared him then Vitali would give Haye a rematch? Does Vitali sit on his title for another 8 months after the fight with Haye trying to get fights with other fighters and then only decide to retire once the WBC demands that Vitali rematch Haye and begin negotiations within 30 days or be stripped of the title?
well i do know Vitali has 3 TV dates reserved in May and a stadium and arena on hold...he just needs an opponentgood
Looks like you joined in 05, and he beat Byrd to becoem the HW Champ, holding the belt from from 2000 2003. He lost it in an upset, then won it again in 06 and has had it ever since. So maybe you need to follow a little closer at your gym.
He said 9 years ago, that was 2000/2001. It's easily possible to have never heard of them until they started boxing in the US. Vitali boxed in an Indian resort in 1998, but that was probably something you didn't even read in the local press. His first bigger fight there was 2003 with Lennox Lewis. Same goes for Wlad who had an undercard fight in a US casino in 1998, his first bigger stage fight was David Bostice on the Lewis-Grant undercard in MSG in 2000. They obviously were building him up as a possible fight for Lennox Lewis then. Both were well known in Germany of course because they were fighting there on free TV. In 1998, I knew Tyson, Holyfield, the 70s fighters, but for example not who Bernard Hopkins or Oscar de la Hoya was.
I would say the same thing I said about Lennox... that the opponent deserved a rematch, but I could understand if he conceded, and retired because he didn't want to take the beating. The only difference is, Haye doesn't have nearly the same chance against Vitali that Vitali had against Lewis. I didn't know all of that about Lewis.