Vitali Klitschko Training Camp Pictures

He took punches from Lewis and Lewis is a proven power puncher, he took them pretty well considering he was also cut badly and bleeding heavily, still was able to handle the power.

Too punches from Sanders as well, another proven power puncher who floored Rahman and TKO'd Wladimir.

Those two are serious punchers.

 

I love it when people try to sound smart by using words they don't know the meaning of and can't even spell correctly.

:happy

 

Both were on the wrong side of 35, both were overweight, both wobbled him and one stopped him.

Lennox took flush shots from Tyson and Tua and still isn't regarded as having a great chin, because he faced a lot more top contenders so we got the chance to see that his chin was occasionally vulnerable.

Imagine if he had never fought Rahman or McCall. That is the situation we have with Vitali. He's taken a couple of great shots from big punchers, but they are the only really big punchers he has ever fought.
And Sanders, even though he is occasionally a big puncher, is also rather weak when it comes to setting up his punches. Overall he's not that great a fighter.

Case-in-point: Johnny Nelson, the cruiserweight, went the distance with him. As did a number of other journeymen.

 

That's very hard to say and it's even more difficult when you're trying to give Vitali the advantage. Lewis might have been gassed out and flat footed but Vitali was also extremely tired and had ONE EYE with the other eye bleeding HEAVILY and had two SERIOUS deep cuts, who has the advantage?, pretty obvious.

I'm a fan of Vitali and was rooting for him too, thought the fight MIGHT have gone his way if it continued but his situation was serious, VERY serious. That's why a rematch should have happened as he was winning the fight on the scorecards but the cut totally ruined it for him. Lewis was honest enough to reconsider and retired knowing that he was too old for a hungry young champion, he did what he had to do anyway and was able to squeeze out a victory that night FAIRLY.

 

Whoever says Lewis has a glass chin is stupid, he took flush shots from Tua, Tyson(not enough shots but still he took some), Bruno, Holyfield, Briggs, Golota, Mercer, Morrison and I can keep going on. No, his chin isn't granite but it's not glass either, I would say he has a very good chin. Though you must not forget that he has been hurt numerous times but still only knocked out twice in 44 fights, a person with a glas chin would have been knocked out many times or at least knocked down in that many fights.

 

I agree. And I agree that Vitali has a good chin also.

All I said was we can't call it "great" on the evidence we have so far.

 

True.

 

The Rahman fight was a case of Lewis taking a really big perfectly timed punch that he didn't expect, same goes for McCall though the McCall punch I would call a flash knockdown even though Lewis was obviously hurt from it. Avenging those defeats proved who's the better man, also in the rematch against Rahman he was caught with a similar punch early in the fight and took it very well, same goes in the first fight 1 minute before the KO.

Sanders case is very obvious yet ignored, the reason why he gets some KOs is because of his speed, he has a lot of speed and when someone has excellent speed he will land punches his opponent won't see coming. Didn't you notice that his KOs are always early?, and if a guy can take a punch it either goes the full distance or he loses, that's because he always had stamina issued and his speed goes off as rounds go and his punches aren't fast enough for his oppnent to be stunned by or caught unexpectedly.

 

i agree that byrd is not an elite fighter. but not many fighters have wins over elite opposition: lennox' best win is over the 37 year old holyfield. tyson's best win was a 38 old inactive holmes, who came off two losses. it's easy to pick to pick apart fighter's records. of course vitali's record is war worse than those two but it's not like he has a faruq saleem or tye fields kind of record. when he stepped up in opposition he looked equally impressive as when fighting journeymen, which is a good indicator of a decent fighter.

 

Depends what you are classing as "stepping up".

I think the only fighters that stand out are Lennox and Byrd, and he lost those fights.

 

donald, johnson and sanders were a step up (to b level i'd say) and he looked good. byrd wasn't too interested in a rematch either. he also stopped ross puritty, which is not an easy thing to do.

 

Go post!:good

 

Solomon Haumono had a 100% KO percentage until his last fight for example. Bermaine Stiverne was at one stage 12-0 (12KO) and none of his opponents had made it beyond the 3rd round.

I'm not going to trawl through boxrec finding them, look for yourself.

There are literally thousands of fighters with records of 10-0 (10KO), 11-0 (11KO), 12-0 (12KO) etc. etc. and even more fighters who can claim to have never been off their feet.

Faruq Saleem is still undefeated after 37 fights. Butterbean was at one stage 63-1, a better win:loss ratio than Muhammad Ali. All I'm saying is that stats are meaningless unless you consider quality of opposition.

 

Then show me these journeyman with that kind of knockout percentage and whose opposition has a combined record of 76% wins? I'd really like to know these journeymen.

Haumono's opposition has 50% wins, Saleem atrocious 30%.