Vitali Klitschko vs George Foreman

We know Magoo...this is surprising.

 

That's the fight that I watched. Klitschko jumped out to an early lead and stung lewis more than once, but Lewis, who was behind on the cards, was coming on stronger at the time that the fight was stopped. You could see Vitali wearing down and breaking down, and Lewis was starting to find him with the bigger punches.

 

That's ****ing ridiculous. The only time Vitali "quit", he had a severe shoulder injury that could have left him a ****ing cripple if he'd continue. You have no idea what you're ****ing talking about. Quit on his stool? Ever had a severe shoulder injury? Didn't think so jackass. You are monstrously daft to call Vitali a quitter for stopping the fight after blowing out his shoulder. In no other fight has Vitali shown a lack of heart. You've got some balls calling a heavyweight champion who went up against Lennox a quitter.

You think Lennox never took 'roids? He may not have, but it's highly probable he did IMO. Most elite athletes take performance enhancing drugs. Vitali certainly didn't bulk up like Lennox did, so unless he was overtraining to develop muscular endurance steroids would have been of little consequence to him, whereas they could have seriously helped a heavy-set fighter like Lennox. I don't know if Lennox took steroids, I won't call out a champion as great as him, but he is an elite fighter and fits the mould for a steroid user, so it's a reasonable assumption.

I don't know what you have against Vitali but show the man some respect. He took MONSTER shots from Lennox and went ape**** when the fight was stopped. He took brutal shots that would have buckled most heavies and kept pressing forward. Not many men would have reacted that way.

 

yet you choose to defend an unproven limited skilled Britali Klitschko over him? Vitali quit on his stool forfeiting his championship with 2 rounds to go vs a feather fisted cruiserweight in a fight he could have easily held off midget harmless bryd with one arm for 2 rounds. A 41 year old Evander Holyfield with the SAME exact injury fought 12 hards vs chris bryd well BEHIND on cards, yet never quit and survived the distance. Vitali was well ahead with 2 rounds to go.

 

Bull****. A 41 year old Evander Holyfield with the SAME exact injury fought 12 hards vs chris bryd well BEHIND on cards, yet never quit and survived the distance. Did fighing 11 rounds with that SAME injury leave evander cripple??? Vitali was well ahead with 2 rounds to go. so your telling me that after fighting good 8th and 9th rounds, vitali was physically "Unable" to come out for the 10th against a harmless cruiserweight who had no chance in hell at hurting him? ur telling me he could hold the midget off and play defense for 2 more rounds....all he needed to do was survive?

Yes. Chris Byrd TKO 10 Vitali Klitschko

You must look at the circumstances. Vitali had two rounds to survive against a harmless featherfisted 6'0 cruiserweight....he was FAR ahead on all 3 scorecards. All he needed to do was go out there and ****in stall clinch and play defense for 2 rounds and he retains his title. he could not do that

"Vitali does not have the mentallity of a champion. I cannot believe what I just saw."- Larry Merchant

The Byrd fight was a big deal. Thats a championship fight, and Vitali was undefeated champion...not to mention just 2 rounds to go and he is far ahead on the cards facing the least dangerous fighter in the division.

Were talking about the Byrd fight here.

He quit on his stool with 2 rounds to go WELL AHEAD on all 3 cards against a harmless midget feather fisted cruiserweight while undefeated champion.

Sure he was trying to restore his depleted reputation. But if you rewatch the fight, the cut was really bothering vitali and lennox was starting to get to him. Vitali was on the verge of quitting again in the next couple rounds.

Lennox was 37 years old, career high 257lb fat and overweight, and rusty as hell from ring inactivity.

 

If he's not skilled, then why does he barely lose more than 2 rounds per fight? You will probably say that his opponents sucked, but many of them were ranked contenders, i.e. good not great opposition, yet you'll be hard pressed to find other boxers with that impressive statistics against good opposition. For instance, Ali dropped quite a few rounds to Mildenberger and a 35 year old Folley, Holmes had his struggles with Weaver, Williams, etc.

Neither did Foreman.


As for unproven..... it's proven that Foreman was knocked out at his peak by a relatively light hitter after 8 rounds, while he was dead tired of course, but who's to say he won't tire against a bigger man who hits harder, throws more punches and unlike Ali, will MAKE Foreman fight at a high pace? He was also down by a very light hitter in Jimmy Young. If Byrd hurt and knocked down Vitali than we wouldn't hear the end of it. Lyle, the only puncher who connected with a prime Foreman, knocked him down twice and came close to stopping him.

Yes, we know Klitschko quit against Byrd, but in a fantasy matchup you don't assume one fighter has a torn rotator cuff in the shoulder. I will add that Klitschko came from the Soviet invironment where boxing was seen as a pure sport in which the objective is to win, but taken over one's entire career. He certainly learned from the storm of criticism and proved his heart beyond question when fighting on with arguably the worst cuts in history of mainstream fights.



As unproven as you think Vitali is, he took punches from Lewis (old but power is the last thing to go, and he took the hardest shot Lewis ever landed in that 6th round uppercut), Sanders, Peter (similar to the level of Lyle, but obviously did not connect as much, despite Klitschko's age of 37 to Foreman's 27 against Lyle), Gomez, etc etc, and never went down. This is a fact.

You keep repeating this "want to quit on his stool" which is pure speculation and borderline OCD behavior. Are you a religious man SQ? Do onto others what you would have them done onto you. I'm not the "others" and i don't really care, but i bet you wouldn't really like it if anyone said "Liston was a heartless quitter, if the Williams fight went 2 more rounds he was gonna quit like the quitter he is" every 2 seconds, what would you think?

Either way, what happened to a consistent an objective view?

Refer to the above.

First of all, Sanders was 38. And he still had his handspeed for the first two rounds, which as you can see on film is very fast for a 6'4" 220lbs man. As for having "no trouble" finding Vitali, he found him on only a couple of occasions in the entire fight, and his handspeed is MUCH better than Foreman, plus a southpaw left is harder to evade than a looping Foreman right.

How is that going to happen? Foreman will slow down significantly after the 5th while Vitali keeps going, yet when the tide turns in his favor, he's going to quit?

 

SuizeQ can be a good poster, but he's full of double standards, and flat out dislikes Vitali.

He might say Vitali quit with a bad injury. So, Rocky Marciano one quit and DQ'd his way out of an amateur fight. Jake LaMotta once quit. Sugar Ray Robinson once quit. Roberto Duran once quit. Sam Langford once quit. Ezzard Charles once quit. Jack Johnson once quit. Willie Pep once quit. The hall of fame is full of fighters who quit in fights. I could name plenty more. Suzie Q is big fan of Marciano, Pep, Charles, and Johnson, yet he would NEVER bring this point up. Like I said he has some double standards, and an ax to grind. If you don't like a fighter I'm cool with the debate, but I do think its best to judge fairly if you are going to be negative and apply the same standards to all. If you don't, your not a fair judge, and whatever you say is going to take a credibility hit.

I think its best to view the circumstances. As far as I know, very few fighters have won a high level match with a serious injury to a working joint early in the fight. The Byrd fight means little. Everyone knows if Vitali was not injured, he wins. This match was like a tennis match where one guy is clearly better, but gets hurt and has to withdraw late in the match or risk a career threating injury.

As for testing, Vitali always tested clean as a pro. SuzieQ has bought this topic up at least ten times. If you are comparing mental toughness, Foreman wasn't all that. He was a bully type, and could not come back from a loss to regain his from like Vitali did. After Ali exposed Foreman, Foreman's confidence was shot. Some feel Foreman mentally packed it in vs Ali. After Vitali lost to Byrd, he had little trouble rebuilding his confidence. So if you want to debate mental toughness...

 

You ever have a rotator cuff injury?

 

Agreed...

Frankly, I don't know how Vitali Klitschko's performance against Chris Byrd has anything to do with anything. Byrd was one of the best heavyweights in the division and Klit was beating him in a one sided fight. The rotator cuff injury had nothing to do with anything that Chris Byrd did to him....Byrd didn't do ****........

Apparently, from what I've heard, Klitschko sustained that Injury early in his kickboxing career and reinjured it in the early rounds against Byrd. he fought on over the duration of the fight, enduring excrutiating pain while STILL kicking his opponent's ass.

Some of these guys act like a rotator cuff injury is no more than a bee sting. It feels like someone is taking a saw to your shoulder joint and that's when you're doing hardly any activity at all. Now, imagine what it feels like over the course of 7 or 8 rounds of a sport where your almost exclusively using your arms..

 

I think that a prime Vitali beats a "first career" Foreman. I don't think George had the mentality or patience to get through Vitali's defense in his younger days. I do think that the older "prime" Foreman would have beat Vitali though. The version of Foreman that fought Holyfield had the patience and stamina to slowly wear down Vitali and take him out in the later rounds.

George obviously had the chin to hang with Vitali and would have been able to weather the occasional big shot that Vitali lands, and his power would eventually had been too much for Vitali to take over the long haul.

Whenever discussing Foreman and his "prime", it depends on which fighter you are talking about as to whether he would have stood a better chance of winning in his young prime or his older prime. I think that in George's younger days, he would have beat Tyson for example, but it would have been a war. I think he would have had an easier time against Tyson in his "second career" due to the fact that he fought much more disciplined and actually had a little better defense.

 

I think in the beginning of their careers both brothers felt it was perfectly acceptable to quit if you were injured. I think later on both brothers realized that the general world view of a champion felt quitting was unacceptable in championship boxing. Regardless of his injury he was fighting Chris Byrd, not the biggest puncher, and with his reach, he should have been able to finish the fight fighting southpaw or orthodox, if he had to. There has been several fighters finish much harder fights with the very same injury.
Both brothers are still mentally tarnished, and its evident in the way they fight when they get nailed or hurt, there just isnt enough talent out there to push them. With Georges talent when he was younger, he would have started connecting on Vitali mid fight, and vitali would have fallen apart. The old George would have been easily outboxed by Vitali, hell even Tommy Morrison was able to do it, and he couldnt box at all.

 

Vitali would show no fear of George. He used intimidation on his opponents. George only has a punchers chance. He woulg get frustrated because he won't knock him out. Vitali by TKO. George was a bully back then.

 

This is probably the most plausible scenario.

 

To add to that, Jeff Lacy pretty much lost all power in his left hook after he fought on with a similar injury. His career is over because of it. Better to quit the fight than quit your career, if you ask me.

 

old foreman almost lost to alex stewart, lost to morrison, should have lost to schulz. i think it's pretty safe to say vitali beats the old version.