Vitali Klitschko vs. James Toney, 2004

What happened when these two sparred?

 

He still loses.

 

Would have been an intriguing matchup in the early 2000's. Toney was always surprisingly confident about how he'd do against the Klitschko and talked major trash. Apparently they sparred but I haven't seen any footage. It's too bad Toney had gotten old and fat with frequent health issues. Losing to Samuel Peter didn't help either as he couldn't remain relevant in the rankings to deserve a shot, but man it would have been extremely interesting to see the clash of styles and size.

 

Toney would be a pesky fighter for him, but Vitali would win easily with his size. UD

 

I am sorry but the fight with Peter was not in 2003.You are being disingenious again my friend.

 

Hence why i said it would have been more interesting if Toney wasn't fat, old, and injury prone in this time frame. Toney of the peter fights doesn't even look like half the fighter he was when he battled Barkley.

To be honest Vitali was also very injury prone toward the end so it would have been very difficult to find the best time period for this fight.

 

Bump. Vitali. Wide. Looks very similar to the Byrd fight (minus a Vitali shoulder injury). Vitali was winning handily (you could give Byrd a round or maybe two at most) & was on his way to a WIDE points victory before the injury. I see the same with Toney.

 

I disagree i've always felt Klitschko's dominance over Byrd is exaggerated, Byrd was very much in the fight the whole way. I've seen some respected posters here have Byrd winning 4 rounds, and i know punchstats don't really mean much. But Vitali landed 132, and Byrd landed 124, and in this case for me those stats pretty much tell the story, it was a competitive fight with Byrd maybe being a few points down or maybe close to even.

 

Klitschko by wide decision.

 

Byrd was doing much of nothing, other than posturing, pulling goofy faces (like he always did) & landing a few meaningless punches to the body. His work-rate & offence were abysmal, & he didn't have the physical strength to dominate the action. He also didn't really land to many punches so it wasn't just Klitschko that was missing. They both had a low connect percentage. The only difference is Klitschko was the busier man & forced the action. That is why ALL the judges had it WIDE for Klitschko at the time of the corner stoppage.

 

We all have different opinions and your point is valid, but at no point was Vitali dominating Byrd. I think that has become a bit of a myth, like the Nunn vs Toney fight. I'm not saying Byrd wasn't losing, but IMO he was very much in the fight. And I personally gave him 3-4 rounds if I remember rightly. And you could say Byrd's defence actually caused Vitali to injury the shoulder, as Vitali looked awkward in the fight and had trouble finding Byrd.

 

Hmm, I'll have to watch the fight again. My impression was that Vitali was in full control until he bizarrely quit from the shoulder injury. I agree with you on Toney-Nunn being a close fight (I had it 6-4 Nunn at the time of the stoppage). I'll do a rbr scorecard on it. I'd like to know yours aswell.

 

RBR scorecard ? count me in i'll do it tomorrow or the next day.