Vitali Klitschko vs Jersey Joe Walcott

:good:yep:bbbthumbsup:hat:think

 

Ed Dunkhorst

 

Mr Bill

What you actually posted laughter signs on was that I posted that I rate Byrd higher than Vitali.

I do and probably always will and I don't even see a good argument to the contrary.

I think you are American so I will use an American analogy. Which team do you rate best in the NFL for the 2011 to 2012 season. In total record and some such one could make a good case that Green Bay or New England was the best team in the NFL. Both lost, though, to the Giants in the games that mattered. So for me it is not in dispute that the New York Giants rate higher.

Vitali lost to Byrd in the fight that mattered. He has not beaten the men that beat Byrd, like Ike and Wlad, and he does not have better scalps generally--Byrd has Holyfield and Tua.

I think the case for Byrd rating higher than Vitali is pretty much open and shut.

This is not a fantasy issue. These men fought in their primes. One man won and one lost.
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***Mr Bill, I am probably old enough to be your granddad so I will step out of this debate to make a comment. Laughing at someone's opinion is a sign of contempt. It is extremely rude. I hope you just did not think through what you were doing.

 

:good

 

Walcott was a tricky nightmare that had as great pinpoint power as any puncher...He was a more dangerous opponent than Byrd, Chambers,Young and as tricky as the best and his legs rank up there next to Ali and Tunney....and he could hit harder than any of them, his weakness may have been consistency but we all know how he fought half starved and hungry early on. Walcott had Louis down 3 times in 2 fights (one in which he had an argument that he won) He dropped Marciano with a horse-kick of a left hook) and craftily caught EZZard with a hook for a one-punch KO, not an easy task against EZZ....Walcott also fought and survived some great punchers of his era. Size may be a great advantage for Vitali but this would be no Kevin Johnson or Chris Byrd and IMO Walcott is a very dangerous fight for anyone.

 

Very good!

At least there are some here who understand that Walcott would be no picnic for either Klitschko.

 

I don't think so. Byrd has excellent wins over Holyfield and Tua, and quite a few more quality wins, but Vitali has a lot more of those wins over good contenders. Vitali makes up with volume. Also the fact that VK has had such a good run when he's been clearly way past prime. It's been apparent he isn't what he was since the fight with Gomez, but he's still been dominant. Byrd was never really a dominant fighter. A draw with Golota and an SD over Jameel McCine isn't that special.

I suppose a lot hinges of what you make of the the fight they had with each other. Most believe Vitali was far ahead on the cards. It's not as if Byrd was being outboxed then suddenly brought the pressure and KO'd Vitali, or forced the ref to jump in and pull Byrd off him. Had that been the case you'd have a better argument

 

5-4 I had it to vitali. Had he been in a fit state to carry on byrd would have swept the final rounds and been robbed.

Had vitali thrown less and protected his shoulder early on, he would have been hugely outlanded and lost clearly.

You can't miss 500 power shots at that range and that size. His inside game is **** and his hand speed is woeful. He has brilliant timing and conditioning but that won't help him against slick pocket fighter's like byrd and young. Infact any elite inside fighter will probably beat him imo.

Only three guys would beat him on the outside imo and that's larry, ali and wlad.

 

"most believe Vitali was far ahead on the cards"

So do I, but as I posted earlier, I don't judge a horse on the backstretch. I judge it at the finish line.

Vitali lost to Byrd, and I'm not about to reverse history in order to make it conform to my own or anyone elses ideology.

*as for the volume argument, I don't think quantity trumps quality.

**dominant--against the men he fought. But if you listed the top five fighters of the past fifteen years, how many did Vitali fight? Lewis certainly, and perhaps Byrd. He lost to both. He did not fight Holyfield, Tyson, Tua, Wlad, etc, for reasons good or bad.

So, on balance, I can't agree with the dominant argument.

 

:rofl

(just kidding :hey)

There are different manners of loss in boxing. An emphatic win is worth more than a narrow decision, controversial stoppage or decision win when a fight has been stopped on a cut from an accidental headbutt etc. I'm not saying Byrd's win was controversial, but I would regard it as lower than Lewis' win over Vitali for example.

There has to be a point where quantity trumps quality or Buster Douglas would be forever ranked above Wladimir Klitschko or Larry Holmes- neither of whom have a better win. There has to be a line somewhere

Of course, Vitali's resume is generally not considered to stack up to his ability. All I can say is he would have fought Tyson had it not been for Williams, who Vitali thrashed desite DW coming off the best win in his career.

For me Vitali's run between his comeback fight with Peter (an impressive win in itself given his long inactivity) now puts him above Byrd. Peter, Gomez, Arreola, Johnson, Sosnowski, Briggs, Solis, Adamek and Chisora is a good run. Far more so given his age and apparent decline in physical ability. I believe he was 40 going into the Adamek fight. You can't ignore facts like that when judging a fighter's place in history

 

Beating that version of tyson would have meant sweet fa my friend.

 

"Tyson"

I'm talking about when Tyson would have had the form to be considered one of the top five heavyweights, not when he was about to lose to Kevin McBride.

"Buster Douglas"

I don't think Douglas over Holmes is a good analogy. Holmes was past it when he lost to Tyson while Douglas had his career fight. Byrd and Vitali fought each other in their primes, and we are not just talking about a shared opponent at different career points--peak versus the end of the road.

"Peter through Chisora"

I guess I am less impressed with numbers than you are. This is a Tommy Burns level list. Doesn't prove much of anything, I think, other than Vitali is indeed consistent, as was Burns. Wins over really top men, like Wlad (impossible), or even Haye or Povetkin, would improve his resume a great deal.

Chisora, for example, had lost to Fury and Helenius. Why is this a big win?

Comparing Vitali to Byrd, I think there are three major points

1--they fought and Byrd defeated Vitali. Both prime.

2--Vitali never defeated anyone who defeated Byrd--He did not or has not defeated Ibeabuchi, Wlad, or Povetkin. Byrd, in my judgement, was fighting a stiffer level of competition.

3--Outside of their fight with each other, Byrd has the bigger historic wins over Holyfield and Tua. Even today, at fifty, I think Holyfield is more highly rated over at boxrec than most of the "big" names on Vitali's resume.

**"Vitali's resume is generally not considered to stack up to his ability."

The understatement of the year. He did not defeat any of the top men of his era, in my judgement. This certainly raises the question of how to judge a fighter's ability if not on his resume. I think that you are in fact giving him credit for a fantasy victory against a man he fought and lost to that he never earned in the ring.