Vitali Klitschko vs Larry Holmes

Hey bud, no need to get so emotionally invested. I’m just having a friendly boxing chat on my favorite forum.

Regarding Terrible Tim, his accomplishments get blown out of proportion because fans of Larry are fishing for something to praise. We both agree that he did nothing before Larry. So what did you do after Larry?
1. Barely beat a fat Page who would lose his next fight to Bey after slimming down.
2. Lose to Pink
3. Beat Broad who didn’t pan out and had already lost to Marvis.
4. Decision Bonecrusher and get ko1’nd by him.
5. Down on the cards win against Bruno which countless heavies could’ve pulled off.
6. MD over Tubbs, which I kind of like even though Tubbs ballooned to 244 from 229 previously.

So basically he had one win that I like after Holmes (agained a fat guy) and I thought his 90s comeback was pretty fun.

As for Vitali, Sanders obv was active, a champion, and top two in the division other than himself. Peter was near the top of the division, a champion, and favored to win after Vitali’s layoff. Adamek was the genuine number 1 contender. Solis and Arreola were hot, undefeated contenders. Gomez was a solid contender and former champ who never lost rounds to anyone but got shutout and stopped by Vitali. And he beat a peak Chisora while while very old and very injured.

 

I'm not i'm just quite blunt sometimes us Brits are known for that i respect you for this post because this is one of your better replies with a good argument.

No i agree Witherspoon does get a tad overrated at times but i still think regarding accomplishments and peak level he would be the best win on Vitali's resume.

Yeah Witherspoon prior to the Holmes fight didn't have much of a resume, but i'm basing it on how well Witherspoon fought vs Holmes aswell as his overall career. Despite not having many fights i think Witherspoon fought the best fight of his career vs Holmes in regards to peak level.

Sanders is talented and dangerous and was coming off the Wladimir win granted, but he hadn't fought in over a year and weighed 10 pounds heavier compared to the Wladimir fight. Sanders had one foot out the door and was more interested in golf at this time, so you have to factor in some of these points aswell when you're evaluating this win. I'll give Vitali some credit though because Sanders didn't go in there just to lay down despite not being in the best of shape.

Peter i'll give Vitali more credit for taking into account Vitali's age and almost 4 year inactivity it's a solid win. I still don't think that highly of Peter but i'll agree with you on this taking everything into account.

Adamek is an underrated win based on his Light Heavyweight/Cruiserweight achievements and he has some decent wins at Heavyweight i'll give you that one.

I don't think that highly of Arreola personally.

Solis was a decorated Amateur and i'll give Vitali some credit for this win because even though Solis injured his knee Vitali still knocked him down to cause the injury. But it's really hard to assess how good of a professional Solis was though his career pretty much ended at top level after the Vitali fight he never seemed to truly recover after the injury.

All in all Vitali does deserve credit for not losing many rounds throughout his career, but you also have to take into account he lost his two most notable fights and his opposition was so/so. Unfortunately i think he was in the wrong era the Heavyweight division at that time was kinda meh, and the injuries took away alot of years from his career.

Truly my issue is i'm not exactly sure how good Vitali is.

 

Vitali is just to big and modern for Holmes. How on earth is little Larry gonna overcome 4 inches and 25 pounds of pure Ukrainian rage

 

Last post was rage bait. Holmes out points in a tough fight.

 

Let me put it this way. I was there for Bakole against Anderson and Ruiz against Joshua. What happened early in those fights was scary to the point where you just knew that Joshua and Anderson were going to lose if the other guy didn’t gas out. Vitali got drilled probably even worse against Sanders, who had faster hands than either of those guys and probably more power, and got drilled again after four or five rounds. But he never lost his composure and kept to his gameplan. Anyone who was there for that fight knows how good both of those guys were.

 

Get off the internet, Larry.

 

Holmes too fast and too mobile. Vitali makes it uncomfortable the whole way to losing a decision.

 

I respect your opinion but you also have to take into account Sanders was 38 years old in bad shape and had one foot out the door at that stage in his career.

But I don't think Vitali's composure or chin have ever been in question. Even against Chisora who gave him a rough night Vitali was poker faced despite the injury to his shoulder.

The issue with Vitali he didn't really have a rival to test him. Lewis retired, he could never fight his brother obviously, Vitali peaked when the division was in a major slump.

It would've been interesting to see Vitali in this era now against the likes of Usyk, Joshua, Zhang, Fury, Parker, etc.

 

Holmes UD.

 

Vitali was not way up against Byrd and even if he was, so what? Byrd is not in Holmes class.

 

I have to plump for Robert here. I hit Holmes hard on his reign post Cooney but from every account I've seen he was a great bloke away from the media and limelight. We had at least one guy in here years back that trained regularly at his gym and they all said similar glowing things about him. I've seen it written in places over the years too.

Holmes in the spotlight vs away from it were two completely different people.

 

I can only judge what I see, to be fair. Why he absolutely has to come off as an insufferable loser when he has a great winners’ story, only he can answer.

 

Meh he’s had his racist moments. If he were a white person saying that about black people, he would’ve been cancelled ten times over.

 

If you don't like the truth well.....

 

Only intended to be humourous.