Saw this old thread of mine get bumped yesterday, but yeah on the issue of Vitali can he hand his WBC Emeritus heavyweight champion status to Usyk to force through the Fury fight lol
I loved watching Vitali fight....but I just don't understand who he has beaten to warrant such a high h2h ranking for so many people. It's funny really that people will say that you can't rate Fury h2h historically because his resume is thin....but then will claim Vitali to be some h2h beast lol shows the double standards on here I guess. I mean, I get that Fury has outed himself as ducking Usyk, but he still beat Wlad. Which despite being a snoozefest of a fight is way more impressive than any win Vitali has.
Usyk's status has leapfrogged more by the Fury fight not happening than his two wins vs. AJ The comps to Vitali-Byrd are also bizarre. What are people thinking? Vitali does well then gets a serious injury that has him retiring? Vitali had bigger and better fights than trying to rematch Byrd. Wlad easily handled Byrd twice. Vitali beats Byrd in a rematch by UD (Byrd running) or T/KO (Byrd tries to occasionally fight)... unless he sustains a serious injury. I know how I'd bet. Vitali was never decked in a lengthy career, even with bad cuts vs. an ATG in Lewis. Adamek was a top smaller HW and Vitali easily handled him. I think Usyk is > Adamek, but not by that much. Most people have a tendency to go overboard and front run. Usyk is a helluva boxer, but if we had a time machine to see prime Vitali vs. Uysk, I'm betting on VK.
Gassiev and Briedis for example maybe even Michael Hunter. A lot of the guys Klitschko beat were no bigger than cruiserweights size wise and simply weighed more due to being overweight.
"Ranked contenders" is relative. The ones Vitali beat were still not good fighters historically speaking
I suspect they are not campaigning at heavyweight because they don't think they can beat the best of the best at that weight not because of guys like Arreola or Chisora. Moreover the current era is clearly stronger than the 2000s when Vitali scored his best wins. A thing people don't seem to get is due to rampant ducking a lot of rankings at heavyweight are based on guesswork and guys can stay in the top 10 for years while doing very little to prove themselves. For example Ortiz was ranked in the top 10 for around 6 years or more and the only high level opponent he beat was Jennings. He didn't have to prove himself and neither did the guys Vitali beat