VItali Klitschko's best performance?

Sanders could have trained harder though. I was really disappointed by his condition when he arrived. Not saying that he'd have necessarily beaten Klitschko, but maybe he could have prolonged the early assault longer and given himself a chance to catch Vits again.

 

Vitali's losing effort against Lewis was his best performance.

Peter was not remotely comparable to even that version of Lewis and Sanders was arguably as gone, if not further gone, than Lewis had been, when their respective matches with VK took place.

That Briggs' name has been mentioned in this thread a couple of times, as a Vitali match of some value, is beyond unfathomable.

 

The Adamek win was pretty solid.

 

Everyone was excited when Lennox Lewis-Vitali Klitschko was announced because it happened on very short notice, it was expected to be a much better fight than the originally scheduled fight (Lewis-Kirk Johnson) and HBO sort of recognized they had a PPV quality fight to air on their regular network and pulled out all the stops - even bringing in the top sports commentator at the time from NBC (one of the national, over-the-air networks) Bob Costas (who usually did NBA Finals, US Open Golf Tournaments, Olympics, etc.) to do some work on the telecast.

So Lewis-Vitali was the biggest. And Lewis was the best opponent Vitali ever faced. And Vitali fought very well. But, he also had the whole side of his face tore off and lost in six rounds.

I think the two most SURPRISING wins by Vitali at the time they occurred were, first, his comeback win over Sam Peter. Vitali had been out of the ring a couple months shy of FOUR YEARS. He was 37. (Peter was only 28.) And Vitali just totally dominated him. Totally. Peter wasn't in the fight at all.

And the second was the Odlanier Solis fight. At the time, Solis was undefeated. He was a widely celebrated Olympian. Won three straight World Amateur Championships. He'd beaten EVERYONE as an amateur - Felix Savon (multiple times), Luis Ortiz (multiple times), David Haye, Sultan Ibragimov (multiple times), Kubrat Pulev (multiple times), Czar Glasgov, Zhilea Zhang, etc. Solis had beaten Savon a number of times in qualifiers and should've represented Cuba in the 2000 Olympics, but the Cubans wanted to give Savon a shot at a third gold medal (which he won). Solis won the gold in 2004 (but he arguably could've been a two-time Olympic champ). He'd made a daring escape from Cuba.

Solis was going to be the guy who let us all know how Stevenson and Savon and Balado would've done had they been allowed to turn pro. But once Solis defected, he kind of lost interest in boxing. Think he was just happy to be free.

And when Vitali fought the undefeated Olympic champ, Vitali was a few months shy of 40 years old. (Solis was 30.) But Vitali dropped him in the first, Solis tore up his knee in the fall, and that was it.

Solis never amounted to anything after that at all. So it removes most of the luster from the win. But that was a damn impressive win at the time. Solis had gotten into excellent shape. Vitali just wiped him out.

And, in most stories where a 30-year-old, highly decorated, undefeated Olympian fights for a world title against a 40-year-old champ, the 40-year-old champ doesn't score a one-round KO.

Even when the old guy wins, Larry Holmes didn't knock out Ray Mercer in one. And Holmes was better than Vitali and Mercer wasn't nearly the undefeated, amateur star Solis had been.

So, I'd say either Peter or Solis, but I'd lean toward the Odlanier Solis win as Vitali's best performance, even though it was as short as it was.

 

adamek the light heayweight? no

 

the solis win is nothing because he never achieved anything. this is pros not amateurs, 2 different world

 

I give somebody more credit for beating a former light heavyweight, who is a legit top five guy at heavyweight, than I do for beating a physical monster ranked outside the top ten.

 

I liked the Herbie Hide win, though this was not his best opponent

 

He did say "SURPRISING" wins ... and it was a damn good post

 

I wonder where the Lewis performance ranks, abstracted from the cut.

 

He was beating Lewis so bad it has to be considered a great performance. Lewis put everything he had in the tank those last few rounds. He had nothing left. A few more rounds and Vitali would have Ko'ed him, Despite the fight being stopped on the cut, everyone that saw the fight knew he was the real champ.

Lewis knew it too and refused to fight him again. Basically Vitali retired Lennox. Vitali took his rightful title after waiting months for the rematch.. He obliterated Kirk Johnson in a eliminator bout, then smashed Corrie Sanders to take the belt.

He was 32 years old and only in his first run as Champ. The comeback at age 37 to win against Peter was the second act in his career.

When everyone knew he was the next champion including the current one - it has to be considered a great performance.

 

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He fought Kirk only 6 months after the cut with Lennox.


This was the Vitali that Lennox quit rather than face again. Fast, powerful, fought big and cleaned Kirk Johnsons clock in short order.

 

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Smh

Lennox himself said on his worst day, short notice, aging and past it, he carved a masterpiece into Vitali's face. Vitali showed awkward but very affective boxing skills but he did it against a terrible version of Lewis and still lost. Imagine if it was Ray Mercer in the ring that night or Holyfield, Lewis would have gotten dismantled that night

Klitschko couldn't pull it off and his face was pealing off while Lewis had the momentum at the end of round 6

 

1. Kirk Johnson
2. Sam Peter

 

One has to wonder how many other Heavyweights there have been, throughout boxing history, whose best performances were losing performances?

There must be a few, who could be chalked up as having such losses on their records, I guess. But none as celebrated as Vitali Klitschko, whose fans still dine out on the utter pasting he took, to this day; fine-tuning their version of the event to maximize Vitali's image as the hero (and, in some cases, 'the winner').

It has to be the weirdest/funniest of 'fan phenomena' I have ever encountered - still going strong - 18 years later.