Vitali starting to wither... may be time to retire

The time for Vitali to cement his legacy has past. It's a shame that he was unavailable to take on meaningful fights from 2005-2008. He could have bumped off a lot of good guys like Valuev, Chagaev, Ibragimov, Maskaev, Rahman, Byrd ( rematch ), and Brewster. He may very well have established himself as the best heavyweight of the period had such a scenario come to fruition.

 

If he had beaten all of them ,would it have drastically changed his all time standing ,do you think?
There are a couple of decent fighters there ,but certainly no greats or near greats.
If he had secured a rematch with Lewis , its possible he might have won it,but ,then again a better prepard lewis might have beaten him more convincingly.

 

He's an old fighter and he's not going to get any better, and is probably already somewhat past his best but I dont think the Johnson fight indicated any necessary need to consider retiring.

To be fair to VK, he was old and coming off a 4-year layoff when he came back and beat Sam Peter, and I really wouldn't have been surprised to have seen him looking awful in that one. But he looked okay. And he looked okay in his next two fights, and he beat Johnson pretty easily too.

He is 38 though, his reflexes have slowed, and never was the quickest.
38 is old for a fighter.

 

He should probably loose a round to somebody before he considers retirement.

 

agree 100%:hi:

 

:happy

 

The haters want Vitali out of boxing ASAP. They hate his guts and always will hate his guts. Vitali easily won every round vs. Johnson, no contest. Haye should retire like yesterday! Chambers lost to Povetkin, so he should retire.

 

lol of course you do, he's stating facts. It's impossible to disagree with anything he said aside from his non-decline conclusion.

 

Vitali and Vlad are cleaning out the top ten heavyweights. They do not need to retire for a long time. I think Vitali can fight into his 40's is he so chooses.

 

Its funny becuase its true.

 

well....you got a point...... any good contenders in heavies to replace him?

 

Solis if he loses 50 pounds.

Boytsov if his chin is as good as the rest of his skill set.

Helenius if the finer ponts of his game equal his skill and power.

Pulev if he takes it just a little more slowly, devlopes his stamina and his pro game in genral.

Down the line Tor Hammer and Deontay Wilder- but they need a lot more time.