Vitali v Byrd

Not watched this fight since it happened. I thought Vitali was well ahead. Byrd had success yes, he gave him far more trouble than expected, but then he was fighting an opponent with a serious injury.

The overall punch stats can be deceptive, Byrd could of landed the majority of those punches in a few rounds and landed little else in the other rounds, hence why he was so far behind on the official scorecards and why the commentators were so surprised when he pulled out of what the commentator said was "an easy victory."

As for Vitali pulling out. It was a mistake, it made many people question his heart and desire until the Lewis fight. But then again rotator cuff injuries are notoriously difficult to recover from, it's why David Haye retired the first time and remember Vitali retired in his prime due to injuries, physically he was always a bit fragile and prone to bad injuries. Had he fought on, the Lewis fight may never have happened. But in the end I think he could of simply run for 3 rounds and at worse end up with a draw and then blamed a bad shoulder for his performance instead of taking that loss.

 

I’m confident Vitali would have held out for a decision, quitting was the biggest mistake of his career.

 

I think Vitali's so called dominance in this fight is a huge myth that's been created over the years like the Nunn vs Toney fight. Byrd was was very much in this fight all the way Byrd parried Vitali's jab all night long, started to back up Vitali at various points after 5th round and hit him with straight left hands, made Vitali miss a ton of punches which i think inflicted the injury to Vitali's shoulder.

Overall Byrd doesn't get enough credit for this performance, Byrd was a late replacement and Vitali had a huge size advantage over him and Byrd competed all the way.

Here's my scorecard of the fight.

Chris Byrd vs Vitali Klitschko

1 Vitali
2 Vitali
3 Byrd
4 Vitali
5 Byrd
6 Byrd
7 Vitali
8 Vitali
9 Byrd
10 Vitali doesn't come out for the 10th round

86-85 Vitali

 

Seems to be a common theme with the klitschkos. Let their brother beat the guy who beat them.

 

atrocious scoring.

 

Let's see your scorecard then theres nothing wrong with my scoring, people often like to claim Vitali "dominated Byrd" without producing any scorecard.

It's a myth that Vitali dominated Byrd, in actual fact Byrd was in the fight the whole way and won between 3 or 4 rounds, and was coming on after the 5th round.

Byrd landed 124 punches whilst Vitali landed 132 punches, only 8 punches separated them but Vitali's connect percentage was 26 percent compared to 44 percent for Byrd aswell as 50 percent landed in power punches for Byrd also.

As I said a competitive fight.

If my scoring is so "atrocious" score the fight yourself RBR I think you'll find Byrd did better than what you think.

 

Indeed. I think Wlad's team did offer Puritty a rematch inside 15 months though. Byrd and Sanders were a different story however. It would have been stupid to immediately rematch with the same brother when the other was so much better suited to the job stylistically.

 

lmao, you think wrong. punch stat is as slanted as the commentary, absolute garbage "stat".

 

Yeah as I thought no comeback to any of my points and no scorecard hence no argument.

But thanks for contributing with "lmao" you really proved a point there.

 

i added a comeback to your using a garbage stat. as for watching any old fight and scoring it, i have better things to do with my time than watch bad fights from a dying sport to satisfy somebody i don't know.

 

Commentary was not biased at all and the punchstats show Vitali missed alot of punches which he did, and the fight is more competitive than the myth that people like to create that Byrd was dominated which was not true.

It's only "garbage" because it doesn't fit with your narrative.

As I said go and post a scorecard and let's compare the rounds, I had this same debate last year with another poster he went back and watched the fight and was surprised how competitive it was.

 

punch stat is garbage in every fight. it is always slanted. just as the commentary is always slanted. there hasn't been unbiased commentary in any sport since the seventies.

 

Well what's the point of debating it then ? You don't want to have a proper debate and score the fight. Instead you want to claim my scorecard is "bad" when you won't score the fight yourself. And then you disregard the stats which show to some extent the fight was more competitive than what your claiming, but you dismiss it because it doesn't fit with your "narrative".

Theres not much else to be said.

 

Punch stats aren't garbage. They just provide context. USING Them only to score is what's garbage.

 

Perfectly summed up that's exactly what i'm saying, i'm not saying score the fight based on punchstats. But the stats as you said provide some context that Byrd/Vitali isn't a one sided fight that people like to often claim and it simply isn't true.