You guys can make all the excuses you want For Vitali. Wlad just signed another five fight contract deal with HBO. That means over the next several years in his 40s he'll still be beating top young fighters like Wilder Joshua etc...he Will just further pull himself away from Vitali The funny thing is Wlad could pick up another 10 wins break Joe Louis's record go undefeated until 2020 and you will still be talking about Corrie sanders loss and how Wlad was in his prime in 2002 and never improved and Yaaa yada Wlad will get his due respect in time. History will remember Wlad as an ATG, not Vitali
It doesn't mean anything to me. It's just a paper statistic. Deontay Wilder is now the WBC champion. But I don't rate him at all. Wlad's statistics dwarf Vitali's, but I think Vitali was the better all-around fighter.
Right here: "Haye had signed to fight Wladimir in June 2009, but pulled out shortly before the fight. Later in 2009, he negotiated a deal with Vitali, but did not sign the contract he had agreed to and instead secretly negotiated to face Nikolay Valuev, And this: Wladimir Quote: "I am very happy that Haye finally dares to step into the ring with me. He already ducked out of two fights with me and Vitali and is only trash-talking and producing stupid shirts." LOL@ the last line in italics. Basically he was a fraud. He past on Vitali to fight Valuev who was 36 years old, off for a year and looked like **** against a 47 year old Holyfield. Can't say I blame him. It was the easiest ( and probably the only ) way he could grab a title fragment to better market himself. But there's no question in my mind he wanted nothing to do with Vitali and his own brother even backs this notion.
Nobody's making any excuses for Vitali. And it's great to hear that Wlad has signed another 5 year contract. I'm really pleased. By the time he's finished, he'll have had over 70 fights. But Vitali just wasn't capable of fighting that many times. So you've got two great champions, but one of them has many more names on his resume. But again, if you added another 20 opponents to Vitali's resume, it would either equal or surpass Wlad's. So I don't believe that Wlad is superior to Vitali, and he has an outstanding resume, it's just that he's fought far more fights.
Vitali a monster? You gonna just turn a blind eye to the toughness he showed against Chris Byrd? Or all the injuries that caused him to retire? When did Vitali show he could bounce back from adversity the way Wlad showed? That's real toughness Monzon beat great fighters. Who did Vitali beat?
So now you're going to be sarcastic about how tough he was in the Byrd fight? When did Vitali bounce back from adversity? How about the fact that after he'd been forced to retire through injury, he came back after a 4 year lay off and various surgeries, to fight between 2008-2012? Can you not see the irony? You have criticised his comeback from 2008-2012, and have then asked when he ever came back from adversity? Yet his comeback that you are now criticising, proved that he could come back from adversity. He's had multiple surgeries on his back. He's had multiple surgeries on his knees. He had surgery to repair his shoulder. So if fighting guys like Sam Peter after enduring that isn't showing toughness, then I'm at a complete loss. Now let's look at Wlad. You think he's bounced back from adversity and showed real toughness? By what? Clinching the life out of most of his opponents, due to his vulnerabilities? Also, you've asked what great fighters Vitali beat? Well what great fighters did Wlad beat? Wlad has never beaten a great fighter either. But he's lost to 3 non great fighters in his 20's, all by knockout, 2 of which were never avenged. Before you say that Vitali never avenged his defeats, he was never knocked out, he was beating Byrd, and Lennox wouldn't give him a rematch. There's no way that Wlad was tougher than Vitali, neither mentally, or physically when in the ring.
Let me tell ya something about the Ring Heavyweight rankings of recent times and why they are totally meaningless. How many of these number 1s fought other top rankers from the top 10. Lets take a look. Chris Byrd in 2006 had not one win against anybody from the top 10. Yet he was #1 and Wlad beat him to become Champ. Shot to shyt and and a complete non factor in his prime to add insult to injury. Ruslan Chagaev in 2009 had just one win from the top 10 against a faded Valeuv. David Haye in 2011 beat nobody from the top 10. He only ever beat an even more faded Valeuv in his last ever fight. That was it. He has not a single noteworthy win. Povetkin had only the win against Ruslan Chagaev from the top 10. He never beat nor fought another top 10 ranker in his career. Pulev came to the Wlad fight with ZERO wins or fights against anybody from the top 10. Those are all Wlads best opponents. None of them ever fought anybody. The Ring HW ranking don't mean anything anymore. The rest of the guys Wlad beat had even worse records.
Under ordinary circumstances they can't. But I believe the reign of the Klitschko brothers to be a rare case in which we actually had a dynasty in heavyweight boxing. Both men avenged losses for the other. Both eliminated the best contenders available and one brother grasped the #1 spot while the other sat firmly at #2 leaving fans wondering for years which of the two were better. It was hardly a conventional situation but certainly a unique one.
Vitali impressed me greatly...and I know that he'll probably be consigned to "second fiddle" to his brother, but he truly impressed me when he came back and fought Sam Peter. I know Peter didn't turn out to be that great, but it was the overwhelmingly classy way that VK dealt with the Nigerian...the way he totally commanded the fight...his style and demeanor reminded me of a heavyweight Carlos Monzon stylewise, as well as in how he totally dominated his opponent. The other thing that I like so much is Vitali's chin and total disregard of pain. No heavyweight ever had that kind of chin, even Ali and Marciano.