To follow up on my post a few weeks ago, Vitali is more than a year since his last fight, and with prospect of fighting a mega fight against the winner of Haye Fury looking dim now, I suspect will prove to have fought his last fight. Nevertheless, even in his semi or permanently retired state, if you look over at Boxrec's ranking of HW's, there are currently 4 Vitali victims in the top 10, and 0 Wlad victims. Its become a trendy thing to say Vitali has a significantly weaker resume than his brother, but like so much of conventional wisdom, there's no truth to that. Even now, when Sanders and Peter, easily the best non K's of the K era, and whom he performed much more impressively than his brother, are long retired, his other opponents are still outshining WK's active opponents. Granted boxrec isn't perfect, but it is the best, most scientific ranking body out there, by far. It illustrates that those top 4 opponents have faced and beaten more top opponents than Wlad's victims have at this point, even if those they've beaten don't have the "names" that mean so much to some fans. While the hater boxing nostalgiast nonfan will keep hating (and make no mistake, most Wlad "fans" who say he has the best resume between the two really don't particularly like Wlad either, they just like to say the weaker brother had the stronger resume, thereby discrediting both brothers) I'm confident real boxing fans and boxing historians will remember Vitali for the dominant, top 10 all time great HW champ he was. Apart from having beaten the top fighters of the Klitschko era, the fact that he's the only top 25 HW to have never been knocked down, the fact he has the 2nd highest ko ratio in history, and the fact he likely has the highest rounds won percentage in history, all show what a special champ he's been.
Vitali never looked like he was ever losing a. Fight Even tko6 he was comfortably winning Don't see how anyone wouldn't put vitali in the same league as the greatest
^ Indeed. Weak era, that's why they're not rated amongst the greatest. He fought an ATG who was at the tail end of his career and in very poor condition and was stopped. Him winning 4 rounds in a competitive fight against that ATG is his defining career moment. Now, he's good and he's much better than his brother, but neither of the K's are ATG's.
Comparing the quality of Vitali's recent opposition to Wlad's is hardly a good measure of quality. Wlad's opposition of late has been diabolical, Wach, Panieta and Mormeck. Also the current boxrec rankings are hardly a good measure of the heavyweight scene. They have Arreola above Stiverne, how is that logical Stiverne beat Arreola!
For as long as Sanders was dangerous , which was about 3-4 rounds, Vitali didn't win a round and was almost stopped. That Sanders was unfit, tubby and as soon as he gassed out , Vitali was able to take over.
Vitali has a much stronger resume than Wlad as he has actually shared the ring with an elite HW fighter.
not really, he was winning 4-2 but it was only at the half way point and Lewis had won the past 2. I think it is fairly clear that Lewis was well on his way to beating (stopping) Vitali. That is why Vitali should thank the ring doctor for sparing him unnecessary punishment and possibly permanent damage to his eye.
Getting your face minced and eating heavy leather consecutively - "Winning comfortably". The best thing I've read all day.
you'd expect that result from a perennial non contender who was now in his worst form of his career ever. However that form was still enough to KO one Klit and batter the other for a few rounds. Think how long the Klits reigns would last against prime good rated opps if weak shot neversuccessful opps can half kill them. Pretty much the truth of it is this, and Klittards wont like this but its pretty certainly the truth - some really smart business men in the 1990s took a long hard look at what Sven Ottke was doing, and worked out a way to get rich by getting two huge lunkheads called the K bros to develop enough boxing skills to beat weak opposition for years on end in the pretence that they were defending the world title. As long as they could find fans stupid enough to believe this makeshift operation was the truth, they could become rich on it. And whislt that truth doesn't mean the K bros are bad boxers, it does always mean their fans are stupid every time they pay for their fights that no one else cares about.
According to Klittards, being up 4-2 is dominating a fight. Vitali got rocked by a half-retired Sanders, and got cut up against a fat, shot Lewis.