Where does Vitali rank all-time among Heavyweights

Head to head there are not too many who would beat him. That helps his stattus. However he lost to his best opoent Lenox Lewis and dose not have a career defining win.

 

vitali is top 20-30 somewhere.....wlad is maybe top 50....

 

Ali
Louis
Holmes
Lewis
Foreman
Johnson
Vitali (only two losses were due to injury, great kayo percentage and himself has never even been knocked down.)

 

Personally I don't think Vitali makes top 20.

Obviously the Lewis loss doesn't look good and pulling out in the Chris Bird fight when he was clearly ahead I find terrible when you consider people like Danny Williams have fought much longer periods of a fight with a dislocated shoulder...and gone on to win.
Hardly overcoming adversity is it? And that is usually a good sign of greatness.

He also only defended the WBC belt ONCE before retiring after constant injury and pulling out of a fight with Rahman (And people give David Haye ****!).

He's been unlucky to spend a good portion of his career in a terrible heavyweight era with little serious competition but still, that's the way it is and it's the only thing you can judge him on. And thats always gonna make him look bad!