Who's the best heavyweight of the last 30 years?

I see.

Then you would have...

a) Not stopped it and risked Vitali's eye sight. I don't think I've ever seen a fight NOT stopped with an injury this bad and dangerous. Charr fight got stopped for way, WAAAAAAAAAAY less.
b) Stopped it and claimed thumbing as the cause of the cuts. TD for Vitali

Unless you agree with either of these options (both of which are unreasonable) and state your reasons why, you cannot make a case for it being not legitimate.

Having your face cut to pieces (there were MULTIPLE cuts, the "lucky cut" story is bullshit) warrants a stoppage, you don't think?

If you accuse Lewis of ducking a rematch - whatever. This doesn't factor into his ATG rating. It's about resume and about who he has beat.

 

Yes, he's a good boxer and likely Lewis' best win and FAR AHEAD of anything Wlad has done. Which was my initial point, remember? He's also not on the level of Lewis.

 

Here I have to disagree with you. Vitali started the stronger and got two rounds in the bag but then Lewis came back into it in the 3rd and thereafter was landing the more telling shots more regularly. Vitali picked up rounds on workrate but was not effective in his offense.

Despite throwing 432 punches Vitali only landed 54 more than Lewis did with his 222 - that is, Vitali landed 156 while Lewis landed 102 - more than that Vitali wasn't hurting him, as the HBO commentary attests to when Foreman comments on Lewis's lack of respect for Vitali's power and the final comment of the 6th round which claims Lewis can barely stand up because of his own lack of stamina and not because of any damage inflicted by Vitali.

And the final images of the final round of that fight is a telling one - it's Vitali stumbling and scrabling around the ring after Lewis desperatly trying to clinch to prevent Lewis having any room to throw any clean shots. I dont see how anyone could watch that 6th round and then say Lewis was taking a beating or that he would get a beating if the fight had continue after how the last four rounds of the fight had played out - 2 rounds each on all cards.

And Lewis was looking to avoid difficult fights. He just wanted easy fights for easy money, fights where he wouldn't have to challenge himself, so he could wind down his career and walk away on his own terms. He thought, prior to fighting Vitali, that both Klitschko's were average and would be easy work, Vitali proved him wrong. Had he been a younger man he would have risen to the challenge and fought Vitali again confident of victory, but he didn't have the confidence that he would be able to put himself through the effort and work needed to be confident of victory at that stage of his career so when Vitali became mandatory again it prompted his retirement. It wasn't a fear of Vitali, or a worry that he wouldn't be "lucky" enough to get the cuts again, it was a fear that he didn't have the ability anymore to match the younger, hungrier and very dangerous fighter, a worry he would never have had three-to-four years earlier.

 

A shot, couch dweling, pot smoking Tyson lasted longer against the best version of Lewis, then the best Vitali against the worst version of Lewis.

Vitali deserved to lose that fight 100%. He had 6 rounds to do something against a slow , plodding Lewis at the end of his career and he couldn't do it. He had no gameplan, no techinical proficiency, no defence and his mush up face was the result.

He was a B level fighter. He has no claim to be anything above.

 

you would be stupid to claim you are winning if you had just let someone rip your face off and were staggering around legless. That's Klittard territory.
It wasn't a good victory for Lewis but it was a clear victory nonetheless.

 

:thumbsup Thanks for the mention. I guess I can live with 'nutbag.'

 

Only in your little dreamworld is this true. Wlad in the 90's would have struggled like hell to hold on to a belt for any length of time.
This was a puncher's era chock-full of dangerous swatters, legitimate iron men like McCall and Mercer (not the faded version Wlad fought) and the big four of Lewis, Tyson, Holyfield and Bowe.
It was a deep division.

If Wlad got the three losses he did in his era, then I can think this only spells huge trouble in an era where a Sanders was a no-mark. He's good enough to win a strap sure, but vulnerable enough to never, ever be 'the man' in the 90's. Not happening.

 

Jeez, you honestly sprout some huge bull****. Gifted against Norton? I've NEVER heard anyone but you say this. Do you know how to score a fight? Apparently not, and you are coming out with the weirdest crap. If I were you, and shut my mouth and learn a thing or two before making myself look like a complete tit.

I wonder what other pearls of wisdom you have in store for us.

 

I'm not ignorant, that was just my opinion. Maybe the truth is somewhere in between. I just felt that his career was being manufactured to present him as something he wasn't. Of course that I was paying attention, and I had noticed many flaws of him, that's why I believed that he'd get exposed sooner or later. I'm not saying that he wasn't a championship material, because he obviously was, but he was brought by the media as some kind of unstoppable machine and he wasn't that.
Of course, I never thought that he was going to lose to Douglas, but Buster turned out to have a good night and a simple blueprint of how to neutralize Mike Tyson. If he couldn't overwhelm an opponent with his aggression, especially if the opponent was well schooled and bigger than him, he was in trouble and very far from being unstoppable.
As for the skills, Tyson never had a skillset at the level of Lennox, that's why I said that Lewis was a level above him.

 

Well at least you're willing to meet me more or less halfway. For the record, the press may have jumped the gun on him a little bit, comparing him to legends maybe a bit too early, but I feel in the end he did enough to be legitimately called an ATG.

 

no boxer is.