Would Wladimir Klitschko have gone as far without Vitali Klitschko?

Vitali has a good chin, excellent work rate for a guy his size, but Byrd and Lewis exposed that he was very one dimensional against guys good boxing IQ's and his power left alot to be desired. Besides Byrd and Lewis what other clever boxers did Vitali face?

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Lennox was walking through all of Vitali's shots because Vitali has no power and was clearly landing the more damaging blows. Vitali would've been on his back in the next 2-3 rounds if not for the stoppage on cuts. I can't see how anybody could've had Vitali ahead on the cards.

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The Vitali-Byrd fight was about even before the stoppage, but the fight was in Germany, so they had a robbery ready for Vitali. Byrd walked through all of Vitali's shots and took him into the deep waters and Vitali quit. After the first few rounds Vitali was barely landing, but heavily biased announcers were hyping all of Vitali's missed shots. All of Byrd's straight lefts to the body left Vitali with an empty gas tank. By the 8th round Vitali was struggling to keep his hands up and was broken down, but he quit rather than lose with dignity.

 

Yeah, I watched these. Lewis-Vitali was a great sloppy fight and Vitali was ahead when the fight was stopped.

Vitali was well ahead against Byrd but had nothing on his left hand due to something you conveniently didn't mention.

 

Oh yes, because if Sam Peter had another crack at Wladdy it would have been all over for the Ukrainian! And lord, Adamek and Charr would have left Wlad in a contorted pile at center ring!

 

All I can say is Wlad should retire. It's time to hang them up.

 

It is an understated win for Byrd. Byrd fought him better than any other fighter did and despite the massive size disadvantage made Vitali call it a day early. Vitali couldn't muster another 9 minutes. It's also often not stated that Byrd was stalking him down and landing some of the biggest shots and combinations in the 8th and 9th that Vitali ever felt his whole career. Vitali also threw a lot of classic usual quick lefts up until the very end, which is why many people question the legitimacy of the injury (I don't, for the record).

Ironically, Byrd took that fight on 10 days' notice, similar to another Vitali fight we often hear about. Byrd deserves more respect for his win over Vitali than Lennox does. Both were legitimate.

 

Even if we give Vitali a pass for quitting with his very convenient shoulder 'injury' Vitali fought the very green and unskilled Timeo Hoffman immediately after his loss instead of rematching Byrd, who he had a rematch clause against. Byrd even mentioned that at the time Vitali and his handlers directly told him that they had no interest in ever fighting him again and that if he wanted to fight a Klitschko it had to be Wlad, who was twice the boxer Vitali was and also had power.

As soon as Byrd signed to fight Wlad Vitali's bogus shoulder injury disappeared and he went and fought Hoffman. Vitali and his team new Byrd would expose him again. Even Lewis dropped a belt rather than fight Byrd, who I think would've been a tougher match than Vitali stylistically.

 

What it helped with was keeping all the belts together for Wlad.

There was always the vitali voluntary option to sort some of the coming up mandatories out.

 

I actually want to argue the opposite of the TS.

I think the existance of Wlads brother as another belt holder actually holds him back from getting the fulll credit he deserves as being the undefeated and undisputed HW champion for 10 years!!!!

Now putting it that way there are very few in history who can lay claim to that level of dominance over that number of years.

Trust me, Wlad gets to around top 10-top 5 HW of all time once the dust has settled on his career.

Vitali was never considered the better of the two, and did not face very high level competition with a few exceptions.

 

What is this myth about Byrd?

Wlad beat that pip squeek into oblivion and Lewis would surely have done the same.

He was just an ultra defensive HW who couldnt crack and egg.

 

There is no myth about Byrd. He beat Vitali into submission and Vitali avoided ever facing any good boxers after quitting against Byrd and being stopped against Lewis.

Wlad did beat Byrd, but Wlad is a much better fighter than Vitali. Also, I never said Lewis couldn't beat Byrd. I just said Byrd would be a tougher challenge than Vitali, who was very one dimensional and lacked power.

 

Vitali could not have survived through 12 rounds against Lennox if the ref. and the doctor had allowed him to continue. Lennox could have made that cut become worse and worse. It has been one of the worst cuts that I have ever seen in the history of boxing.

 

I have him at about 5 right now.

 

Vitali with his 41 KOs In 45 wins as a professional at HW championship level...”lacked power”

Thanks buddy you made my day with that blooper.

 

Vitali had no power on his left. He couldn't hook, mostly just measure and throw weak jabs. I can't remember if he could uppercut, but it's possible because a rotator cuff injury doesn't necessarily restrict throwing a weak uppercut. I partially tore my rotator cuff, didn't need surgery, and it was awful.

 

The stoppage was fine. None of us know how that fight would've gone without the cut though.