Vitali vs Shannon Briggs?

Of course, YOU can just state that someone is more accomplished because you want them to be and leave it at that. Do some analysis yourself and show us why Vitali's competition is the worst. While you're at it, provide the comparisons.

 

Oh, thanks for clearing that up as Ali did not train at all for his ex sparring partner, and was punched out after Manila, still, he won that fight as Young ducked out of the ring for dear life, and should have been disqualified for those actions.

Your theory explains the fact that Young left Foster's camp after a few days in preparations for Foster's fight with Ali in Tokyo after Mack flattened him, look it up, as that is your only contact with "boxing" as you perceive it, which is typing via internet.:giggle:

 

a sparring session? thats your evidence? so Spadafora better than Mayweather then?

my guess is, knowing you, that you probably knew a guy who knew a guy who knew a guy who was friends with Mac Foster and now you are here trying to make him out to be more than the colossal dissapointment he really was

You do the same thing anytime anyone says the magic words "Mando Ramos" and we get this ridiculous hyperbolic rant about how great Ramos really was if not for excuses 1 through 235 and if not for the fact that he was basically a solid, totally unspectacular belt holder

Young beating George Foreman and giving Ken Norton all he could handle eclipses Mac Foster's entire fucking career

what exactly is your expertise?? being a complete non-entity amateur boxer 1000 years ago that nobody ever heard of? go write us another hard-hitting article, maybe you can ask Chris Henry what his favorite color is?

 

Ok lets look at Vitali's comp and compare it with Lennox Lewis', the next most recent true champ

Vitali: Corrie Sanders, Danny Williams, Maskaev, Peter, Gomez, Arreola, Johnson

Lennox: Tony Tucker, Frank Bruno, lost to McCall, regained from McCall... Akinwande, Golota, Briggs, Makrovic, Holyfield (x2), Grant, Botha, Tua, lost to Rahman, regained from Rahman, Tyson, Klitschko

go ahead, make a case for Vitali's comp being anywhere near Lennox's

 

The argument here is that Vitali has done all that has been asked of him. It is not his fault that the next-best guy out there is a fight he can never, and will never, take.

The argument further is that a lot of the guys on Lewis record, including guys he lost to, McCall, Rahman, and possibly Mercer, would have been beaten by Vitali. It is a stretch to see Evander Holyfield lasting the distance with Vitali. One thing is for sure, if Vitali had him hurt, at any point, at any stage, he would not allow him to survive to a draw.

I think we can agree that Lewis has the best resume, but that Vitali has done pretty much all that is asked of him.

Ezzard Charles never won the Light-Heavyweight Championship......but he might just be the greatest 175lbr of all time. Vitali Klitschko will never be the greatest heavyweight of all time.....but he beats the shit out of an awful lot of guys who are contenders for that title.

Being great doesn't mean shit. Jack Johnson is an all-time great and he wouldn't last pissing time with Vitali.

 

He says he is a cement mixer by trade, folks.:nana:

That takes about a half a brain cell to do, a primate can be trained in no time to do that, plus let's give him the credit for an additional half a cell which is why he attempts to "write" on a message board as he does.

You all will also notice that this angry typist resorts to profanity whenever another poster "disagrees" with their opinion.

 

wtf is this red herring? The claim was that Vitali's competition was the worst for any champ with the same number of defenses. It wasn't that it was better or worse than Lennox's.

 

Klitschko beats Briggs at any time. Briggs is the worst linear HW title-holder since Leon Spinks, & that includes Hasim Rahman. Klitschko pounds on him in their primes, or now.

 

I don't think heavyweights ever had non-title fights. The last one I've seen reported was Lee Savold's fight against Joe Louis, which resulted in Savold being stripped of heavyweight champ status and saw the EBU and BBBofC recognize Ezzard Charles; however Savold was more of a European champ with the NYSAC already recognizing Ezzard Charles.

Do European boxing organizations have non-title fights for heavyweights?

The main 4 in the USA do not although the WBO blew it when they made Tommy Morrison against Tim Tomashek a non-title fight---not realizing that heavyweight champs don't have non-title fights.

 

Did you copy and paste this from a pre-fight analysis of Lewis-Briggs?

 

fair enough

 

The reason I brought Lennox into this discussion is because of your earlier statement:

"Not only is Vitali's competition decent, it's probably the best record-wise, and it's probably top-half pretty easily for reigns of this length or longer."

So just looking at Vitali's reign including his time off it was about 5-6 title fights/defenses, and if you throw out Wladimir (because i don't want to compare them to each other) the last champ that had 5-6 defenses was Lennox. Byrd had about 4, then before that it was Tyson, Holmes, Ali.

So who had the best competition between Lennox, Tyson, Holmes, Ali and Vitali? Throw in Wladimir too. Does Vitali really come into the top half of those 6 champs?

 

I swear I'm not being pedantic about it, Hitman. I just can't think of any world titleist in the past 50 or so years other than Morrison who had a non-title fight.

That's the weird thing: every other weight division has non-title fights but as far as I know, the heavyweights don't. Seems kind of unfair, but I guess they didn't want to freeze the heavyweight title because back then it was the crown jewel of sports.

Imagine 4 titleists today all having non-title fights and freezing the belts. Yeesh.

 

No definitely - it's a good point that I hadn't really sat down and thought about. I was just thinking about all the non-title fights in other weight divisions but you're absolutely right, that sort of thing doesn't actually happen very much (if at all) with heavyweight champions.

 

Um I believe the vitriol here was started by you, you turned it personal with your "typist" bullshit

how about the fact that I just took a steaming shit on your whole argument in the previous post? where's your response, EXPERT?

and since when am I a cement mixer??? I work in health insurance, you are a BOUNCER AT A DIVE SOMEWHERE IN TEXAS ... yes, COLOSSAL amounts of brain energy are required for that task... herculean enlightment must be achieved before one can rise to the task of TELLING PEOPLE THEY HAVE HAD TOO MANY AND NEED TO LEAVE

Mac Foster was a BUST as a professional heavyweight... he was famously a bust... what next, a detailed synopsis on the glory of Duane Bobick's professional career?? did you know a guy who knew a guy who sort of knoew a guy who may have been KOd by Bobick when they were 13?

 

opcorn:

 

C'mon Karl, this is a pretty major exaggeration. Foster wasn't anything special. He ran up an early KO string against easy opposition but didn't do anything to prove he was a very good fighter. The few times he stepped up in class, he was in over his head. And even his vaunted punching power seemed to vanish whenever he fought someone who could actually fight back. There's no shame in losing to the likes of Ali and Quarry, but he couldn't even beat decent but nothing special fighters like Stan Ward.

Young had his shares of ups and downs in his career, but he beat Ron Lyle twice, beat Foreman and came close against Ali and Norton. Foster's career has nothing resembling that. Cdogg is right, Foster is one of the biggest busts in the history of the heavyweight division.

 

Jimmy Young was KO'd in one round by Earnie Shavers, whipped twice by a relative novice named Ossie Ocasio in Young's peak years as a fighter, and he also lost to current referee Randy Newman as well.

Foster was past it when he lost to Ward, and Ward could fight a bit at the time, as I saw him KO dangerous Jeff Merritt on the Foreman-LeDoux under card.


Big Mac and Young were two good contenders.

 

You can say that over and over again, but I just don't see it. Foster didn't accomplish much of anything in his career. Young had some losses but some major quality wins which you seem to want to ignore.

And Stan Ward was a decent fighter, nothing special...a fringe contender more than anything else.

When Foster's career is looked at objectively, there is not much there. Where are the quality wins that made Foster a legit contender? I'm not breaking your balls here, I am just curious as to what Foster did in his career to be considered a very good fighter or a good contender.

He might have been a gym tough guy, but when he had to fight legit opponents in real fights, he was exposed.

 

again... Young has wins on his resume that Foster couldn't dream of

you're just wrong here

 

Ron Lyle is the hardest man never to win the title. He even has an autobiography that says so. Ron Lyle had a chest like a fucking wardrobe. He woulda fucked with todays division. He only had one weakness...anyone between 6' and 6'4", and 200-215lbs had the edge over him. Apart from that, I reckon it's a walk in the park for him. Todays guys are just too big, too fast, too heavy handed to give Ron Lyle any real problems.

 

ugh. Don't you ever get tired of trolling??

 

he's protecting the badly endangered white man, who sadly now rules only 90% of the known world

He will keep fighting the good fight, to protect this badly oppressed group

the heavyweight division has never been better, the fighters never hungrier, never more skilled, the talent pool has never teamed with such an intoxicating mix of potential

the reason guys like you and I can't see it is because we love black American guys and Jerry Quarry:Lok:

 

Young, Foster, and Ron were all top contenders, and they were all very good.

I met Ron in 1989 at the Showboat in Vegas at ESPN's TNF's, and the dude was huge and in shape, looked like he could still fight and win.

Ron was murder in the ring, and out of it as he killed two men, including his former manager, and was pronounced dead after a prison fight in which he was knifed, but came back to life on the operating table.

He was a principal in two of the most fierce and brutal fights in heavyweight history with Earnie Shavers and George Foreman, and I liked and admired him as a fighter.

Joe Bugner said Lyle was the hardest hitter he ever fought, called him an animal and said he never fought a heavyweight that enjoyed the sheer combat as much as Lyle.

To show you how unpredictable boxing is, boxing Jimmy Young whipped Ron at his own game at fighting inside.

Karl

 

To be fair to Young he was relatively inexperienced when he first fought Shavers. At that point Shavers was an animal. He was knocking out everything put in front of him. Young had no business being in the ring with Earnie.

It wasn't a first round KO though. Rewatch the fight sometime. Young took a terrible whooping for almost 3 rounds. Brutal. And a couple years later Young fought on even terms with Shavers over 10 rounds to earn a draw.

Personally I like Young better than many of the HW's of the time. I remember watching the Norton fight as Young battered him around the ring and almost crying when Norton got the decision and eventually the HW title.

 

Norton won fair and square, Young didn't batter him around any ring.

 

Well, as I said, I liked Young. He was a little small; often looked flabby; and just had that underdog look.

But I did think he did enough in the middle rounds to win the fight. I thought I remembered reading somewhere that Norton was shocked he got the nod also. Maybe not.

Nevertheless, Young was a hell of a fighter. The guy fought on relatively even terms with a prime Ali. He had solid wins over his contemporaries from the era like Lyle and Foreman. And was always competitive in any fight during his prime. Well, Shavers is the exception but it was criminal matching Young with him that early.

 

He out-boxed Ali for portions of the fight, no doubt.

What blew that fight for Young were his tactics of ducking through the ring ropes as he was so intimidated.

When he got rid of that, he fought one hell of a fight and tattooed Ali at times, but back then you sure as heck were not going to take Ali's title gliding back and boxing and ducking like that in a close and hard fought affair, which it was, as Ali really had to suck it up to come back to win.

Young mad him look bad more so than anything else, and he was one of Ali's old sparring partners, so that syndrome was still with him.

He reminded me a bit of Jimmy Ellis, same size, both slick fighters, but Ellis could bang a lot harder with the right hand and left hook.

Now that would have been some fight there.

Karl

 

Boy you hit the nail on the head. The thing that always frustrated me as a fan of Young was how he often had lapses of doing nothing after periods of boxing beautifully.

The way he would move back when his opponent punched always made it seem like he was taking damage. That was the case with Ali. Ali would throw a combo that really didn't do damage but it would back Young all the way across the ring into the ropes. The same was true in lapses againt Norton where Young would languish against the ropes.

And I don't know where I'd go with Ellis-Young. I can honestly see either guy losing a close decision because they fade down the stretch. The fact that they were relatively the same size and Young was a tough guy to hurt would make me lean toward Young.

 

Absolutely. It was a good fight but Norton deserved the decision.