Klitschko Quits...Where Do You Stand?

This is a most-contentious issue, I've always found. Klitschko's corner retirement against Byrd. It tends to divide people rather severely, with little apparent room for negotiation.

Is he forgiven, or forever marked, in your view? We have a poll up, too. IMO, having endured a torn rotator cuff, I cannot stand seeing people lambast him for his decision to call that fight. Believe me, the absolute last thing you want to be doing with that injury (or should be doing, for that matter) is boxing. I think a lot of the criticism, too, has been rather facile. Fighters down through history have had similar corner retirements & their reputations haven't been nearly so tainted.

He gets a pass here. How about you?

 

I don't think Vitali's a quitter, so from that perspective he gets a pass from me.

But it doesn't change the fact that Chris Byrd is the second best fighter Vitali's been in with, and he lost.

 

don't throw the left at all. take some punishment and tough it out. it's only byrd who can't crack an egg and you have a big lead. And you have such good defense and a big right hand that you should be able to keep him off of you.

 

I agree with this, too. It's so much that Vitali's a quitter... he just can't help the fact that he's a faggot.

 

The matter has been compounded by time: a lot of people thought he would piss off after that, they would never have to deal with him again, so they let it all hang out on him. Consider the following article, written as it was in what I regard as the premiere boxing publication out there, Boxing Monthly. It was quickly followed by an article in what I believe was the August 2000 edition of Ring magazine, entitled "White Fighters" where Vitali Klitschko was suitably lambasted.

Crucially, most journalists, writing days and weeks after the event, couldn't even decide on the reason he had pulled out. The BM [more like BS} article quoted above, cites an injured hand. Clearly there was no desire to focus on specifics, he had quit, and that was all. This is not journalism. This is propaganda and smear.

I've always said that anyone who wants to debate this need to no more than the following: take a red hot poker, and burn your thumb with it. Now lash on a pair of boxing gloves and start fending some punches. Argument over. The gloves will compound the burn and make your hand feel like it is on fire. You won't be able to concentrate for shit. Now rip your left arm off at the shoulder and see how it feels. Point made.

Klitschko was a big white non-American guy, based in Germany, who thought he could make some noise. People like that need dealing with.

Absolutely. His decision was the correct one. Since that injury, Klitschko has had 9 or 10 WBC title fights, taking the undefeated records of two American contenders, stopping Sam Peter, engaging Lewis and Sanders in thrilling fights and established himself as the man. Alternatively, he could have held on grimly against Byrd for 3 rounds, lost all of them, been pilloried in victory almost as badly as he was in defeat, and never fought again. No brainer, IMHO.

 

Most of the people criticizing a fighter for choosing not to continue due to an injury have obviously never laced them up.

 

I don't even think of it as a real loss. He's only lost to Lewis and did not quit in a fight he was having a much more difficult time in.

If Byrd was coming on strong, I would think that he quit but Byrd wasn't doing much of anything besides taking a beating.

 

::

 

:scared2:

 

Torn rotator cuff is nothing to sneeze at. Very understandable and if he had chosen to fight on then he may not be fighting today. I think he proved his mettle in the Lewis fight.

 

Good question.

He shouldn't have quit. He was winning the fight easily and had a couple rounds to go...AND he was undefeated at the time.

But that doesn't make him a no-heart bum. Just makes him too thoughtful for a fighter (at the time). He should have quit against Lennox Lewis though...because he could have been blinded in that fight....I guess he made up for the Byrd fight in the Lewis fight.

 

And no matter how you slice it, he walked away from those fights with a pair of losses.

 

True...but the manner in which he lost those fights is still important.

 

Quits and gets injured are two different stories. If getting injured is quitting then I saw a bunch of NFL players quit last Sunday. Bunch of pussies just limped off the field instead of finishing the game like real men would.

 

LAME Analogy...

Football is a TEAM Sport & There's Several BACK UP Players @ Each Position, to Give the TEAM a Chance of STILL Winning, In Case of Injury....Vitali WILLINGLY Gave his Title AND Undefeated Away, to a Guy he was SOUNDLY Defeating, w/a Mere 2 Rounds Remaining...

Shit, Vitali Could've Thrown Half-Hearted Jabs w/his GOOD ARM & Won the Fight...



REED:shit:

 

My analogy is not lame. It's pretty fucking awesome actually you're just being difficult because you love doing it. Players when injured stop playing. Team sport or not. What if it was the star quarterback that got injured? Would he have kept playing when injured ? Jeopardizing his whole career to finish one game? I don't fucking think so. Vitaly has heart no doubt he proved it in the Lewis fight. Byrd could have hit him in the shoulder and injured it more or he could have injured it blocking punches. Quitting is what Samuel Peter did after being schooled by Vitaly. That's quitting and even in that case it's fine I don't mind quitting. It's a brutal sport this is not fucking checkers lives are at stake and when a fighter knows he had enough it's his choice.

 

Given the "Kaliber" of your Andrew Golota NUTHUGGERY, it's NO Surprise that U're Clinging to this Particular Stance....



REED:shit:

 

Damn, REED, look at you supporting a contrarian position in this thread. Looking for attention?

 

Vitaly is the better Klitschko....

 

Understandable, thought I'll alway's have more respect, as a fighter, for the guy's who'd never quit, no mater what.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/boxing/9193038.stm

 

Look at Danny Williams, dislocated shoulder and gets a knockout with his one good arm. Now THAT is badass

 

People who haven't seen that fight cannot appreciate what Williams did.

Vitali should have at least taken some punishment. Personally, I do think he could have held off Byrd just fine with one arm for two more rounds. Hell, he probably could have won one or both of them.

Part of my problem is that Vitali didn't give any sign that the arm was hurting him prior to the stoppage. It was a pure 'wtf??' type moment.

 

I mean, how tough do you want them??

 

If he was that tough he would have seen out that fight. That being said I don't consider him a quitter. I have personally never suffered that injury so I can't judge him for it.

 

That's fine. It's my belief that fighters who "show" an injury and then "Carry" it for a few rounds get a lot more respect when they quit. When the fans can hear an injury discussion being conducted in a corner, when they can see a fighter wince and pull an arm, or hold his hand, or intimate that he is hurt, they seem, for some stupid reason, to be more accepting of it when he quits.

A man can have his kidneys bludgeoned, his brain bashed, his liver hammered.....and when he quits, people will deride him. Because they cannot "see" anything wrong with him. McCellan got it with Benn. Nobody could see an injury so Don King called him a dog. Guy nearly died during the night.

Another good example would be Kid Akeem vs Robert Quiroga. Akeem finished the fight without a mark on his body, in stark contrast to the bashed up Quiroga. Shortly afterwards, Akeem collapsed in his corner, and was rushed to hospital where he underwent emergency surgery. He eventually died, years later, following a return to the sport which saw him die after a training session or after an illegal bout, depending on whom you listen to. Had Quiroga quit in that fight, he may have been forgiven, thanks to his bashed up mug. But Akeem, who was in mortal danger, would not have been forgiven, despite his perilous state, as he had not indicated that there was anything wrong with him.

But a guy with a face full of blood from a cut over his eye get's the free pass.


With Klitschko, the guy gave the impression of being in command, mainly because he had been sucking it up from as early as the third round without showing any sign of injury. Then he quits and the world goes batshit.:boohoo:

 

I can understand why he quit, its a serious injury

but Byrd was in no shape to take advantage of it... he could have held him off with one arm quite easily I think... It wouldnt surprise me if Vitali regretted the decision later

 

I can see the logic of this but it remains one tiny fraction of the argument.

Much of the logic for quitting is not what Byrd was going to do......it was what effect would the continued use of that shoulder do to Klitschkos arm?

What effect was the pain having on Klitschkos own cognitive faculties?

It could well have gotten to the stage where the arm was damaged permanently....that's the logic of quitting, the logic of preventing irreversible damage to the body, not necessarily inflicted by Byrd, but rather innately, through injury.

The damage to the reputation was reversible. It took time and it took balls but it was reversed.

Perhaps most tellingly, the British journalist, Glyn Leach, who really let Klitschko have it, has as recently as THIS EDITION of Boxing Monthly been writing about the Byrd fight, {not directly}, stating that all heavyweights are capable of hurting each other, a stance very much removed from his perceived wisdom of 10 years ago.

Klitschko made the right decision. The pundits and experts are eating humble pie, he is looking to make millions of dollars in his next fight which he wants to be at MSG, he is in a position to demand options on fights, if he wants them, he has the WBC belt and 6 defences thereof.

 

but to guess what may have happened to his arm if he kept fighting is no different than to guess what may have happened had he simply protected it and jabbed... I dont see how one guess is more valid than the other

Im not calling the man a quitter or a coward, Im not pulling a bigdawg here, but I am saying there are examples of men with similar situations wining fights

 

He must have been in considerable pain. People seem to think that he merely had to run the clock down. His body was shutting down. He quit before he passed out. People seem to miss this point.