Riddick Bowe (Prime) vs Vitali Klitschko

Absolutely. Folks need to look past just the stats and focus more on the fighters involved.

 

Bowe all the way. Vitali would be competitive, but either gets stopped late or hangs on to lose a clear decision. Bowe at his best was simply a better fighter.

 

Its not often Bowe finds himself in a mythical match where he had better competition than his opponent, but...

 

One fighter. Who was smaller than him. Plus Vitali actually had the balls to get in the ring with Lewis on short notice, unlike Bowe who pulled the most obvious duck job in history, yet Vitali is the "fraud"?? Riiiiiiiiight

 

People get too caught up in the Aesthetics of fighting styles.

Bowe was more textbook with a great jab, great looking combinations etc. Vitali, however, had the intangibles in his favour in addition to having the size, power and chin necessary to both survive Bowe and hurt him.

 

Yup.

As much as Ramonza tries to argue it, you can still be successful despite doing things "wrong".

 

One first ballot HOF, ATG fighter who was smaller than him.

Vitali has lost, IN HIS PRIME, to a lesser fighter who was MUCH smaller than him.

Bowe "ducking" Lewis was all Rock Newman. They wanted to build the fight up more to make more money. Bowe actually did sign to fight Lewis a while later, but then Lewis went and got knocked out by McCall (and by that poiint Bowe was already getting fat/lazy).

 

Yeah, when you're fighting tubby midgets and/or have huge physical advantages over your opponents. When you're fighting a 6'5" monster who does everything well, that isn't going to go so well for you.

Again, I would also pick a prime Holyfield over Vitali with no hesitation.

 

The Byrd loss was a loss, yeah, technically I guess. However I give it about as much weight as Griffins win over RJJ. Byrd was getting tonked on the scorecards.

Holyfield was a great win, and whether you think Holyfield would have beaten Vitali or not is a moot point, I disagree entirely but that's your opinion.

Bowe-Lewis didn't need to be built, all the ingredients were there for a huge superfight. I have a feeling other fighters wouldn't get the same benefit of the doubt if they done the exact same thing Bowe did. It was a duck job, plain and simple.

 

He done alright against Lewis who was superior to Bowe. However, whether you think Bowe would have beaten Vitali is cool, it's a good styles match up and it has a good chance of happening. It's this supposed "massive gulf in class" I take issue with, when it quite clearly isn't there.

 

I missed the part where RJJ quit on his stool against Griffin as Griffin was coming on. "IT HURTS TOO MUCH!!!"

I also missed the part where RJJ had a ridiculous size advantage over Griffin and Griffin took the fight on 10 days notice, as Byrd did.

Re: ducking, if that were really the case, why would Bowe have signed to fight Lewis before the McCall fight?

A prime Bowe would have knocked out the Lewis that beat Vitali.

 

You know what I meant, they're losses, yes, but freak occurrences. Do you honestly think Byrd would have won a rematch? Cmon.

RJJ had a ridiculous speed advantage over Griffin, should that be held against him? I mean, what should Vitali do about his height? Fight on his knees?

Why didn't Bowe just fight Lewis as was originally agreed? As I said before, it didn't need to be hyped, all the ingredients were there. The difference in money wouldn't have been substantially improved by holding out.

I see that you don't agree with quitting when they have a serious injury, that's cool, plenty of other people agree with that position on here, I just don't happen to be one of them

 

I'm not at all saying that Vitali shouldn't exploit his advantage against opposition that can't do anything about it. I'm saying against opposition that could do something about it, he would be SOL.

Just like if RJJ had ever encountered someone who was as fast as he was, but with better fundamentals, he would have been in trouble.

But RJJ's speed advantage was a once-in-a-lifetime type deal that was EXTREMELY difficult to deal with; Vitali's size is/was impressive, but it would hardly be insurmountable for a lot of ATG HWs.

 

I get what you're saying, I just don't agree with you that because he hasn't had the opportunity to test himself against better opposition it automatically means he would be found wanting

 

All you need, in Klitschko's case, is the worst era in HW history on your side.

 

No kidding. That's the way it is.