Vitali Klitschko's best win?

Just one name please. Let's try to come up with a consensus.

Thanks.

 

I'd say Peter because of the long lay off.

 

I was thinking Peter too.

I should have been more clear though... Forget layoffs, impressive nature of wins etc...

Who is the best fighter he ever beat?

 

Hide for me

 

Hard to say.

Perhaps Gomez or Johnson.

 

No homer replies please.

 

Johnson was such a piece of shit by the time he got a shot at Vitali though. Still, he's up there for sure.

 

::

It really could be his best win though. Maybe Sanders. Dunno. There isn't much there, is there.

 

:: We cool, slice.

Sanders is a good call. It is quite thin.

 

Yeah he fought two guys called Johnson. They all name the same to me.:hump::hump:

 

Kirk.

What's your name for this thread, Irish?

 

Are you looking for his best win or the best fighter he beat?

 

Kevin.

To both.

Kevin.

I call this thread Kevin.

 

Best fighter he beat.

 

Orlin Norris.

World #3 ranked heavyweight during the glorious years of prime Tyson and friends.

 

I was hoping for serious replies only. This is an important thread, that could lead to many others.

 

Vaughn Bean- the man who took Moorer and Holyfield the distance.

Evander was in the Ring Magazine top 10 when he needed 12 rounds to beat Bean.

So Bean was obviously a great fighter.

I'll go with Bean.

 

I guess it is pretty thin, huh?

Think I could name 100 heavyweights that have defeated a better fighter than Vitali ever has?

 

Yes....but could you name 100 heavyweights who could have defeated VitAli?

Vitali could beat a fat, white, bald knucklehead with a drinking problem who had been inactive for 6 years and it wouldn't get much praise.

 

Want to help me with it? Could be fun!

 

You would be lucky if you came up with the names of 15 men who could have and would have definitively beaten him in a 12 round fight.

Go ahead.

Trash your reputation on it.

Be my guest.

 

That's not what I'm talking about though. I mean just a list of guys that have a better win than any of Vitali's.

 

I agree. Vitali did not have as good of a ledger as some of the past great heavyweights. You can't blame him for that though, he is just in a shitty generation.

I think the impressive thing about Vitali though is the ease that he dispatched most of his opponents.

 

Gerrie Coetzee has a better wins than Vitali. He has better wins because a bunch of cunts think that Leon Spinks and Okie Dokes were really brilliant fighters.

Billy Backus has better win over Jose Napoles than Carlos Monzon does. Backus stopped Napoles at Welterweight when Napoles was in his prime.

Now....if you want to put your Generic-Brand intellectual snobbery to the test you fuck off and put together a list of guys who had better wins and who would have also beaten Vitali out of sight.

 

So what do you guys think? Is it between Sanders and Peter? Maybe Gomez or Hide? I'd like to form a consensus here.

 

It's hard to gauge how Vitali would do against the greats because the two best fighters he fought both stopped him. :dunno:

 

The ledger is definitely not replete with big names, at least that he beat.

To limit the discussion to a rubric of such narrow and definite terms is unfair, subjective and unhelpful.

Did Mike Grant lose to Lennox Lewis, or did the nature of the event that night get to him?

Consider the point further- the fight Vitali had with Sanders. That could have gone tits up in a very big way, very quickly. The family name was out the window if he lost. It showed- Vitali looked razor thin and very tight. It was packed out in the Staples center and he was hurt in the first round. But he got it together and battered Sanders eventually.

Wladimir has a better ledger. But Vitali beat Sanders, in a high-pressure situation. Thats what makes me regard Vitali in the light I do. His defusing of situations which could have gone very badly very quickly. Its what got Larry Holmes such a great reputation. Not the wins, per se- but the efficacy with which he negotiated the situation.

Take, for instance, the two fights Vitali lost- injuries, both of them. Now there is the woulda-shoulda-coulda-was-gonna dynamic to the Lewis fight but the simple reality is that he was 4-2 up in rounds and doing better than OK when they stopped it. Took the fight on 10 days notice. No beefs from me- but Lewis never rematched him and that needs to be taken into account. It is instead overlooked, continuously.

Lewis, it seems, was prepared to admit to something very few others will.

Rocky Marciano on the other hand never fought Floyd Patterson but appears to not have his reputation at all besmirched by it. Vitali gets less credit for fighting Lewis on 10 days notice than Marciano loses for not fighting Patterson.

Joe Louis and Joe Walcott were big names. I cannot see either of them last pissing time- especially the jaded versions that Marciano fought {less Walcott perhaps than Louis} with Vitali.

Instead, the man loses credit for utterly dominant wins over undefeated and fresh fighters like Johnson and Arreola, both of whom ultimately took poundings despite offering vastly contrasting styles.

Was Kevin Johnson really inferior to Leon Spinks or Jimmy Young?? Was Chris Arreola really inferior to Don Cockell or to Buster Mathis Sr??

 

Thats right. I forgot that Byrd had "stopped him". With bodyshots. Chris also beat Holyfield, Tua, Mo Harris. Drew with Golota. Won more rounds against Andrew than Riddick Bowe did. He also lost to Wladimir and that makes Vitali look even worse cos Wlad is a bum.

 

Which was the bigger, harder occasion for Vitali?

Peter was cinch. Vitali had come through the trials of the post-Byrd derision and the efforts of the Lewis and Sanders fights.

Gomez was a hard fight stylistically and physically but again the occasion lacked the edge.

Hide is a tougher one but a handful of crusty Brits roaring abuse really doesn't come close to the Sanders fight in Los Angeles.

That one was for all the dice- and it helps that Sanders was an innately better fighter than any of the others mentioned so far. We know he was a better fighter as he gave Rahman a better fight than Lewis managed a few months later.

Then again so did Maskaev. Twice.

Fuck it Lewis stock is going down by the minute and dragging Bowe and Holyfields with it.

You know what you've started here steve-dave?

 

I think Gomez or Sanders. A couple of years prior to Vitali beating him he was very highly regarded, but with the ease that Vitali beat him, sort of tarnished his reputation.