Is Vitali Klitschko an all-time great?

[silkov]

How about you tell us why Vitali is a quitter when he couldnt go on against Byrd, but fighters like Chacon etc are warriors still when they quit in fights????...

[barry]

Well, if had watched anything from Chacon you would have seen the wars with Boza-Edwards...Arguello...Olivaresd...Lopez...funny, Vitali has no examples of true bravery, unless you want to say that his cut eye was bravery, but I asked a couple of world champion about a severly cut eye as to whether it took guts to go, or was it just something that happenes...well I was told that nothing about it hurts and that the fighter never knows what the cut is like until they go back to the dressing room, so the Lewis bout does not show warrior mentality like Chacon did many times over...hell, Chacon even fought on the day that his wife committed suicide an you still want to try to mention Vitali with someone of Chacon's stature...typical!

[silkov]

I never said that Vitali was in the same class as Chacon, I'm just talking about the stoppages... I know all about Chacon, have tons of his fights, all the Olivares bouts, so dont try and say I'm calling him a quitter... but he didnt finish some fights the same as Vitali... whats the difference...?...

[Tantum]

This shit really is too funny... You all are getting worked up over something pointless...

John L, I didn't call you retarded, but the point you were trying to make was completely baseless. You can't argue who someone hasn't fought... Because that argument can be made about every boxer that's ever fought. You can only judge them by the fights they've had.

[barry]

>>>You can't argue who someone hasn't fought...<<<

That's true for fighters who actually accomplished something...the last time I checked Vitali was not one of those fighters!

[Tantum]

You can argue a level of competition, you can't argue specific opponents. It's nitpicky, and pointless.

A) You can't fight everybody.

B) When a match fails to arise, it's not always one person's fault, or sometimes it's neither person's fault.

[Cojimar 1945]

I think people are drawing silly conclusions from the Lewis fight. I don't think the fact that an older Lewis had trouble with Vitali does anything to establish Vitali as the second best fighter in the division. A younger Lewis struggled with Bruno over the first six rounds and had a close fight with Mercer. People have given Lewis trouble before and Lewis has actually been beaten.

I cannot fathom how this shows Vitali is better than all the other contenders.

[pundit]

I think people are drawing silly conclusions from the Lewis fight. I don't think the fact that an older Lewis had trouble with Vitali does anything to establish Vitali as the second best fighter in the division. A younger Lewis struggled with Bruno over the first six rounds and had a close fight with Mercer. People have given Lewis trouble before and Lewis has actually been beaten.

I cannot fathom how this shows Vitali is better than all the other contenders.

Well, I just couldn't imagine that any of the other contenders (Byrd, Ruiz, Brewster) would have given Lewis a simlar amount of trouble. Plus, there are of course the 9 rounds of one-armed domination of Chris Byrd.

[pundit]

Ruiz and Byrd would have both been ready to go 12 rounds. Lewis wasn't. They would've given him a hell of a lot of trouble. Nearly anyone in the top 10 would have given Lewis trouble that night. His days as the elite heavyweight were long gone. Didn't you watch how out of shape he was in that fight? How fat he was? How undedicated he was to training?

Bud you're boring.

[Tantum]

I actually think Ruiz would have had a much better chance against Lewis than Byrd would.

[Cojimar 1945]

Well for starters Hasim Rahman managed to beat Lennox Lewis yet he lost to John Ruiz. This does not mean Ruiz would have necessarily beaten Lewis but it shows that Lewis is capable of losing to someone who is not even at the level of Ruiz. Rahman has also been kayoed twice by Oleg Maskaev. I see no reason to conclude that Maskaev, Byrd or Ruiz could not trouble a Lewis that was not at the top of his game and I think people will agree that when Lewis faced Vitali he was not at his best.

Frank Bruno was fighting evenly with Lewis through the first six rounds. Do people feel that Bruno is a much better fighter than the best fighters of 2003?