Thoughts on Klitschko/Arreola, 2nd Time Around

I think Kevin Johnson is the only one that can give him trouble for the first 5 rounds, but if Vitali is still Vitali he should take him out late. Kevin Johnson sucks. I've seen the guy a few times and I'm not impressed. In fact, I saw him fight in person against a bum and I had it scored really close until Johnson stopped him. The only thing he has going for him is a great jab, other than that he's useless. Vitali would ruin Kevin Johnson.

i know there must have been a billion threads about this fight, but lets do a reexamination. well, Vitali is still the f#*king man! like i said a decade ago, this guy is no joke. onto the fight. holy damn, vitali looked like a welterweight in the ring saturday night! man, i have seen about all of his fights, and he just keeps improving - not even like he has to. his footwork was as near perfect as it gets when it needed to be, and was relaxed when he needed a short break. damn! seriously, it was amazing to see a guy who is nearly 6'8" move in a floyd mayweather type of way. yeah, i am serious - it looked that good. he dodged punches like i have never seen another heavyweight do since Ali. it is like he just decided to show how well he can box in a technical yet pretty damn fluid way. looking at all of the other comments on the net, i agree, it was a masterpeice. chris nipples arreola, upon second inspection, did throw more punches than i thought he did. he applied as much pressure as he could. and he did throw a decent amount of punches. he just couldnt hit the guy - who is the 2nd biggest target in the division, but moves so damn well with his 6th sense of punches that he barely got tagged more than a few times. hats off to chris for actually putting up a noteworthy fight(as much as one can fighting vitali) - he did more than gomez and peter combined IMO. but, Vitali is so damned good, it was a losing battle from round 1. vitali brought out his boxing skills more in this fight than most any other i can think of off the top. he dodged as punches were starting to be thrown, he pivoted providing movement with a constant dynamic all the while throwing every single type of punch known to boxing, and more. he went toe-to-toe at times, and at others simply moved out of the way(he was fast enough to do that, which is hard to imagine for a guy over 6'6" unless u saw saturday's fight, u might not have even believed it and thought it was an overhyping by a klitschko fan.) chris came out with a decent gameplan - apply pressure and throw 'em when there was little space. however, the constant pivoting and boxing clinic foiled christobal's plan A. plan B seemed to be based on being erradic and tossing wild haymakers. which, at times had minimal success. but, VK was litterally a docter in the ring using a surgeon-like precision to land punches in between chris's tightly knit earmuffed defence. he just knows how to adjust on an instant and effectively neutralized anything nipples had in his bag of tricks. i give much props to chris for having the balls to come straight in for much of the fight. i am sure he is still feeling every one of the hundreds of landed punches. this fight, vitali was clearly not looking to KO chris with plan A. simply outbox and wear down(the kevin johnson fight was one where vitali displayed his power). it seemed that he did this with unbelievable ease. yeah, this was a masterpeice. arreola's only major punches, outside of a handful of mostly glancing blows came from a half legal half clinch. but, the man tried. and, it was obvious that he wasnt just fighting for a paycheck. so hats off again. vitali, well, the man looked like a 23 year old prodigy. in fact, he was more agile than most light-heavies, cruisers, or other lighter weight fighters i have seen. he practically circled with punches the whole fight minus the moments of standing in the huge pocket that vitali has 'cause of his positioning and wingspan. so, in retrospect, lets hear what a 2nd look at the fight looks like to u guys. the fight was actually more exciting than i originaly thought. both guys did there best. and, while mayweather is an awesome technical boxer, it is more fun to me to see a guy with power execute that type of gameplan. Good post. VK served up a masterclass of ring generalship, and I agree he looks better than ever. And that Arreola put up a hell of an effort - much better than Peter or Gomez. He probably would have went the full twelve, but his corner saved him taking too much of a beating. I just hope we get to see VK a few more times before he hangs up the gloves. verses Haye especially!

It was an impressive fight. A demonstration of skill/experience vs. bullocks. After the Peter fight I thought, nobody can win agianst this Klitschko. He has a ring generalship, reach, precision, and power, that currently there is nobody out there to challenge him (Wlad, perhaps). He is so far above his challengers, it is frustrating for everybody who looks at his belt. For 250 lbs and his size he moves faster and better coordinated than most CW or lighter fighters. When we look at the discussion on this board about "Vitali beats Ali/Holmes/Foreman/Tyson/Holyfield" now, it just shows he has earned much respect. Enough to compare him to the Hall-of-Famers (where he already is), and the All-Time-Greats (where he might get). His resume might be lacking in comparison to Lewis or Ali, but his skill is probably there. I doubt that there are/were more than 20 fighters, who could have beaten him (prime vs prime). Probably less than 10. And I think he is as good today as he was in 2003, when he faced Lewis. Perhaps not as fast and strong, but with even greater skill.

I give Arreola a lotta credit for not giving up and just becoming up a walking punching bag like other Klitschko victims... He never stopped pressing...

Yup, Arreola did the quintessential "oh I'm not hurt" that is actually known by all boxing experts as a sure sign that a fighter IS hurt. Whenever a fighter gets hit bad and tries to "play it off" by jumping around on each foot like Arreola did it's their way of trying to show that they aren't hurt when they reall are. If you remember the most famous occurrence of this sort is when Tito got those free shots on Mayorga and wobbled the shit out of Mayorga and Ricardo pretended to do this little dance with his feet similar to what Arreola kept doing but in reality you could tell that he was hurt. It wasn't fooling me, I think Vitali was hurting him bad whereas Vitali in a post fight interview said that "I can't say that Arreola ever hurt me because I never gave him an opportunity to really hit me" (paraphrased) e x a c t l y! u obviously were not fooled by that sh!t looking at your detailed analysis and examples. in boxing, you want to have on your best poker face cause u dont want the other guy to smell blood. never show weakness. only fake weakness to set a trap. and chris doesnt have the kind of skills or mindset to set a trap. but notice vitali does all the time. one things - he keeps his hands low. so, a casual boxing fan thinks he might be easy to hit - but just ask his opponents - high ranked pro fighters that cant even touch him more than a handful of time per round. vitali plays his hands low cause he knows what to do when a person bites. he can use his movement to shift while countering. shift WHILE countering. that is very important as while vitali is shifting out of the way, at the same time he is getting into a position to throw and land a punch. this is exactly what makes floyd such a bother to most of his opponents. and in my training, we dont block either, we do the same - combining offence and defence.

well, in all fairness, christabal(and u have to have some balls to let people know that ur name is christobal) has a bit of pop. i mean, some of the punches he threw would have dropped your guinn, or maybe rahman, or some others. i could tell that he just was hesitant to throw them sometimes at the risk of getting clocked by a perfectly timed klitschko hook or overhand right. when he did get that punch off, it was either dodged through anticipation, or the f#cking crazy 6th sense vitali has, or blocked/countered before the punch would reach critical areas. vitali is just awesome at reading opponents. and this is a skill heavily focused on in my various martial arts(called Ting Jing or listening skills). we gotta give chris a little golf clap for putting his face on the line though. so many others are even less ballsy and look like they wont even throw a punch most of the time.

Gomez is a very good fighter thats why. Not really a HW but a tricky Casamayor like CW. Anyway, I rewatched it the next day too and it was just as easy as when I saw it on tequila the night before. Pure ownage. Very good comparison, not as good as Casamayor but very similar to.

the.executoiner...... what i love about VK's game is that he doesnt just throw jabs out there like wladimir does. he started the fight with a left hook i believe. vitali throws as diversified punches as i have ever seen. Your right...Emmanuel kept pointing it out...he's just on a whole different skill level than Arreola...I expected what we saw but I thought it would go the distance... Arreola aint a power puncher...he's too slow...Vitali's too skilled and too big...

did anyone else notice how arreola hopped on his left and right foot quickly to regain balance after getting hit with a decent power shot. it was like his way of shaking off the effects of the punch and not appear wobbled. but i could tell he was. not only the gut shots, but the left and overhand right worked well at times. especially vitali's left earlier, and his right later. he brought that down like a godd*mn hammer! yet, i still say he was not making an effort to power punch his way to victory. it was like he immediately figured out that chris was just going to walk straight in, hands up. and, the smartest thing to do in the instance is to pivot and hit the side of the jaw or go low while making an opening for a split down the center. which is exactly what happened. seriously, vitali is the smartest damn fighter i have seen. floyd is smart, so was tszyu. and a few others as well. lennox was fairly smart. but vitali makes everything look easy like floyd or pacquiao. and, dare i say that his performance was fu*king beautiful. how about an iron fist up the asses of haters. btw, how many haters are left? remember when people said anyone with a pulse or that could apply pressure could beat vitali cause he just steps back. well, i didnt exactly see him getting his ass kicked, or stepping just backwards only. now wladimir, he has to pivot a bit more sometimes like big bro. and, taking your kids to a fight, when you are fighting the godd@mn terminater???? stupid or what? remember byrd's fam when he got tore up by wladimir? not a good idea. clearly!

j is back! point blank. vitali is a top 10 heavyweight of all time period and the second smartest fighter on the planet besides floyd. he is on of the top 3-5 most skilled heavyweights ever to. face it he is a ATG and its no if and or buts. he needs to retire because no one i mean no one can **** with him period

the.executoiner...... what i love about VK's game is that he doesnt just throw jabs out there like wladimir does. he started the fight with a left hook i believe. vitali throws as diversified punches as i have ever seen. and did u see those many bombs of uppercut-ish straights to the gut of the smaller arreola. damn, for a guy that big to land over 25 power gut-shots with precision, that is something i have rarely, if ever, seen. fulcrum, thnx. i will have to go back and watch that fight again. but i remember that vitali didnt seem as motivated in that fight. however, i also didnt feel that he was too frustrated. of course he might have been more technically tricky, but i dont happen to recall him struggling in any way. i guess i will have to go back to my archives and watch it in the next day or two.

I knew Arreola was gonna lose after the first round ended...he's too slow to trap Vitali and had no defense for the jab... Only one who's gonna beat a Wlad or Vitali is a fit heavyweight who has some real boxing skills and has the size to put a dent in them... And I don't see any heavyweight with that...all of these so called threats are becoming easy jab contests...