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Originally posted by Dr. Z
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Based on my findings, Vitali was 7-2 against opponents who were ranked by Ring when Vitali fought them. Those results, and the ranking of the opponent in the issue immediately preceding the fight, are as follows:
- 04/01/2000 - RTD by 9 Chris Byrd (#10 at Heavyweight)
- 06/21/2003 - TKO by 6 Lennox Lewis (Champion at Heavyweight)
- 04/24/2004 - TKO8 Corrie Sanders (#3 at Heavyweight)
- 12/11/2004 - TKO8 Danny Williams (#9 at Heavyweight)
- 10/11/2008 - RTD8 Sam Peter (#2 at Heavyweight)
- 03/21/2009 - TKO9 Juan Carlos Gomez (#9 at Heavyweight)
- 09/26/2009 - RTD10 Chris Arreola (#6 at Heavyweight)
- 12/12/2009 - UD12 Kevin Johnson (#10 at Heavyweight)
- 09/10/2011 - TKO10 Tomasz Adamek (#2 at Heavyweight)
His numbers are indeed better than Dempsey and Tunney but in Dempsey's case there were no Ring-ranked opponents until 1925 to measure and Tunney spent a hiccup of his career at heavyweight. While I think Vitali would have beaten him, his record of beaten Ring-ranked opponents at heavyweight was NOT better than Marciano or several of the names you list relative to the rankings of their time:
Marciano was 11-0 with 9 KO's including 9 wins against fighters ranked in Ring's top five when he beat them. Several wins came in rematches, including as champion, but as champion he beat his number one contender five times. Vitali had three top five wins his career and beat the highest ranked heavyweight who wasn't his brother (Peter, Adamek) twice.
Tyson had 13 wins against ranked opponents, 14 if not for weed making Golota a No Contest, 7 of the wins against opponents ranked top five or in Spinks case listed as champion going in.
Holyfield: 11 wins against Ring-ranked heavyweights, not including his run at cruiserweight. This does not include Ruiz or Mercer, both of whom were unranked when Holyfield beat them.
Foreman: 10 wins. Frazier: 11 wins. Liston: 7. The only name you listed who had less than Vitali was Bowe who had six (with two of them being Golota). Vitali had one more win against top five fare; Bowe beat an ATG twice. The Vitali comeback and the addition of most of his top ten wins within that comeback is a solid argument in his favor.
Vitali fares well in mythical matches and matches up extremely well. He's probably a hard night for just about anyone. But his actual resume is shallow. Even his Ring Mag championship is, and I wrote at the time should have been, highly questionable. Vitali had zero wins against Ring-ranked opponents when they recognized a 1-3 fight between he and Sanders as for the vacant crown. He shot to number one on a competitive loss and a win over an unranked Kirk Johnson who came in at 260. Byrd's questionable decision over Oquendo surely didn't help Byrd (but he still had three top ten wins at that point including a masterpiece against Tua). Ruiz had three top ten wins (and the Jones loss) including a lopsided win over Hasim Rahman immediately before Vit-Sanders. There was a bit of damn the torpedoes going on without much regard for actual results. Sanders lost to Rahman. Unlike Vitali, Rahman actually beat Lewis. It's been odd to watch that win mean less than Vitali's loss but the Lewis-Rahman II result gave a closure a Vitali rematch never did.
Anyways, there are two solid sides to this. There is what Vitali looked like to a lot of people and there is what he really accomplished. If the former is what you like, the latter doesn't matter. If the latter matters, his resume is respectable but historically average against other greats and takes a ton of heavy lifting to describe as more IMO.
Dr. Z
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