Comments Thread For: James Toney Too Risky For Vitali Klitschko, Says Goossen

[Dave Rado]

Invalid argument. Roach is a much more honest man than that.

Regardless of whether he's honest, whether a fighter is boring or not is completely subjective. It's as subjective as whether a particular type of music is boring or not.

I personally don't like to watch a fighter solely relying on his reach and big stature to carry himself to victory.

It's a huge exaggeration to say he solely relies on his size. Dimitrenko is near enough the same height as, and has longer reach than, either of the Klitschkos, but Chambers beat him easily. Few people are giving Chambers much chance of beating Wlad.

Many great boxers rely to some extent on some physical advantage or another. Hearns had a big height and reach advantage as well, when he was at Welterweight, and he had a power advantage; Pac has a speed advantage; many fighters have a power advantage.

Lewis took advantage of his height advantage just as much as Wlad does, and more than Vitali does; but Lewis wasn't criticised nearly as much as they are for being boring.

Also, many people find Hopkins very boring to watch, but people don't criticise him for it nearly as much as they criticise the Klitschkos.

I, too find Wlad boring to watch, but that's not so much because he knows how to fight tall, but rather because he's a bit mechanical and much too over-cautious. And although I find him boring, I still think he's an exceptional fighter. I don't find Vitali boring at all, although he isn't as fluid as I'd like.

[Jim Jeffries]

How has Vitali improved ? I thought his punches were more crisp and straighter before he retired. Maybe he has improved things I have not noticed. Ironically, Vitali was doing pitty pat punching against Johnson...

When Vitali fought Byrd, he'd been a pro for less than 3 1/2 years.

You don't think it's possible that he's improved since then?

[edgarg]

Excuses. Byrd was in the fight all along thanks to his slickness, skills and speed. The comment about the ropes is very inaccurate too. The fight happened in the middle of the ring and Byrd, at times, was the aggressor, backing Vitali up. Vitali is a *****, as he has shown when he quit like a ***** ahead on the scorecards instead of enduring the pain and fighting on.

''It hurts too much.'' - Vitali

Vitali has a thing or 2 to learn from Jean Pascal about heart.

If you had a rotator cuff problem you'd "know all about it"; Klitschko was only backed up in the last round, before he had to concede. Look at the fight again.

Also, Byrd was noted as the lightest puncher in the heavyweight division, he brough zero power up from middleweight. In fact, as a middleweight he was also regarded as a light puncher.

[edgarg]

Toney is shot. So Vitali, like you said, wouldn't get credit.

As for the remark about Peter the club fighter, well, the club fighter was a hot contender back when he fought Toney, he was impressive, he lost the first fight (unofficially), then beat Toney, and don't forget he floored chinny Wlady 3 times... But Peter is shot too now.

None of those "3 KD's was a punch.Peter should have been disqualified for blatant rabbit=punching by an even quarter competent ref. But Randy Neumann is not even passes that mediocre level.

[nomadman]

None of those "3 KD's was a punch.Peter should have been disqualified for blatant rabbit=punching by an even quarter competent ref. But Randy Neumann is not even passes that mediocre level.

The last knockdown was legit. The others came from clubbing blows to the back of Wlad's head and should have been discounted.

[edgarg]

If Toney actually got out there with 100% focus in training and motivation, he can give a chellnge, but that being said, it would ever be a win. Right now he won't be able to take on Wlad because he doesn't move enough. Vitali would be a good slugfest, with his size making the difference.

I think what has been ignored in all the preceding posters, [for I haven't seen it even mentioned] is that in Klitschko we have a dominant champion, possibly the most dominent champion ever, who has never even been staggered, and has won all of his fights , except ONE, by KO. Even in his 2 losses from injury, he'd won almost every round, with the strong possibility that he'd have taken them by KO as well.

[edgarg]

Being boring is not totally subjective. It's partially subjective. Who can argue Pacquiao is boring ? Who can argue Marciano, Louis, Frazier were boring ? I have already assessed they (Klits) are dominant. But you can be both dominant and boring. Everybody who is not a Klit nuthugger will tell you : they are effective, they dominate, but they are boring. Even with Vitali retired, the division can't really be in a worse state. Vitali is boring because of his style, and Wladimir is boring because he is overly defense minded (chinny). I don't say they're boring because I resent them : I resent them because they're boring. Huge difference. Vitali is so ugly to watch : awkward, bad technique, Joe Calzaghe like punching sometimes, bad foot work, his mouth is wide open from the very first round to the last... Just horrible. I don't like watching Vitali, but since he has a belt and the best contenders out there have to go through him, I'm kinda forced to watch him. Wlad is different. Huge potential, but boring.

Anyway, I respect your opinion, and I hope you respect mine, because it has nothing to do with hatred, and I'm not even American...

Don't forget my point, if we go back to the beginning in this thread, was that since Byrd was effective and pretty successful against Vitali, which I have proven, a better version of Toney could have given him a tough and close fight. That has nothing to do with hate as far as I'm concerned, but the Klit nuthuggers prefer to say Vitali would have crushed him and blablablablabla. It sickens me.

You've "proven" it to your own satisfaction only, but to no one elses..........

[edgarg]

You are so dishonest, manipulating all I've said, that it's depressing. I have never said fights should be scored based on punch stats : I used the punch stats to prove you were wrong when you were saying that BYRD WAS TOTALLY INEFFECTIVE. Just admit it, you were wrong, and now, you try to discredit me acting like I said or suggested things I've not...

My point has never been that Byrd was winning, I said all along he was losing, but he was competitive in the fight and landed almost as much as Vitali. That was my point. Landing around 40%-45% of your punches on Vitali, that's pretty effective to me. Punch stats often reflect more what happened during the course of the fight then the scoring. Of course Byrd's punches didn't have a big impact on Vitali, Byrd is not a puncher ; neverthless, he was scoring and making Vitali miss a lot. The punch stats show that. They don't show who was landing the better and harder punches, but at least, they show how much you landed. Those punch stats invalidate your earlier statement that Byrd was totally ineffective, as I have already said. Now if you still look to come back with another dishonest reply, please refrein yourself.

By the way, it rarely happens, but there is no doubt the punch stats of the Calzaghe-Hopkins match were ****ed. There is no way Joe landed 200+ punches on Hopkins. That just didn't happen. It was a very close fight, and Hopkins would have won a unanimous decision if he didn't run out of gas in the last rounds.

I actually was reading you with great enjoyment, watching you argue from the general to the general [instead of to the particuar] until you said that Hopkins did so well against Calzaghe. For me, you lost credibility right there. He lost by the proverbial "mile".

A major, well-ignored-by-you-point in your Byrd megillahs is that you completely don't seem to know that Byrd, as a shoe-shining puncher, could get of 5-6 tip-taps, whilst Klitschko might throw no more than 1 or 2. That Klitschko therw so many more than Byrd, [even with the close landing figures] shows that Byrd punched on a minimum of occasions during the fight. I have the fight, which, believe me, I only need to see once to know exactly how it played. And I've run it several times over the years.

You should be ashamed of yourself trying to deceive those who never saw the fight.

[edgarg]

The last knockdown was legit. The others came from clubbing blows to the back of Wlad's head and should have been discounted.

Look at it again. At very best, it barely brushed Klitschko. He went to the canvas because he bent backwards so far to avoid the punch, that this towering fighter's shoulders became level with the top rope. In other words he had fallen backwards, and was propelled to the canvas becas he consequently lost his balance. As you may recall, he got up tout suite. right away, ready to resume and very obviously not in the slightest bothered by the "punch',

You may also recall that this was the culmination of a last despairing ruch by Peter, which propelled Klitschko rapidly backwards, to avoid the wild, breeze-making swings, ending when he overbalanced and fell back into the ropes. My honest opinion is that the punch just missed.

Watch the fight again.

[edgarg]

The last knockdown was legit. The others came from clubbing blows to the back of Wlad's head and should have been discounted.

The 2nd. spurious KD was not even a rabbit punch, and the HBO commentators called it correctly. Peter had missed with a wild, out of reach, left uppercut, his arm extended over Klitschko's right shoulder, and in bringing his left arm back he came down on K's shoulder, grabbed it, and pushed him down to the canvas. The blind ref gave a KD, as he did for the blatant rabbit punch. Peter may have practiced that manoeuvre, it didn't look accidental. watch that round again in slow-mo.

Pretty sneaky..........