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It's harder to make a case for Wlad since he holds back a lot of the time, and yes, I do think that's a legitimate argument because he has the type of knockouts to prove that it's not just smoke and air. When taken at his best you can see that he's capable of putting someone's lights out with one shot, as he's done on several occasions (Chambers, Thompson, Brock, Shufford). But there's no doubt that Wlad is a boxer first and a KO fighter second, and because of that he rarely puts himself into a shot if it compromises his balance or his defence. So whilst it's his fault for not getting guys out of there sooner, it can't really be used to downplay his evident punching power. I don't consider him in the upper echelon, but he's not that far below.
With Vitali I agree with you. Vit's an accumulation puncher, and despite his high KO percentage (a misleading stat) he doesn't really belong in a discussion like this. I will say though, that pre-retirement he used to have beastly strength. There was a moment in the Danny Williams fight where he literally lifted the 260lb Williams clean off his feet with a clubbing punch to the side of the head. I remember watching that at the time and doing a little double take. Here's the pic.
In fact all through that fight Vitali treated Danny like a ragdoll, knocking him to one side then knocking him back the other side. Once more let me reiterate that this was a 260lb stocky man getting handled as if he weighed no more than half that amount. Pretty crazy stuff.
And yeah I understand raw strength is different from punching power, but it factors in at some level, especially when you have as much raw strength as someone like Foreman and maybe even Vitali did, who really don't have much else to account for their power, Foreman especially.
I have no problem with people doubting Briggs's word. But if you're going to doubt one man's word on the basis that it was at odds with what actually happened (perfectly reasonable), then you need to do the same for every other fighter who did likewise, Holmes, Berbick, Botha, all of them who claimed that someone who never knocked them out punched harder than someone who did.
With Vitali I agree with you. Vit's an accumulation puncher, and despite his high KO percentage (a misleading stat) he doesn't really belong in a discussion like this. I will say though, that pre-retirement he used to have beastly strength. There was a moment in the Danny Williams fight where he literally lifted the 260lb Williams clean off his feet with a clubbing punch to the side of the head. I remember watching that at the time and doing a little double take. Here's the pic.
In fact all through that fight Vitali treated Danny like a ragdoll, knocking him to one side then knocking him back the other side. Once more let me reiterate that this was a 260lb stocky man getting handled as if he weighed no more than half that amount. Pretty crazy stuff.
And yeah I understand raw strength is different from punching power, but it factors in at some level, especially when you have as much raw strength as someone like Foreman and maybe even Vitali did, who really don't have much else to account for their power, Foreman especially.
I have no problem with people doubting Briggs's word. But if you're going to doubt one man's word on the basis that it was at odds with what actually happened (perfectly reasonable), then you need to do the same for every other fighter who did likewise, Holmes, Berbick, Botha, all of them who claimed that someone who never knocked them out punched harder than someone who did.
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