The Flaws of The Klitschko Brothers

[BrooklynBomber]

Vitali on paper seems to be the more difficult puzzle to solve, but it's Wladimir who has had the most dominant performances against top ranked fighters.

i agree that Wladimir is the better brother. He is just so much sharper and more mobile he does not need to be versatile as his brother.

[RINGG]

Perhaps in better times we would see. The last eight years the heavyweight division has been as weak as the cruiserweights.

[A7glow]

Mostly agree with all of this.




The premise here is wrong. You're working under the assumption that HE has to fight on the inside. He doesn't. Inside fighting is for smaller fighters, with shorter arms. They're the ones who are supposed to work his body, not the other way around. Ali didn't hit the body too much, he didn't have to. Why should Wlad lower himself to his opponents level and fight on the inside, when he can be The Ring General 85% of the fight, and keep his smaller opponent on the outside, trying to reach in/get in.

It's not a flaw, it's by design. Wlad is One-Dimensional by design, but that one-dimension is far better than any other One-Dimension of any other fighter.

I do however agree with some of your points on what it would take to beat him, however that wouldn't be Mike Tyson, who you cited. I don't wanna break away from the topic at hand, and go about Mike's flaws.

We are talking about a mythical fighter here, with some of the tools a Iron Mike might have, along with great conditioning of another fighter.

Ah, I see your point. But I wasn't implying that he has to fight inside, but rather that he should have the ability to. If someone were to force him to the ropes and had good enough hand speed and footwork they could cause a lot of trouble for Wlad. What I am really trying to say, and this applies to both brothers, is that once you are inside of their reach, they don't respond very well at all. I personally don't believe that any one (currently active) is going to beat them from the outside-even a bigger opponent- they are both too fast and accurate for that to happen. Also, you and another poster brought up a good point. Stamina. Whosoever wants to beat either brother would need to be able to work at a high rate for an extended period of time. They would also have to work very well off of angles.

[Mr. Fantastic]

You have no problem with calling Mayweather boring, so whats your point.....

Your trying too tell me that the Holyfield/Bowe, Tua/Ibeabuchi fights were boring.....

Because he has been fucking boring. In his younger years and the Mosley fight I never said those were boring.

TY for proving my point. From the decades that have passed, you have only mentioned 2 fights and one of them isn't even a Mega fight. If I remember correctly Tua and Ibeabuchi were never world champions either.

[MoBetters]

You're a racist self hating American who hates that Wlad and Vitali are the two greatest heavyweights ever and would brutally knockout every other heavyweight ever.



Good thread.

at the butthurt Americans. I know its bad that your only hope lies in Deontay Wilder.

if the K brothers were a diffirent shade or even American you guys would be singing a different tune.

Face it, they are the smartest HW's in the game and history (PhD, Avid Chess Players) and they are masterfull performers who use their brains in a fight and outside of it. Sure they have some weaknesses but who doesnt? You are just grasping at straws.

Prime Vitali beats ANY Hw in history
Known to throw 1000 punches in a fight
Never been down
Highest KO %
Defeated most undefeated fighters
Lost less than 10 rounds in his career
Never been defeated legitly, winning every round against Byrd when his shoulder went and was up against a tiring Lewis when the CROOKED USA doctor stopped the fight and robbed Vitali of a win against Lewis, same Lewis who ducked and weaved Vitali for 12 months after the fight before retiring because they were gonna strip his belt if he didnt have a rematch (Lewis wanted to fight someone else and when he was forced to fight Vitali he ducked him and retired)

---
Wlad:
Most True HW rounds fought
his technical skills offset his few weaknesses.
Has a very good chance to beat any HW in history (would smoke all the CW "HW's" from the "Golden Era" where the Americans dominated and thats why the Americans still clinging on to the past with their 190lb HW's since thats all you have to remember)
.

I guess too bad the Klitschko's werent born in the ****** and spent half their life in jail while being broke and owing the IRS money while being racist and acting like attention wh0res in the media? That wouldve made them #1 in America

you guys must be alts of tunneys down syndrome recruits that he brought over from esbox.
bizzare behavior. you little clunts are the only ones in the world that think this. no boxing journalist would ever agree with you brownshirts. take your tongue out of each others a*s and get real. cornponed feys!

[Capaedia]

Bojangles was joking

[SCtrojansbaby]

Wlad is actually very good at fighting off his back foot.

Wlad choosing not to fight on the inside is a positive not a negative as being the (much)taller man naturally puts you at a disadvantage when fighting on the inside.

[nomadman]

Very good opening post, and I agree with a good deal of it except for your thinking that Wlad's lack of an inside game is a flaw, for pretty much the same reasons as cupocity. Wlad can't fight well on the inside, or at least hasn't demonstrated the ability to do so, but then again he has no reason to, considering his height and his clinch game. Whenever a fighter works their way past his jab he immediately clinches them up, limiting their offence to a few ineffectual arm punches. He's done this with punchers of all stripes, heavy clubbing fighters, quick explosive fighters, fast technical fighters. It's not pretty by any means, but it's horribly effective.

To fight on the inside would waste energy, leave him vulnerable and leave him at a disadvantage to shorter fighters with shorter arms. It's just not a great trade off.

I will say, however, that he has trouble clinching up taller fighters (fighters closer to his height) like Tony Thompson. Only there will I say his lack of good infighting could be considered a flaw. On the outside Wlad is almost flawless. He's so alert, has such a good mastery of distance and timing, and has such a dominating jab that it's nigh impossible to outbox him. He's occasionally proved vulnerable to good fast jabs himself though: both Mercer and Haye caught him a few times with their own jabs and marked him up. But that was only for a fraction of the fight, and to outbox Wlad over twelve seems like a daunting proposition that no one in this division is up to, not even Vitali.

One thing I'll disagree with, which many people will automatically consider a flaw with Wlad, is his chin. I must be one of the few people who don't think his chin is all that bad. Just average. Certainly not the wet toilet paper that it's often portrayed as being. He's taken some solid licks from big time punchers in the past, most recently against Haye, without being visibly hurt. Where he differs most importantly from his brother is in his reaction to getting hit. Vitali shrugs it off and comes back harder, Wlad panics and holds on, even if he isn't badly buzzed. Sure there's a difference in quality of chin, but it's not nearly as big a gap as people think.

The biggest threat to Wlad in the coming years that I can see is Helenius. He's not ready yet, but he posseses the power, the aggression and the raw size to really trouble Wlad. It'll be a good fight when it happens (which I hope isn't for a while yet; Helenius needs seasoning).

[nomadman]

Ah, I see your point. But I wasn't implying that he has to fight inside, but rather that he should have the ability to. If someone were to force him to the ropes and had good enough hand speed and footwork they could cause a lot of trouble for Wlad. What I am really trying to say, and this applies to both brothers, is that once you are inside of their reach, they don't respond very well at all. I personally don't believe that any one (currently active) is going to beat them from the outside-even a bigger opponent- they are both too fast and accurate for that to happen. Also, you and another poster brought up a good point. Stamina. Whosoever wants to beat either brother would need to be able to work at a high rate for an extended period of time. They would also have to work very well off of angles.

Yes, it's always good to have tools in reserve, but you only have a limited time during each training camp to work on what's effective for you in the upcoming fight, and Wlad working on improving his inside game for the unlikely scenario that he might need to use it, doesn't seem like a good use of his time. Not when what he does is so effective already. Wlad's one dimensional, but he works on honing that one dimension to a razor sharp edge. To reallocate valuable time to working on an aspect of his game at which he's already at a physical disadvantage might prove disastrous to his whole style. Better a master of one than a jack of all trades, etc.

Besides, I disagree that he doesn't respond well to fighters working their way inside. Clinching isn't necessarily a sign of panic, and with Wlad he's so ingrained in his habits that he does it almost on instinct. It's not a response that allows him to fight, but it doesn't allow his opponent to fight either. It negates their strengths since no one can outbox him on the outside. It also has the effect over the course of the fight of wearing out a shorter fighter's legs when he leans on them. Like I said in the other post, it's not pretty and actually quite a dirty tactic, but so long as refs let him get away with it, like they did Foreman with his pushing and Lennox with his holding and hitting, then I don't see why he should change it.

Regarding the last part of your post, sure it's fairly easy, and fun, to think of the type of opponent that could beat Wlad, but when you actually step back and look at him you realise you've made a mythical frankenstein that just doesn't exist in any approximate shape or form. There are fighters that can beat him of course, but they're either dead or retired.

[nomadman]

Wlad is actually very good at fighting off his back foot.

Wlad choosing not to fight on the inside is a positive not a negative as being the (much)taller man naturally puts you at a disadvantage when fighting on the inside.

He's a lot better at it than he used to be. I recall him fighting fairly well off the back foot against Peter in the rematch. He still needs to set his feet to throw, but he keeps his composure and his eye for openings even under fire.