Golota, though he got DQd twice, beat up Riddick Bowe who was the best heavyweight in the world at the time.
Wlad has a few paper champs on his resume, but none of them came into his fight on the back of a great performance. What's his best win anyway? Byrd? Haye? Did either of them ever have a great heavyweight performance?
He came with a high KO ratio, great reach, height, reminds me of Wilder.
He'd have posed problems for any boxer back then.
Lewis made mince meat out of him
Grant wasn't really a huge win. He'd been dropped vs Golota and was losing before Golota turned into one of his alternative personalities.
He was considered a potential threat because he was bigger than Lennox and because he could punch. But he was very flawed and a former footballer I believe. He wasn't a boxer by trade.
Golota, though he got DQd twice, beat up Riddick Bowe who was the best heavyweight in the world at the time.
Wlad has a few paper champs on his resume, but none of them came into his fight on the back of a great performance. What's his best win anyway? Byrd? Haye? Did either of them ever have a great heavyweight performance?
Golota didn't smash up any legitimate champions either.
According to some perhaps.
Whichever way you put it, Bowe was considered the best in the division alongside Lewis.
What performances do Haye, Byrd, Povetkin, Chagaev etc have that compares to something like that?
Plus he got KTFO in the first round. And he was a top fighter.
Agreed on that, definitely would have been interesting to see how Vitali could have dominated if he was active between 2005-08...
This - exactly, it actually reminds me now of how the Lewis v Grant fight was - Undisputed (Well, Wlad is pretty much right now) world champ from Europe fighting a big, athletic American hype job. Even the tale of the tape is similar, Wilder is slightly bigger and has more reach than Wlad just like Grant had over Lewis, you can even imagine the fight would go the same way, Wilder would come out aggressively like Grant did and then promptly collapse when he eats a few clean shots, if Wlad really wanted it I could see a similar early ending but you can't deny Wilder is potentially dangerous with his power so I could see it going a bit longer...
Wlad is a more cautious fighter at this stage of his career. It will probably not be KO1, but Wlad stops him during the middle rounds after a cautious start by both men.
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