Vitali's 1st career: KICKboxing!!??

[brocktonblockbust]

[ElTerribleMorales]

yea it's been mentioned before he won numerous world titles (amateur and professional) and retired with a 34-1 (22 KOs) record, then transitioned only to boxing

[TitoFan]

Wow!
That looks to be about 30 pounds and about 4-5 degrees of freedom ago.

[ICB]

I'd love to see the Pele Reid KO

[TigerFan]

There's been quite a few world champion boxers with kickboxing backgrounds.

Vitali Klitschko was a 6 time (amateur & pro) world kickboxing champ.

Alexander Povetkin won a world Junior Amateur championship & a pro European kickboxing title before transitioning to boxing.

James Warring - Former IBF Cruiserweight champion was a four time professional kickboxing champ. Defeated Vitali in an amateur kickboxing bout.

Marco Huck was a two time amateur kickboxing champion.

Troy Dorsey won the IBF Featherweight title in 91. Had some close fights with Jorge Paez back in the day. The only man (according to wiki) to win world titles in Karate & Boxing. His kickboxing credentials are too long to type so I'll just post his wiki page Troy Dorsey - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Other guys like Jerome Le Banner, Rick Roufus, and the late Mike Bernardo boxed. They had moderate success...with Roufus & Bernardo winning minor titles.

Mike Bernardo - Boxer
Rick Roufus - Boxer
Jerome Le Banner - Boxer

[brocktonblockbust]

great thread---you know over the years watchıng kıckboxıng I always wondered why those guys dont go ınto boxıng ınstead. I mean ıf you can kıck AND punch ıt should be easıer just to punch shouldnt ıt? Less energy spent etc.. Kıckıng takes 2.5 tımes more energy than punchıng I thınk I read.

[ICB]

great thread---you know over the years watchıng kıckboxıng I always wondered why those guys dont go ınto boxıng ınstead. I mean ıf you can kıck AND punch ıt should be easıer just to punch shouldnt ıt? Less energy spent etc.. Kıckıng takes 2.5 tımes more energy than punchıng I thınk I read.

Tell that to Pele Reid.

[brocktonblockbust]

great thread---you know over the years watchıng kıckboxıng I always wondered why those guys dont go ınto boxıng ınstead. I mean ıf you can kıck AND punch ıt should be easıer just to punch shouldnt ıt? Less energy spent etc.. Kıckıng takes 2.5 tımes more energy than punchıng I thınk I read.

Tell that to Pele Reid.

or Bob Sapp?

[Tam Seddon]

I enjoyed that. It's mad to think Vitali was a kick boxing champ too, he looked pretty good in this video too.

[Master]

I enjoyed Gracie beat Sapp, I would not have expected that.

[TigerFan]

Here's some more kickboxers that box and vice versa

Alexander Ustinov - 53-9 (31) as a kickboxer. Currently 27-0 (21) as a boxer...set to fight Pulev in an IBF eliminator next month. Big dude..stands 6'7" and weighs around 300lbs. Never been off his feet in K-1 or Boxing.

• 2006 WFCA Super Heavyweight World title
• 2006 IFMA World Amateur Champion
• 2006 K-1 Fighting Network in Marseilles Champion
• 2005 K-1 Italy Oktagon Champion
• 2004 WKN European Muay Thai Champion
• 2004 K-1 Poland Champion
• 2003 WKBF Golden Panther Cup (+91 kg) Champion
• 2003 K-1 Spain Grand Prix in Barcelona Champion
• 2003 K-1 World Grand Prix Preliminary Moscow Champion
• 2003 IAMTF World Amateur Muay Thai Champion

Arthur Williams - Former IBF Cruiserweight champion. Fought a who's who of the division...including Jirov, Norris, Haye, Bell, Davis and Chris Byrd. Also stopped K-1 fighter Rick Roufus in boxing.

He fought Alexey Ignashov in a boxer vs kickboxer match in Japan.



Frans Botha - Despite having a losing record in kickboxing 4-11. He has an injury win over Peter Aerts and a corner retirement win over Jerome Le Banner. Botha fought Remy Bonjasky twice in 2004, the same year Bonjasky won the K-1 World Grand Prix. Botha held his own IMO...giving Bonjasky two tough fights. Impressive feat considering he's no kickboxer.






Shannon Briggs - He had one kickboxing match. He stopped a collegiate wrestler in the first round.

[THE PHILOSOPHER]

The news story about Vitali Klitschko’s kickboxing is NOT that he lost to Pele Reid (a guy who tried Boxing and didn’t make it!) All top Kickboxers have gotten clocked cold even the best ones like Rob kaman, Branko cikatic, Ernesto Hoost, Peter Aerts, Bernardo, Hug, LeBanner, Theriault, Dekkers, Bille etc. It’s happened often, so that isn’t news to proper kickboxing fans. Kickboxing is a much more brutal/competitive sport than HW boxing it has a big history in eastern europe for youngsters, in fact you could argue that the HW division in boxing and even boxing as a whole has lost a of potential boxing champions to kickboxing. Alexey ignashov being one example....

The news story here is that Klitschko ran through all the available competition in Europe in the late 80’s, early 90’s, became a multiple world champion, and he did it all as a teenager ! (Albeit the competition he fought wasn't of the calibre of the above mentioned but still...)

The pele Reid match was in Varna, Bulgaria at the WAKO European Kickboxing Championships, but it took place in 1992, not 93’.

But because Klitschko actually became famous years later on the world stage, that stoppage loss to Reid has become quite a little controversy, but accounts of what happened contrast sharply.

I don’t see why it couldn’t have happened, as Klitschko was just a kid at the time (20), and a rail thin 6’7.5” 196 pounder who hadn’t even gotten to the peak of his amateur Boxing career yet, but it’s difficult it is to get verification of it.

Vitali remembers it being a leg kick for which he had to retire from the fight,a number of others offer up the same recollection:

When asked, Vitali states:
“Who is Pele Reid? It was so long ago that I forgot all about him. Nobody knows who Pele Reid is. My fight with him was a semi-contact kickboxing match. I lost that fight because of a kick to my thigh, not a punch. The thigh had been injured previously, and I shouldn’t have participated in the match, but I was a determined boy”.

I’m told that Master Meiji Suzuki of the Mugendo in London had no recollection of it being a head kick.
Dwyer Evelyn, John Lawson, Keith Wilson, Raf Nieto, George McKenzie and Desmond Burke didn’t recall a head kick being involved either, but I personally have no idea if any of them were there in Bulgaria that day & it’s not my place to say if any of them were even in position to know one way or the other.

I do know that aside from Reid himself, during at interview with writer Matt Winsper, that Gary Turner is the source always quoted when the idea of a kick to the head of Klitschko comes up.

I know also that Reid never said a word about it to the press until very recently, after the story about a head kick had already circulated for a while.

That tape would be a great thing to put up on Youtube, if it exists, but so far, nothing.

James warring was another successful boxer/kickboxer winning world titles in both sports.

Bottom line is vitali was much better as a boxer than a kickboxer. Part of that may be due to maturing (Being at his peak) while in boxing, but I think it also has to do with Vitali simply being a better boxer than a kickboxer.

He beat Brad Hefton & Ryushi Yanagisawa (Pancrase fighter)....I believe he also beat Australian kickboxer Grant Barker.

Make of all that what you will but i suggest if you really want to see Vitaly get knocked out you have 2 options:

1. Hypnotize Wlad and brain wash him into believing that the real Vitaly is trapped in another dimension and unless he fights the impostor he'll never return. Then hope and pray that it works and that Wladimir himself doesn't get knocked out.

2. Play Fight Night, put it on easy. Swing away.I think there is also a video of Vitali getting KD in a school fight when he was 6 years old. Im sure you can use that to discredit vitali alsoatsch

[ICB]

Im pretty sure i remember seeing an article where someone had seen the footage, and it was a spinning back kick to the jaw that put Vitali Klitschko down. I also heard Oleg Maskaev stopped Vitali Klitschko in the 1st round of there Amateur fight, and supposedly Vitali Klitschko avoided him as a pro make of that what you will.

[armyash]

Strange to see VK so offensively minded and actually looking loose and relaxed as he fights.

He gets a lot of criticism for being robotic and defensively minded as a boxer but i'm sure the extra weight he has put on plus the transition from kickboxer to boxer has had a big part to play.

[AdamGB]

great thread---you know over the years watchıng kıckboxıng I always wondered why those guys dont go ınto boxıng ınstead. I mean ıf you can kıck AND punch ıt should be easıer just to punch shouldnt ıt? Less energy spent etc.. Kıckıng takes 2.5 tımes more energy than punchıng I thınk I read.

Most kick boxers can't punch! The purpose of puncing is different in kick boxing, different technique and tactics. There's not a lot of carry over.

The kick boxers who can punch usually can't kick as well as they can punch, so change.

It's kickboxing, not box kicking.

Didn't Vitali fail a drug test kick boxing?