There are different ways of "not getting hit".

I saw an old fight between Roberto Duran and some bloke named Lou Bizarro, in Bizarro's hometown. The crowd was going wild, because Bizarro ran for 14 fucking rounds, refusing to even appear to want to engage Duran. Whenever Duran got within striking distance, the scared Bizarro would grab and hold on for dear life. All the crowd was interested in was that Bizarro was lasting the whole fight with the great Duran. Eventually, Duran caught up with Bizarro and the little fucker had nowhere to go. Duran knocked him out, and could be clearly seen waving off the prone Bizarro in disgust.

Did Bizarro employ effective defense through 14 rounds of the fight? I said effective defense. As in "not getting hit". Well... yes. Was it crowd-pleasing? Fuck no. (Well, unless you were from Erie, Pennsylvania... or Italian).

Master defensive fighters are to be admired. Pernell Whitaker, Wilfredo Benitez, Floyd Mayweather. But they are/were there to fight and defeat their opponent. They don't/didn't cringe from engaging for fear of getting tagged.

You see, Wlad knows his chin ain't shit. He knows one good shot and he'll be laid out. What did Ali used to do? He would lean back, let the punch sail by, and throw a counter of his own. Same with Floyd and his shoulder roll. Something's coming back at you.

Wlad is blessed with height and long arms. So he'll stand at a safe distance and paw... looking for a safe opening. If there's even a 5% chance he could get hit in return, he's perfectly willing to keep pawing for the full 12. Unfortunately, most of his opponents are only too content to go the 12 rounds and collect the paycheck. If, by any freak of nature, an opponent unleashes anything that remotely resembles a flurry... Wlad will use his long arms to deflect the punches, while taking long steps back with a wide-eyed look on his face. Any thought of counter-punching is far from his mind. When the danger is over, it's back to business as usual.

Effective, but not crowd-pleasing.