agreed, but I think its not unresonable to sugest ezzard charles can match evander in any department. agreed. why? these are not ordinary 190 pounders these are the best EVER 190 pounders! the pace both brought would take Lennox out of his comfort zone. Dempsey was quicker, hed beat Lennox to the draw. Lennox found his lightest opponents awkward and became frustrated. jean chanet and ****** fortune landed punches on Lennox why not Marciano and Dempsey? Lennox frustrated and fighting at a pace that would not suit him is half the fighter. Add that to the fact against better punchers than McCall and rahman lennox is in trouble. lennox could be the fastest superheavyweight but only ever in spurts. Only ever one shot at a time, nobody took Louis out with one punch. Joe Louis was Joe Louis and he dealt with super heavyweights no problem. agreed. agreed. nobody took Frazier out with one shot and at his peak, the ability Frazier had of doubling up his best shot AS A LEAD PUNCH cannot be dismissed. That hook came out like a jab and could be timed to land at any range - 50 power shots per round off the front foot delivered as fast as a jab? It was a short prime, but within it fighters who could beat Frazier would make a shorter list than of those who could ever have beaten lennox. He cannot be entirely ruled out. The Willard who beat J.J was good but Johnson was old and fighting for an hour in SEVERE heat. A younger Johnson beats prime Willard out of sight and would deserve a chance against lennox.
Oliver McCall is some1 Lennox Lewis could never really win against . 29 years old Lewis was no green fighter , McCall was and is his age after all . Ali could not have beaten Lewis BTW . Hasim Rahman , a trained and motivated Nicolay Valuev , George Foreman , Vitali Klitschko , Michael Grant , Henry Akiwande (Lewis proved nothing against them) , Riddick Bowe , prime Evander Holyfield , prime Tyson , Corrie Sanders , Chris Byrd and Ross Puritty r all big enough hreats 4 Lewis 2 either avoid getting in the ring against / fouling against or both . And if winning/losing due 2 cuts really means something big , then Jose Napoles & Jerry Quarry were total crap :deal . Face it farts , u choose which 1 .
Any man can be beaten, but I'd not confidently favor anyone over him. Ali, Louis and Liston have decent chances at beating him, but I wouldn't put any money on it.
3" reach advantage for Lewis over Holmes...with the type of fighter Holmes is i'm not feeling that pick so much.
I'd say those I'd favour over him would be no one, perhaps Ali but even then I've watched Ali his whole career and I don't think the older version would beat him. Would the younger version? hard to say. Depends on whether Ali is facing the Ruddock version of Ali or an older version who was slower but had better defense. Others that fit into the 50-50 category besides Ali would be Holmes, and Tyson Those who would be slight underdogs but could pull a mild upset would be Bowe, V.K. Liston, and Foreman. Those who are clear underdogs but still have the ability to surprise him would be Holyfield, Louis, Dempsey and Wlad. Those who might win but I personally would be very surprised would be Marciano, Johnson and Frazier
severe dreams here, LL was/IS not that great. too honestly believe, in the whole history of the sport, that he is not in grave danger from TRUE GREATS of boxing is... utter rubbish!!!
Not a big Lewis fan I take it. Honestly on any given night, most greats could beat each other..that's why they became greats. But on their best nights..well fighters like Ali, Lewis, Tyson and the super H2H elite..rise to the top a bit more than some of the other ATG's,
If Ramhan could beat him the way he did, whatever the circumstances, then a lot of other fighters could on a given day. Who would get lucky and who would just end up another name on his resume, is much harder to establish.
Far enough, and if Schmeling could beat Louis whatever the circumstances, and Young beat Foreman, regardless of the circumstances, and Douglas could beat Tyson regardless of the circumstances then the same answer applies to them as it does to Lewis..correct?
Not exactly. What Ramhan did would be inherently more likley to get replicated. Without in any way implying that these fighters were greater than Lewis, the formula to beat them is harder to find, and likley occurs higher in the scale of heavyweight greatness.
That's somewhat speculative. Certainly the Schelming win wasn't a fluke, and neither was young's win a huge fluke. Both Louis and Foreman had flaws that were exposed by other fighters, same as Lewis. All three made adjustments and became better fighters.
Taking Lewis out in the way Rahman did basically involves waiting for him to make a mistake. Yes, there are ways to mine an error like that, but taking Young's route to victory is far more proactive and easy to train for and therefore replicate, I should think. Lewis's weakness, having said that, is more obviously approachable on paper - be a big hitter and knock him out with one punch - but it requires a certain amount of god-given talent to go with the luck/engineering ability to get the job done. I don't see any difference really between tackling Lewis (get to his chin) Foreman (box and move and be cute) or Louis (speculatively, be huge and skilled) than Lewis, in terms of planning and action, frankly.
Both times lennox got knocked out it was when he was forced to fight at a pace outside his comfort zone. lennox liked to keep a man off him, stay composed and needed to rest part of the round. Lewis needed to re charge but if pushed for the full three minutes he became sloppy, looking to hang on and could get nailed. It is not something that could ever be ironed out and happened both times he held titles. Lewis was excellent at controlling a pace that suited him, he was an experienced, world class fighter with reach, weight and height advantages over most foes. sometimes he came out bombing and other times he did not. when he did not it was always a danger that he would tire out if he was pressed but he fought a lot of big guys who also needed to rest too. slow oafs like Bruno, mercer, Morrison, grant, golotta, lional butler, phil jackson, ruddock who all fought in spurts. more often than not Lewis had the advantage. holyfeild kind of matched him and for his lack of size was also somewhat of a spurt fighter himself. Rahman and McCall were not setting a raging pace, they were not high energy pressure fighters but they worked 3 full minuets and forced Lewis to become tired quickly and make mistakes. mavrovick made Lewis look awful also but he didn’t quite have what it took to nail lennox but a lot of all time great champions could have.