What if Rahman would have defended against Tyson instead of the Lewis rematch?

To some extent, I guess, but to suggest Rahman showed some better skillset than any of the other big heavyweight punchers Lewis faced to land that shot, is just as ignorant in my opinion.

 

Hasim deserves full credit for knocking out the reigning hw champion.

As far as i'm concerned, lewis choosing to prepare in the manner he did is on him. Hasim turned up as a huge underdog and got the job done.

In the rematch lewis won very decisively and it is probably his peak performance on film, that or the golota blow out for me.

How has the thread got the point of debate between hasim deserving credit or not for his hallmark victory?

It's a thread about hasim v tyson.

In 01 mike was the rightful top contender but we all know how shot he was. That's why lewis receives little to no credit for the victory.

 

Because many posters are overating Rahman. Tyson wasnt completely shot. That happened after the Williams fight 3 years later, but he wasnt any good anymore but still better than Rahman who was never any good and using the Lewis fight as an example of what he would do to Tyson is about as comparable as saying Rahman would do to Tyson what Holyfield or Lewis did to him. Wouldnt happen. Tyson KO4 Rahman.

 

Do you actually watch boxing or just skim through boxrec, watch the fight again. Lennox not only doesn't prepare but starts trying to showboat. He sticks his chin out and tries to get cute and the KO is effectively him giving Rahman a free shot, something he'd never do against a top opponent, it's pretty much this type of incident

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zq9Xs8BeRuQ[/ame]

And no there is little evidence Tyson was shot in '01 given his showing in '00, he wasn't in shape in '01 because he was taking on an easy fight and wasn't trained. We should assume he'd train for a HW title

 

People can talk about preparation and gameplan all they want. Lewis and tyson both suffered huge upset losses in their career (rahman and douglas) lewis did prove his supremacy over rahman which is something that mike never did.

Rahman's knockout over lewis is far more impressive than anything tyson did that year. What did tyson do in 01 to convince people he was of the ability required to defeat rahman? I see nothing.

 

Rahman KO's Tyson quite easily. This is the same Tyson that was molested by McBride and Williams people seem to be forgetting.

 

No this would be around the time Tyson fought Golota shortly after. Tyson was ready to fight Rahman right away but the whole contract issue messed up the fight.

Tyson pretty much lost interest in boxing again and wouldnt comeback for another year against Nielson.

 

He blew away Savarese and Golota. Noone else was doing it that quickly to contenders besides Lewis.

 

The best tyson from 01 was the nielsen tyson. Compare that to the best rahman from 01 and it's the man who sparked lewis.

 

Tyson was set to fight David Izon on June 2 of 2001. That would have been a lot closer to his fight with Golota and Im pretty sure Tyson would have taken a fight with Rahman for the title quite seriously and come into his fight with Izon in better condition as well.

His fight with Izon was cancelled as they tried to pursue a fight with Rahman and then all the crap with the rematch clause and King and Kushner which prevented Tyson from facing Rahman so he had to go back to the drawing board and setup another fight. I think If Tyson would have secured Rahman it would have happned in July or August of 2001 and Tyson would have been more motivated than fighting Brian Nielson.

 

Well that's your speculation. He looked **** in 01. Rahman didn't.

 

Rahman didnt look good against Lewis man he landed that shot which won him the fight but he didnt look good in the process. He was losing the fight and losing to a Lennox Lewis who had his mind on dinner after the fight more than actually fighting.
His other fight in 2001 was losing every round before getting brutally knocked out in the rematch.

 

This sounds autistic, as if you have no understanding of human behaviour and focus entirely on statistics. Do you honestly think he wouldn't train for a HW Title shot against Rahman and train less than he did against Golota :blood

 

The fight was about even.

Knocking out the best hw on the planet is pretty much as good as it gets in boxing.

 

Tyson didnt look horrible against Nielson anyway, he was just too heavy and obviously didnt train hard, but it was the longest fight he actually won during his comeback. I think Rahman would have a decent chance against Tyson in that condition but I dont think Tyson would fight Rahman that heavy.