The Legacy of Lennox Lewis with Emanuel Steward

Steward MAY have done a decent job with tyson, i guess well never know.

Anything would have been better than Snowell

 

I remember the lead up to the first Rahman fight.
Emanuel Steward was the picture of smugness and arrogance. He even claimed that him and Lennox didn't need to acclimatize to the altitude because they were so well-travelled. atsch
Of course, both he and Lennox carried on with their delusions even after the result.


It's always amusing that some of these big hired gun 'superstar' trainers are almost immune from the same criticisms that are thrown at the little guys when their fighters lose fighters.
Guys like Steward take a lot of credit when his fighters are winning but somehow never get the same **** that other guys get when their fighters lose.

Lewis-Rahman 1 was possibly the most obvious case of a highly-paid trainer failing to do his job out of sheer over-confidence.

Of course he did a very good job with Lewis overall.

 

Lewis arrived late to South Africa. He came in out of shape. He was in LA making movies.
Steward was in Vegas training Naseem Hamed.
Meanwhile Rahman was in South Africa, training hard and acclimatizing to the altitude.
Steward said the altitude didn't matter.
Lewis said he would be in better shape if it was Tyson.
Steward was talking up a Tyson fight too.

The point is, Steward wasn't doing his job right. Purely as a trainer. The priority should be to get Lewis in 100% condition and focus to defend the title. Sharp and focused on that one fight, against a challenger who will indeed be in the best shape of his life and intent of taking that title.
Instead, they expected to just turn up and for Rahman to roll over for them.
Steward attitude was awful.

It didn't matter though. Everyone made a lot of money in the long run. The rematch, then the Tyson match. It worked out fine. Lots of $$$$$$
That's the bottom line, I guess.

 

But King obviously would still have been in the shadows pulling the strings.

Remember it was Manny who warned Tyson/King about Holyfield not being so shot as they think, they just laughed it off and look what happened.

I dont think he would have mattered much, but anything is better than nothing. Tyson was shot after prison whereas Lewis was still a work in progress, i can see why Manny chose Lewis.

Tysons post prison record is 9-5-2

 

Just stop, you do Tyson fans a disservice when you regurgitate this nonsense.

 

Tyson had already set his own course by 1995, no one was going to change it.

 

His pre prison record was 41-1-0
His post prison record was 9-5-2

Going by his record, you can see he didnt do much after prison

There was rumours he was already finished before he went to prison

Prison both shortened and lengthened his career at the same time

 

He wasn't the same fighter but he was still a great fighter. With a proper mindset and discipline he could've done far more but instead he believed he was God again after beating Bruno.

Rumors he was finished before prison? I don't feel like going on about this as Tyson fanatics can blown things out of proportion. That sentence being a prime example of that. No disrespect but I get the impression that you're young. Nobody sensibly believes Tyson was shot when he became a 2x champion after defeating Bruno. No shot fighter comes out of prison to win the HW championship. What he did doesn't reflect what he could have done.

 

Ok maybe shot was a strong word to use, but he was def shot during the Botha fight. Yes Tyson did get overconfident again aftre winning the titles. But his mentality had changed in prison. After the Douglas loss he went out and sough the toughest challenge he could find and fought ruddock twice, a lot of people were claiming Tyson was ducking Ruddock. fast foward to after the Holyfield losses, Tyson lost any remaining heart he had and decides to shy away from the scene and fights a few lower ranked bums for some paydays and quietly wanted to retire until he was pulled off the sidelines for Lewis.

Yes he won the championship..but he won it off a guy hed already beat 6 years before and its not like Bruno put up any resistance during the fight, nor did Seldon...they should have just GIVEN Tyson the belts. At least in 86-88 Tyson had to work hard and earn the belts.

Tyson/Seldon must be the only fight in history where a guy won the title without landing a single punch.

The only reason people percieved Tyson to be 'back' is his destructions over the likes of Mcneely, Mathis, Bruno and Seldon, but now looking back, all 4 of those fights were farces, the Bruno win was semi decent, but as i said before, its not like Bruno but up any sort of heroics

Also the difference is that in 86-88 Tyson won the belts off the best guys in the division, in 96 Bruno and Seldon were not the best fighters in the division, they were merely beltholders and very poor ones at that. Would Tyson have become champ again after prison if the champs were Holy, Bowe and Lewis?

Actually there was a magazine during the Ruddock fights which stated that Tyson was shot and he wasnt what he once was

 

Tyson was not shot by the Ruddock fights. Why do you say that shot was a strong word and than revert to what some stupid magazine may or may not have said. Honestly, the magazine I think you may be referring said that Tyson didn't have quite the same fire by the Ruddock fights. I actually thought Tyson performed well against Ruddock. I can't remember which fight he performed better in. They were tough fights, and Tyson looked for the home run and his combinations weren't quite at their most fluid but he did great body-work in that fight.

1996 Tyson had quite bit a of his power and speed remaining. I would say his stamina wasn't quite the same at that point. I'm not sure how much of it was due to a lack of preparation, though. He did rush into the Holyfield fight. Holyfield stated Tyson wasn't used to taking punches which might explain how Holyfield actually stopped him.

Tyson looked bad against Botha but that was likely because of rust. He looked much better against Savarese and Golota (Although crazy too). I would say Tyson was probably done by the Nielson fight. He was a zombie going into the Lewis fight because of medicine he was talking because he was viewed as crazy at that time due to his antics. Unfortunately, while he was definitely way past his best and pretty much had no viable chance against Lewis he came in 230+ for his Nielson and Lewis fights. Against Etienne he came at much better weight and showed he still had viable power. He looked alright against Danny Williams until he blew out his knee. I wouldn't label Tyson anywhere near shot until 2002-2003 and even then he was still a somewhat respectable HW because he had such phenomenal gifts. It's not like Tyson at 39 looked the way Ali did against Holmes at that age. It's all relative.

 

Apparently he only trained 2 weeks for the first Holyfield fight, this was according to Tommy Brooks who trained both guys. Im not surrised, Tyson did look a bit chubby in that fight and he was gassing and looking to the ref by around round 4. But you can hardly blame him, literally the whoel world Holyfield was shot and this would be over ina few rounds. Tyson obviously made the same mistake he made with Douglas. Look at the shape he came in in the second fight.
Holyfield exact comment was something like 'He hasnt been punched yet' Which is kind of true. You can see in the fight Tysons punch resistance wasnt what it once was, even Holys jabs were making Tyson wince. Thats down due inactivity and not enough good sparring. I believe he rushed into the Holy fight as well. A lot of people make too much of the 'Holy had his number', in the fight in 1996, you can see how sharp Holy is and how sloppy Tyson looks.

Tyson looked awful against Botha, Golota was a headcase so we cant really see what would have happened in the later rounds. The Nielson fight was disgusting, Tyson looked like a whale, however he was going to fight Mercer next but Lewis rushed him into a bigger payday fight. I actually think Tyson put up a good a very good effort against Lewis taking into consideration where he was at in his career and life. I think he did a better job than cough cough Tua

 

I agree with this but I dont think Tyson really wanted to fight anymore, but he was broke when he got out of prison. Tyson is no fool, he knew boxing and he knew what kind of discipline he would need to be a dominant champ again, he just didnt want to do it and thats why he went back to King and took the easiest route. He got the materialistic things he thought he wanted, but he was still left with no money and a tarnished legacy just like the first go round with King.