Chris Byrd: was the WBO and IBF heavyweight champion while Lewis held on to his paper WBC title. Outboxed Holyfield and rope-a-doped Vitali Klitschko into submission. Byrd begged for a fight with Lewis but Lennox wanted no part of it. Wladimir Klitschko: when he brutally beat Chris Byrd in 2000, he was considered the obvious opponent for Lennox. Instead, Lennox chose to fight Wlad's weaker and less-skilled brother Vitali, who had been easily outsmarted by Byrd in Germany. Ike Ibeabuchi: beat prime David Tua (Lennox beat a fat version of Tua who weighed 20 pounds more) and Chris Byrd, a man Lennox ducked. It was obvious that Lennox would never fight him. Emanuel Steward did a great job of fabricating this "champion" and leading him to several "title defenses" against handpicked journeymen like Francois Botha and baseball players like Michael Grant. Crafty charlatanism at its finest!:good
Lewis dropped the IBF belt rather than fighting Chris Byrd: http://www.nydailynews.com/archives...-belt-tournament-title-works-article-1.503759 Pretty disgraceful.
Clown choices. He wanted big money fights, this is prize fighting if u remember correctly. Vitali the weaker brother ? Wtf ?
Did you read the article you linked? , dumbass. " King spent time in Ghana, Africa, with Lewis last week and Lewis told him that he wanted to retire. King said he worked out a deal to give Lewis $1 million and a Range Rover to vacate the IBF title. There was supposed to be a purse bid on the Lewis-Byrd IBF title fight yesterday, but it was canceled when Lewis vacated the title. King said Jones has not signed a contract to fight Ruiz, but has "agreed to all of the concepts involved in the fight.
I couldn't vote as the option I wanted and is acknowledged as the truth wasn't an option so I will just post it below Lewis did actually sign contracts to fight all of the above but they all pulled out as they caught STD's from Beatle's mum and needed treatment and were unable to pass the medicals
I am pretty sure that Beatle's post is satire, this is the Lewis analogue for the sort of criticism that Wlad constantly gets around here. (although this is simply my interpretation) Lewis had legitimate reasons for not facing Ibeabuchi (who went to jail), Wlad (who lost in 2003, prior to Lewis facing Vitali), and Byrd (having to deal with King). Of the three, Lewis should have faced Byrd. Wlad seems to be criticized for not facing Povetkin early enough, Ruiz (when King made sure he would always keep his title, no matter what), Valuev, Chisora, and now, Pulev.
Byrd was WBO Champion for one fight. He didn't defend it once. In those days a WBO Champion had to drop the belt to fight for the WBC. Was IBF Champion because Lewis dropped the belt while he was looking for fights against Tyson and the two Klitschko's which fell through. Byrd's own promoter paid Lewis $1million and gave him a new car to step aside. Vitali was WBC mandatory, Wlad was WBO Champion and would have to drop that belt to get a shot at Lewis. Went straight to prison very soon after arriving on the world stage.
Thank you MAJR! The real question is; "why do newbies ask dumbass questions when they can google it instead of looking like fools?"