Lennox Lewis. Does he have some holes in his legacy?

Never faced Ruddock, Bruno, McCall, Morrison or Tyson (pre-prison) for starters. Of course, the Tyson thing is not his fault, but neither is it Lewis's fault that he never got to face Bowe or a younger Tyson.

And that's just from the early-mid 90's.

 

Dinovelvet, don't you get tired of being schooled every time you post?

You should be embarrassed to even log in to this site.

 

Not all those guys are really relevant to Holyfield though. Holy was fighting Foreman when Ruddock was tied up fighting Tyson twice. The winner of that match was going to be next for Evander. Tyson won and the fight never came off for obvious reasons. Ruddock had a second chance to face Holy had he beaten Lewis. But Ruddock lost to Lewis and Holy lost to Bowe that same Autumn. Morrison wasn't really an elite player and his peak in the sport didn't really coincide with a time frame when Evander was reigning. Had he not lost to Bentt in 1993, he could have been a possible first defense for Holy upon winning his rematch with Bowe. Similar arguments can be made for Bruno and McCall.

 

You cant really penalise Holyfield for some of those fights...

he may have missed Mccall, but he did KO the guy who beat him, in Douglas.

Same with Morrison, Evander beat the guy who knocked Morrison out.

Bruno as well, Holyfield beat Brunos conqueror twice.

The Ruddock /Tyson fights you could hold against him, they were the number 1 and 2, he fought neither and instead opted to give ab undeserved title shot to Foreman.

But in all honesty, you cant criticize a guy who fought Bowe x3, Tyson x2, Moorer x2, Lewis x2, Foreman, Holmes, Mercer, Byrd, Ruiz and James Toney amongst others.

 

I was just about to say I always felt that Lewis had the edge on Bowe because of the '88 Olympics, and this has confirmed it for me. I think Lennox had more mental strength than Bowe and would have worn him down.

 

There's absolutely no criticising Holyfield's comp whatsoever.

 

yes shot to pieces after tyson ....go look at his resume of wins ?? harold sconniers/e marcus/d amos/r marin/ b yates ....ruddock was done on june 28 1991 ..........

 

"missed fighting McCall" ?

What's next ... "ducked Jesse Ferguson".

 

YES, the bottom line is that Bowe threw the BELT in the bin.

There was still a HUGE opportunity for Lennox Lewis's management to negotiate a fight with Rid**** Bowe's management .... something reported in the press and the time and wholly acknowledged later on by Frank Maloney, including at least one VERY GOOD offer from Bowe's team .... but instead Lewis's team chose to string alone with the WBC/King status quo.

That's acknowledged by both sides of management.

Your simplified version is a little off the mark.

 

Ruddock stopped the unbeaten Phil Jackson a year after losing to Tyson, this was the fight that made the Lewis match , Jackson was rated no8 the following year.
After Tyson , Ruddock had a further 15 fights lost 2, one to Lewis one to Morrison, whom he had on the floor.

 

i did post a thread a while back regarding Bowe and Foreman which was in the works before Bowe Holyfield, even then Newman and co had no intention of fighting Lewis whatsoever.

 

Isn't that who Bowe defended his belt against,instead of Lewis? Or was it Dokes? I cant remember.

Also Ferguson did beat Mercer a bit more convincingly than say Lewis did.

Dont mess with the boogeyman

 

I'm not saying it was his fault that those fights never came off, just playing the game of "who didn't he face".

I do believe Foreman was a bad defence from a legacy standpoint, though. But it made a lot of sense financially.

 

As I said above, it's not about criticism. I think Holy was a true warrior with a fantastic career. Was just answering to the comment that he "had no holes in his resume" to point out that everyone (even Ali and Louis) are missing the names of some highly ranked contenders on their record.

You just can't fight everyone.

 

These men were never mandatories to Evander, were never recognized as outstanding contenders to him, and never had long term success. Of the two who held major titles, Bruno and McCall were former Champions within a year of winning their belt. These guys were minor players. Maybe we should add Alex Stewart and Bruce Seldon as a hole in Lewis' resume?

The major players in the 90s were Old Foreman, Moorer, Tyson in spurts, Holyfield, Bowe, and Lewis..maybe to a lesser degree Mercer. Evander is the only guy that managed to get all of them in the ring.