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

No one ever came close to coming close doing what Lewis did to Vitaly before or after. There's no revisionism about that.

 

Yes, but to be fair Holmes had just beat Mercer, who was a solid up-and-comer at that point, so Holmes DID deserve to be ranked.

Douglas was coming off the win over Tyson, was undisputed champion, there's no doubt at all about his status.
Yes, he was overweight.
I believe it's the most underrated single win in HW history. It's almost treated by some as a negative that Holyfield fought him.

Again, Bowe was a bit overweight, but it's probably an exaggeration to say he hadn't trained.
But surely, Holyfield "extended" the sh!t out of Bowe, even in his losing efforts.

Well, then Lewis's win against McCall is inconclusive too.

I believe Tyson had trained.

That's arguable, sure.
And Lewis was blown away by a couple of second-raters. which is worse, btw.

Well, you didn't exactly do what I was looking at. I'm more interested in ****ysing how good the fighters as a group are, examining some of them individually, and what it means to be "ranked" ... for example, which fighters were really in form and coming off good results.

And, yes, Holyfield might NOT be top 10 either ! I accept that 100%. :good

 

And, yet, we can both list SEVERAL top fighters from the 1998 - 2012 period who Vitali failed to meet, so even in his own era the fact isn't that special.

 

That can even more be said about Bowe and Tyson, Holy's best wins. Tyson didn't beat that many contenders post prison and Bowe didn't through his whole career.

But unlike them Vitaly was seen as the next best HW by some margin even about ten years after losing to Lewis.

You're constantly setting standards here that would make just about any resume look average at best. And that's the very definition of bias.

 

Tyson looked good against Bruno in 1996.
I certainly wouldn't argue that ONLY Holyfield could have beat him that year, or make any special claims about the status of the win in an all-time sense, but I accept the fact that Tyson had shown himself to be pretty good fighter.
Holyfield really dominated that version of Tyson, and Holyfield was already clearly past his best.

Bowe was good. I think Bowe put on a great performance to defeat Holyfield, he had to, and I actually think Holyfield put on a great performance in the second fight to defeat Bowe - absolutely contrary to the idea that Bowe was just some fat untrained fighter waiting to be beat.
And, again, I'm making no special claim for that fight.

Vitali was a good win for Lewis too, as I've already said. But I didn't think either of them fought particularly well, I wasn't especially impressed by Lewis's performance, and many others feel the same. You even conceded something to that effect yourself.

Okay, if that's true, for me, that doesn't necessarily say a lot about how good or great he was when he challenged Lewis.
There's so many ways to interpret that.
If you think Lewis's reputation can live off everything Vitali did after they fought, that seems a bit extreme.

I mean, if you want to discuss Vitali's career details for the ten years after the Lewis fight, that's another thing entirely, and seems a REAL EFFORT to add some sort of special status to the win.
Also, it's not all good, there's a lot of question marks - over his quality of opposition, his injured SHOULDER etc.

No, that's not the definition of bias.

You're the one who's making it complicated.
I've simply stated my opinion that Lewis's alleged "wins over ranked contenders" is NOT a guarantee of a top 5, or even top 10 rating.
Nor is his win over Vitali.
Nor is the fact that he beat the men who beat him.
Or all of that combined.

And since you've brought up HOLYFIELD, I've stated already that YES, Holyfield's arguably NOT top 10 either !

So, where's the bias ?

 

Primo Carnera
John Ruiz
Frank Bruno
Valuev

 

Well, if you accept that the same line of reasoning makes probably only Louis and Ali locks for top 10, I was wrong to call you biased.

And as for Vitaly, of course a win can be seen as greater after the fact, since a fighter in the smack of his prime has rarely shown all he can do. Duran's win over Leonard certainly belongs in this company, for example. As does Schmeling's over Louis.

Not that they wouldn't be seen as impressive wins anyway, but the achievements these men went on to make certainly makes beating them seem even more impressive.

 

Yes, I tend to agree that Louis and Ali are almost certainly the top 2, and then it's really up for grabs.
And, yes, personally, I'd accept a top 10 with any of the others absent, although some names would grate more than the absence of Lewis.

Yes, but there are limits I'd put on that.

 

Lewis has only one big holes in his legacy. The Vitali thing, this is a shame.
To me this (Lewis' disgusting behaviour) destroyed Lewis' legacy.

 

So do we assume Bowe had 2 off nights in his fights with Golota then? Cos he didn't look anything like able to blow him away, whereas Lewis 10 months later,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,:rofl:rofl

 

the only hole you can be referring to is the one lewis put in vitalis head.

but of course you wanted vits to fight on and become a blind beggar and thus NEVER win a title, and never having a legacy.

u should be thankful lewis left vitali alone enough for him to have a career at all.

 

All you are doing is picking apart his resume and using that criteria for all time ranking. This can be done to ANY fighter. I prefer h2h for ATR, and I don't see anyone beating Lewis prime for prime, except possibly pre exile Ali, and only then if he hit and ran all night. No way would he have the size or strength to do his usual pull the other guy down by the back of the neck trick with Lennox.

 

I'll say it again.

Firstly when a champion beats a contender there's no guarantee of a rematch.

Secondly, Vitali had plenty of time to prove he was the next one. The cut happened sometime in the 3rd round and the fight ended after the 6th round.

Thirdly, it was no mystery that the fight wasn't going to last the distance and that Vitali was living on borrowed time. He should have fought like it.

And lastly, it wasn't as if Lewis fought everyone else but purposely avoided Vitali, no he retired which was something he was contemplating after he beat Tyson.

So this in no way hurts his legacy, especially given his age and accomplishments. If anything, the win against a very tough opponent elevates his status.

 

Sure, I do rate fighters by assessing their resumes, among other things.
IF I was going on about Lewis's resume or picking it apart, that's because many people insist it was so superior among the ATG heavies to justify their own high ranking of him.

That's fair enough. If that's the way you see it, you have to rate hm as you see it.

:good