Why doesn't Lennox have universal approval ?

I know what bluffing is. Why call the bluff is the first place. There was more then just 3 million on the table. Lewis was guaranteed a share of future promotions netting him up to 15 million.

He refused and in that time , King was advising him play hardball in negotiations , taunt Newman with A 50/50 split and options on future Bowe fights in a bid to make Newman walk.
King did everything he could to promote the HW championship and that was only possible if Lewis fought his man Tucker.
Who was Lewis to play hard ball with the undisputed champ when he was a nobody?
He would have done what they asked , no ifs and buts , if he thought he was good enough.
Lewis was pricing himself out and waiting out the 60 day deadline set by the WBC which would favour him at the end.

Bowe got 3 million when he challenged Holyfied , the exact same Lewis was offered , but it wasn't good enough for Lewis. Clear duck.

 

The $3 million was accepted by Lewis, not declined. That is a fact, see the link below as proof. As for the $15 million offer for Lewis in a rematch with Bowe if he won, he had to fight Bowe in the first place to get a rematch and I've proved already Bowe refused the first fight, so any talk of money in a rematch is pointless.

Bowe ducked Lewis in one of the most blatant ducks ever. Lewis and Duva gave in to all Newmans demands yet when they did, Newman withdrew his offers.

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1992-12-16/sports/1992351188_1_lennox-lewis-bowe-duva

Any talk of 50/50 is pure fantasy on your part. Maloney wanted only $10 million which Newman offered but he had conditions to this offer. He didn't want to pay the 28% options on Bowe that Duva held, which he had agreed to, to get Holyfield. See link below to confirm this.

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1993-02-11/sports/1993042075_1_newman-bowe-duva

Duva then agreed to give up his options on Bowe if he fought Lewis. See link below as proof. So Lewis got his $10 million, Newman got the options on Bowe cancelled as he had requested. Yet Newman still didn't want the fight, another clear duck.

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1993-05-15/sports/1993135109_1_dan-duva-bowe-newman

 

The link you supplied me states he initially turned down the 3 million offer and you said that yourself when he was playing a bluffing game.

Why is he playing hard ball and refusing offers? Challengers don't call bluffs to the champion. Bowe got 3 million for Holyfield. There was no reason for Lewis to refuse.

Lewis refused the 3 mil , then 10 million and then a further 12 million down the line.

 

He refused initially but then accepted when it became clear no better offer was forth coming. Yet you choose to focus on the initial decline and conveniently ignore he agreed to the $3 million. But, but he declined...:| :nut

It doesn't matter if Lewis played hard ball or not, had he agreed immediately Bowe and Newman would have still withdrawn their $3 million offer because that's exactly what happened when Lewis did agree. It was a bogus offer, that cannot be denied. If it was genuine why didn't Bowe agree to fight Lewis?

Champions shouldn't have to bluff in the first place, they should make genuine offers to their contractually agreed opponents. The $3 million offer was complete bull****, why offer a fight then withdraw that offer when your opponent agrees to your terms, that's pure cowardice.

How did you know that it was Lewis that declined the $10 million, $12 million that's pure speculation on your part and Newman is not a reliable source. The fact is both these offers had conditions regarding Bowe's options with Duva and when Duva agreed Newman conveniently shut up and did nothing to further the fight.

There was also an offer after the $12 million. Newman offered $11 million in July 93. That's right Newman's negotiating tactics to make the fight happen was to reduce Lewis' purse. atsch

So we have Newman's first offer of $3 million withdrawn when Lewis agrees. 2 further offers of $10 and $12 million with conditions, when the conditions are met Newman goes into hiding. Newman then furthers negotiations by offering less, yes less than before.

Quite frankly Newman and Bowe were full of **** and totally untrustworthy. They reneged on an agreed fight with Lewis. They tried to worm their way out of the agreed options they gave to Duva. They reneged on the $3 million offer to Lewis when he agreed. Any offers by Newman were very likely to be bull**** based upon his previous track record.

 

So you're saying the 3 million and shares of future promotions wasn't good enough for Lewis?

Why was he bluffing to try get a better offer than 3 million. Thats what Bowe got for Holyfield.
Bowe happily fights Holyfield for 3 million, beats Holyfield and then see's Lewis refusing the same amount he fought for and coming at him with ridiculous demands.
Lewis priced himself out. Its undeniable.

 

And you trust Lewis who is a known bullshytter in the company of Don King? That's absurd.

Lewis refused first and foremost. He make the first duck. Not Bowe.

 

Lewis was the one bluffing , not Bowe.. It was you who made that claim. The offer was made and Lewis refused.

 

:nut You make Klit****s seem rational and coherent Dino. Debating with you is like dipping into a TKO6 thread with all the conspiracies and disinformation.

You can stick your head in the sand and ignore the facts if you want but facts are facts. Lewis wanted more than the $3 million, so held out, that's not a bluff that's trying to negotiate a better deal, happens in every negotiation. It became clear Bowe was not going to offer more, so Lewis agreed. The offer was then withdrawn. Why, because it was a bogus offer to begin with, a bluff pure and simple.

You can twist the truth, ignore the facts but with each post you make you come over more and more deluded. :nut

 

When did Lewis accept Newman's offer ?
Once Lewis had accepted the WBC belt he was tied to Don King's plans for the Tucker fight anyway.

 

Thats pricing yourself out and by doing so he burned bridges. You don't call the shots to the champ.
He then came back with demands for options on Bowe.

Bowe never played underhanded tactics with Holyfield. He accepted what was given and that was that. He took care of real business in the ring where he took the titles by his own hands.

Lewis refused almost every offer made to him. You don't do that unless you don't really want the fight.


http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1993-05-14/sports/1993134195_1_lewis-newman-dan-duva


https://news.google.com/newspapers?...AIBAJ&sjid=aCUEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6848,4061435&hl=en

 

Lewis was away negotiating with King and Suillyman while pretending to be interested in Bowe.

This is what Newman was talking about here

 

Lewis accepted Newmans $3 million offer in Dec 92 the day after Bowe dumped the WBC belt in the bin. Lewis wasn't officially declared WBC champion until 4 days after Bowe dumped the belt. So there was a 3 days period when they could have come to terms without the WBC belt on the line.

While as WBC champion Lewis was tied into facing his mandatory in Tucker, he could have easily not accepted the WBC belt if Bowe had agreed to face him. Also it was Bowe and Newman who where placing the obstacle of only facing Lewis if he dumped the WBC belt, that was a self imposed barrier to the fight.

Newman then offered $10 million but only after Lewis was offered $9.15 million to face Tucker. Why wasn't the $10 million offer made prior to the purse bids why was it only offered a few days after the purse bids when it was clear Lewis was facing Tucker and getting a bigger payday than Bowe had ever made? Also why all the conditions with this offer, dropping the WBC belt and Lewis paying 28% out of his purse to cover Duva's options with Bowe?

 

As I understand it, Lewis made a statement saying he'd fight Bowe for the $3 million, but his manager Frank Maloney publicly denounced Lewis's statement.
Since Maloney was contracted as manager and was on a percentage of any Lewis purse, I'd say that Lewis's statement does not count as a serious "acceptance" of Newman's offer at all.

Why ?
Possibly because Newman was on some crusade against Don King and the WBC, a feud that pre-dated the matter of a Bowe and Lewis title fight.
I'm not saying his intentions were all good, but they are clear enough.
Unlike Maloney and Lewis, who spent their entire career pretending to be victims of Don King's ambitions for control but actually kept aiding him back into the picture with mutually profitable arrangements.

 

If the simps can't digest the easily discernible fact that the onus of the Bowe-Lewis fight not occurring is carried by Newman and Bowe (and the fact that Bowe disintegrated so quickly as a fighter), then perhaps they should compare their resumes. Lewis's resume destroys Bowe's relatively middling stay at the top of the division both in depth and quality.

 

:huh
What does the completed career of Lewis in 2003 have to say about what happened between him and Bowe in the early 90's
If you want to look into the urn and play time traveller , the future says Lewis wasn't in Bowe's league by getting starched out in two rounds by Macall.
I don't remember Bowe getting taken out for the count - not in prime or past prime.
And you like to think Lewis never gave up or got stripped of every title he had, but guess what? it happened
The simp is the guy who takes a back seat when facts are being exchanged , then steps in when its over to make a nonsensical , time paradoxical mish mash of a post.