Revisionist history regarding Lennox Lewis

Doc Everlast · Jan 3, 2016

Lennox is the truth!

Rumsfeld · Jan 3, 2016

Pugilist_Spec said: ↑

Does anyone feel like Lewis' accomplishments get way too overblown nowadays? I mean don't get me wrong, I greatly appreciate Lennox, rate him as a top 5 ATG heavyweight, but people have this picture of him as the dominant heavy of the 90s when he was anything but.

He's considered an unbeatable phenom by a lot of posters when in reality he was fairly limited and the quality of his performance varied from fight to fight.

He consistently put up subpar and mediocre performances during his heyday in-between good ones, sometimes not even against world class opponents. He was getting picked apart by Bruno, got knocked out by McCall, was lucky to s****e past Mercer, looked bad against unknown Mavrovic, got knocked out by Rahman, was rocked and drawn into a slugfest by a truly terrible Briggs who shouldn't have gotten out of the first, arguably lost to a shopworn Holyfield in 99...

There were 6 lineal/legitimate champions in the 90s aside from himself - Douglas, Holyfield, Bowe, Moorer, Foreman and Tyson.

He fought two, and one was a complete, over the hill corpse when the fight did happen. So I fail to see how he's regarded as "dominant".

Discuss.
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He's one of the few champions to retire having beat every man he faced, and while the timing wasn't always ideal for the names he fought, the fact remains he didn't miss too many viable names along the way.

I think he's clearly the best heavyweight of the 90s, and am hard pressed to see any reasonable arguments to the contrary.

While it's true he didn't always put on the greatest performances, he usually found ways to win, and when he didn't, he found ways to win the rematch.

:smoke

CST80 · Jan 3, 2016

This was somewhat of a pro-Vitali/Wlad troll post when I made it, because I actually like Lewis but here it is.

Was Lennox Really That Great?
Vitali was leading on the cards, he was scared to rematch him, his wife begged him not to rematch him, the cut was opened up by his laces on his glove. TKO6 will forever be a blackeye on Lennox's record.

Mike Tyson was a shell of his former self and it was a 6 years removed from his TKO at the hands of Evander and 5 after biting off Evander's ear, he hadn't boxed in 9 months prior and 3 of his 4 previous opponents were bums. The difference between 80's Mike and 2002's is a massive gap.

KO4 Rahman was average Heavyweight at best he'd already been stopped by Tua and Maskaev he had no great single win, and he still knocked Lewis TFO it took Lennox two tries to get the job done, although that doesn't keep his defenders from trying to make Rahman into a worldbeater.

David Tua was a decent win but he was outboxed by Ike before and Chris Byrd later, not that hard to outbox especially for a Olympic Gold Medalist with a 7 inch height advantage. Tua 70 inch reach, Lewis 80 inch reach.

Botha no big deal, he'd already been stopped by Tyson and Moorer, he was never that great.

Michael Grant was undefeated but his best win was over a post Lennox KO Golota who dropped him twice in the first, other than that no notable wins.

Evander Holyfield was a good win but it would have been a hell of a lot better had it not been right after his 3 wars with Bowe the last war Bowe stopped him in. And after his two matches against Tyson. And still Lennox barely beat him the first time and didn't do too much better the second time but he beat him.

Zeljko Mavrovic was a decent win he took his 0 but Mavrovic didn't have many notable wins and retired after the loss so no one knows how good he could have been post Lewis.

Briggs' biggest win before the Lewis match a decrepit George Foreman and he'd been KO'd in 3 by Darroll Wilson and followed up his match against Lewis with a draw against Botha. Briggs was overrated.

Golota was decent win but it came directly after his two DQ foul riddled wars against Bowe which certainly took their toll on him. Not to mention he had been injected with lidocaine before the fight which most likely effected him.

Henry Akinwande was undefeated against losers and got stopped no big deal.

Oliver McCall's best win was a decrepit Larry Holmes he had 5 points losses and decent power but not great yet KO Lewis in 2, Lewis got him in 5 in the rematch. Really should be looked at as a pathetic KO Loss for Lewis as embarrassing as the Brewster KO.

Ray Mercer had 3 losses one against Ferguson with 9 losses, one against old ass Larry Holes and one against Holyfield, yet he came close to outboxing Lewis. Average win.

Tommy Morrison had been KO'd by Bentt and Mercer and KD quite a few times by Carl Williams, okay win but nothing great.

Ruddock, Lewis stopped him by Jaco and Tyson already had, no big deal.

In total 4 of Lennox Lewis' opponents were undefeated, and only 5 had 1 loss, the majority of wins would be looked at as cherry picking of exposed fighters with glass jaws by today's standards, is Lewis' record really that great. What do you think?

Just for the sake of comparison 12 of Wlad's opponents were undefeated, and 12 only had 1 loss.

While Lennox on paper has wins over the quality and name opponents, what shouldn't be ignored is their shoddy records by the time Lennox got to them and how past their prime many of them really were
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Pugilist_Spec · Jan 3, 2016

Rumsfeld said: ↑

He's one of the few champions to retire having beat every man he faced, and while the timing wasn't always ideal for the names he fought, the fact remains he didn't miss too many viable names along the way.

I think he's clearly the best heavyweight of the 90s, and am hard pressed to see any reasonable arguments to the contrary.

While it's true he didn't always put on the greatest performances, he usually found ways to win, and when he didn't, he found ways to win the rematch.

:smoke
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I can definitely see a more than reasonable argument for Holyfield.

Going into the Lewis fight he had beaten every man he faced, and had beaten more key fighters (Bowe, 90s Tyson, Moorer). Couple that with the opinion many share, that he edged Lewis in the rematch, and you have a very strong case for Evander.

Lewis did go on to compete for a few more years, and beating Vitali Klitschko at the climax of his career was impressive, but that shouldn't be relevant when it comes to who was better in the 90s.

Ilesey · Jan 3, 2016

Doc Everlast said: ↑

Lennox is the truth!
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This! :deal

eltirado · Jan 3, 2016

Pugilist_Spec said: ↑

Does anyone feel like Lewis' accomplishments get way too overblown nowadays?.
Click to expand...

No but he is above:
Vitali TKO6
Tyson KO8
Holyfield 1 Win & 1 Draw

He Beat every man he faced

From this era Champions only Wilder & Fury are still capable of surpassing him, mainly because they are undefeated champions with perfect resumes that can still improve :think

Rock0052 · Jan 3, 2016

Big fan, but I have a hard time ranking him over Holy if we're talking accomplishments and rankings. Holyfield has more losses, but the level of competition for Evander is sick, and against a much wider range of opponents.

C.J. · Jan 3, 2016

Pugilist_Spec said: ↑

Does anyone feel like Lewis' accomplishments get way too overblown nowadays? I mean don't get me wrong, I greatly appreciate Lennox, rate him as a top 5 ATG heavyweight, but people have this picture of him as the dominant heavy of the 90s when he was anything but.

He's considered an unbeatable phenom by a lot of posters when in reality he was fairly limited and the quality of his performance varied from fight to fight.

He consistently put up subpar and mediocre performances during his heyday in-between good ones, sometimes not even against world class opponents. He was getting picked apart by Bruno, got knocked out by McCall, was lucky to s****e past Mercer, looked bad against unknown Mavrovic, got knocked out by Rahman, was rocked and drawn into a slugfest by a truly terrible Briggs who shouldn't have gotten out of the first, arguably lost to a shopworn Holyfield in 99...

There were 6 lineal/legitimate champions in the 90s aside from himself - Douglas, Holyfield, Bowe, Moorer, Foreman and Tyson.

He fought two, and one was a complete, over the hill corpse when the fight did happen. So I fail to see how he's regarded as "dominant".

Discuss.
Click to expand...

Lennox was the best Hw champ since Ali. His two KO losses were his own fault fluke KO's Easily revenged when he was focused. If you claim Holyfield beat Lennox then your name must be Eugenia Williams ROFLMAO. That was a King inspired blatant robbery, Foreman himself told us in Houston "I would never fight Lennox Lewis I couldn't take that big right hand" As for Bowe he blatantly ducked Lennox. Douglas wasn't in picture long enough to challenge Lennox , Guess that proves my point huh???

SmackDaBum · Jan 3, 2016

TS is right, great boxer, good resume.

C.J. · Jan 3, 2016

Pugilist_Spec said: ↑

"No one wanted to fight Lewis in his prime"

Well, Bowe did. In 94 it was a done deal, Holyfield losing to Moorer opened a door for a Bowe fight, everything was set, all Lewis had to do was defeat his mandatory, Oliver McCall. We know how that went.

Then again, in 95, after Bowe beat Holyfield the third time and won his WBO trinket from Herbie Hide, HBO tried to make another fight with Lewis in 96. Lewis personally declined and fought trialhorse Mercer.

Holyfield was willing to fight him in a unification in 94 but him losing to Moorer and Lewis losing to McCall ruined that one.

Tyson offered him 13,5$ million to fight him in 96, or 4$ million to step aside and let him unify with Seldon. Lewis took the 4 and walked away.

Not a single top fighter ducked Lewis. He and his camp perpetuated that myth because Bowe didn't want to immediately go in with a tough mandatory after winning his title in a war with ATG Holyfield - and rightfully so.

In the end, he had 2 shots to fight Bowe and screwed up himself. He could have fought Tyson in the mid 90s but didn't. His fault.
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Absolute Bull Feces Rock Newman would NEVER let Bowe fight Lennox again because he knew he had Bowe's # from the Olympics, I talked tp Newman & Bowe in Dallas at the time.
Newman was flaunting Bowe's title belts. Newman said " want to have a pic taken with Rid**** & his belts". I couldn't help it I blurted out " Rid**** isn't the legitimate champ till he fights Lennox Lewis as you agreed to do" Bowe walked away Newman said " Why risk it all against Lewis when fans will buy Dokes & Ferguson with no risk" There was the answer to no Lewis - Bowe. As for Tyson both Lennox & Mike were with Cus D'mato as kids. After the first rocky spar tpgether Lennox handled Mike fairly easy. It was King kept Tyson away from Lennox

C.J. · Jan 3, 2016

Lennox Lewis had only one glaring fault ????? He is a West Ham United supporter & not a supporter of the greatest team ever in football

!!!! TOTTENHAM HOTSPURS THE PRIDE OF NORTH LONDON !!!!!!

Pugilist_Spec · Jan 3, 2016

C.J. said: ↑

Absolute Bull Feces Rock Newman would NEVER let Bowe fight Lennox again because he knew he had Bowe's # from the Olympics, I talked tp Newman & Bowe in Dallas at the time.
Newman was flaunting Bowe's title belts. Newman said " want to have a pic taken with Rid**** & his belts". I couldn't help it I blurted out " Rid**** isn't the legitimate champ till he fights Lennox Lewis as you agreed to do" Bowe walked away Newman said " Why risk it all against Lewis when fans will buy Dokes & Ferguson with no risk" There was the answer to no Lewis - Bowe. As for Tyson both Lennox & Mike were with Cus D'mato as kids. After the first rocky spar tpgether Lennox handled Mike fairly easy. It was King kept Tyson away from Lennox
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Look man, I know you like Lewis, so do I, I don't think Bowe would have beaten him in a prime for prime match, but it is a fact that Bowe had no qualms about fighting him.

http://i64.tinypic.com/jrwg7k.jpg

The venue and purses were set, Lewis was to make 18$ million and Bowe 13$ million, all Lewis had to do was beat McCall, and he ****ed up. Simple as.

And the bull**** story about his sparring sessions with Tyson has so many variations and different outcomes told by a plethora of different people for me to take it seriously. What matters is that Lewis passed up an opportunity to fight Mike in 96 and took Kings step aside money.

Let's just say that nobody was ducking Lennox - he was given several opportunities to prove himself against his contemporaries, and his win over a completely spent Mike in 2002 shouldn't be given much credence.

IntentionalButt · Jan 3, 2016

Pugilist_Spec said: ↑

There were 6 lineal/legitimate champions in the 90s aside from himself - Douglas, Holyfield, Bowe, Moorer, Foreman and Tyson.

He fought two, and one was a complete, over the hill corpse when the fight did happen. So I fail to see how he's regarded as "dominant".

Click to expand...

He fought the most important two of those six. Of the remaining four, one threw his belts in the garbage rather than face Lewis. Another was a man in his forties with a spare tire built up during a decade-long absence from the ring. Another lost his lineal championship to said fat old man. The fourth was Buster freaking Douglas.

On The Money · Jan 3, 2016

He's been dining out on tko 6 for 13 years, the only fight that his huggers care about, but the fact is as an atg he was a fraud. The real man is the double champion emeritus who left no challenge out there.

IntentionalButt · Jan 3, 2016

On The Money said: ↑

He's been dining out on tko 6 for 13 years, the only fight that his huggers care about, but the fact is as an atg he was a fraud. The real man is the double champion emeritus who left no challenge out there.
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His career's great without TKO6.

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Revisionist history regarding Lennox Lewis

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Revisionist history regarding Lennox Lewis

Doc Everlast Boxing Junkie Full Member

Rumsfeld Moderator Staff Member

CST80 De Omnibus Dubitandum Staff Member

Pugilist_Spec Hands Of Stone Full Member

Ilesey ~ Full Member

eltirado Obsessed with Boxing Full Member

Rock0052 Loyal Member Full Member

C.J. Boxings Living Legend revered & respected by all Full Member

SmackDaBum TKO7 banned Full Member

C.J. Boxings Living Legend revered & respected by all Full Member

C.J. Boxings Living Legend revered & respected by all Full Member

Pugilist_Spec Hands Of Stone Full Member

IntentionalButt Guy wants to name his çock 'macho' that's ok by me

On The Money Dangerous Journeyman Full Member

IntentionalButt Guy wants to name his çock 'macho' that's ok by me