Ruddock vs Lewis - 24yrs ago tonight, what are your thoughts on it?

Exactly right. I don't recall Page overly wobbling him either. Ruddock was stopped once in his next 14 or so fights after Lewis and that was by the big hitting Morrison where both hit the canvas. Admittedly against lower level opposition but his chin can hardly have been totally shot.

 

Tyson gets credited for the two wins for sure. Thqat's what makes it even more impressive for Lewis - he had him up and down like a yoyo and out of there in 4 minutes flat. The Tyson fights were wars by comparison.

 

True. But i don't think he gets credited as much as Lewis does. Consider Tyson was 5'10 with a reach of 71' against the 6'3 Ruddock with an 82' reach. He over came greater odds when giving a more mentally strong Ruddock a career shortening pasting.
He made a lot of silly unnecessary mistakes against Lewis and i can't help feel that was partly due to the war he had with Tyson.

 

Tyson's size and reach shouldn't come into things at all tho. They sure didn't hinder him as he cut a swathe thru the heavyweight ranks the likes of which may have never been seen before. Lewis was the underdog where as Tyson was about 5-1 favorite against Razor so Lewis really overcame the greater odds not Tyson.

We can only assume Ruddock was more mentally strong against Tyson than Lewis.

As for the silly mistakes Ruddock was never a great technician. It was impressive that Lewis could pounce on him so quickly and so efficiently.

 

I remember watching the fight on HBO just before heading out to a halloween party. I'm glad I didn't put any money down because I would have lost everything on Ruddock.

 

Agreed. and I have also always believed the Morrison loss to be an early stoppage.

 

I'll have to rewatch that one. Cheers Goo.

 

Razor Ruddock was seriously overrated at that point in time.
Looking back, it was probably the chilling Dokes win that started him to be overrated. And somehow being battered twice by a post-Douglas Tyson only increased his stock.
In some ways he was even more overrated that C00ney was about 10 years earlier.

 

True. The Dokes win came 2.5 years prior to the Lewis meeting, and in the interim Ruddock really hadn't beaten anyone of serious consequence.. Losing to Tyson twice was somehow the only thing that seemingly kept him in the top 3, which in most instances wouldn't uphold a rating.

 

The stars aligned for Ruddock as far as getting maximum exposure as he hit his prime.
With Buster Douglas unexpectedly "opening up" the division, the devastating KO of Dokes took on a significance it wouldn't have had. People were willing to look around for prime heavyweights as give them credit as possible future champions, whereas a year or two earlier in was assumed Tyson would be cemented in his throne for several years. The fact that Tyson had "ducked" a November 1989 date with Ruddock suddenly gained significance too, and with Don King's grip on the championship suddenly lost, he saw fit to use Tyson-Ruddock fights to put Holyfield under pressure and continue to make big money. Perhaps he suspected Tyson might self-destruct soon anyway.
To casual fans, Ruddock's efforts against Tyson were surprisingly good, so when Tyson went to jail (which added to the Tyson myth), Ruddock inherited a lot of fans and believers.

To be fair to Ruddock, he WAS good, brave and dangerous, but the fact that many would have favoured him over everyone bar Tyson at that time is a clear-cut case of overrating.

 

In all honesty I DID favor Ruddock to beat Lewis. But so did many.

 

Hindsight is so 100% tho isn't it.

 

nah man i just watched ruddock v page last week / he was head hunting against page like crazy and didnt look great and didnt even throw a jab / but greg page never ever and i mean ever wobbled ruddock and page was not the warm up for the lennox lewis fight it was actually phil jackson bro ...go watch ruddock /page on youtube ....he was never wobbled and greg page took a horrible beating

 

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I don't think C00ney or Ruddock were overrated. Just like I don't think Sonny Liston was overrated. The word overrated gets tossed around on this board quite a bit.

At the time, given the people they beat, they were viewed appropriately. Looking back, people can say "this guy was shot or that guy was old" but they weren't going in.

Ruddock knocked out Bonecrusher, Page, Dokes and he outpointed Weaver. All those guys were still top 10 heavyweights when he beat them. Bonecrusher had been the WBA champ just two years before Razor fought him. Weaver had fought Pinklon Thomas for the WBA belt a YEAR before Ruddock beat Mike. Dokes had engaged in the heavyweight fight OF THE DECADE against Holyfield a year before.

And Tyson (despite losing to Douglas) was still considered the best heavyweight in the world when Ruddock faced him twice. And those fights were big events.

Also, don't forget that Ruddock had faced Lewis when they were amateurs and beat him.

By comparison, Lewis was pretty untested going in.

Ruddock wasn't overrated. Lewis just put on his first spectacular performance in what would become a hall of fame career.