The problem of Lewis is not his undiscussed greatness but the fact he has only 41 fights. Others such as Ali, Louis, Foreman and Holmes have between 56 and 75 bouts in the score most of which or all of 15 rounds each. However I think he is in the top five the same.
Lewis unifed belts and got the best fighters he could in the ring as he could get them. Whereas Holmes fought the Bernardo Mercados and Tex Cobbs rather than Michael Dokes, Greg Page, Pinklon Thomas, Tony Tubbs, and Gerry Coetzee, Lewis fought every major fighter of his era except Bowe, who ran away screaming. Fair enough, but Ray Mercer was not his best win. Remove it from his record and he does not appreciably go down. I am talking about the fact that Holmes' two very best wins (which, by the way, weren't all that great) were, at the time, considered a bit dodgy. To me, that tends to blunt the claims that he is a top four guy. As above. He retired. Nor did he owe Vitali a rematch, as he won fair and square. With Mercer there was a point. This is a non-issue. He relinquished some belts when his career was winding down AFTER UNIFYING THEM. Holmes never unified anything and contributed to title proliferation by accepting the paper IBF belt and giving it credibility. Light years different.
Typical fan boy response when you can't disprove what someone says, revert to straight up name calling. LOL Braindamage>catchwtboxing
I don't think you could go past Dempsey, Louis, Ali, Tyson. If I was too pick my fav's then Holyfiled and Vitali would get a run. For me though, a true and actual heavyweight king mount rushmore would be those 4. With Marciano just missing out. A 5 head mountain with Marciano woukd be more appropriate.
I disagree with that take. Ill take Quality over quantity and that is not a knock on those fighters at all im strictly speaking on Lewis. Leonard is an all time great and he had 40 fights. Man fighters establish themselves as greats before they ever reach 40 fights.
Michael Moorer, Chris Byrd, Corrie Sanders, Wladimir Klistchko were light years better than Phils Jacksons, Michael Grants and Francois Bothas whom Lewis defended his title against. Phil Jackson, in fact, wasn't any better than Holmes worst opponents in his title defences. Mercer is the third best (After Holyfield and Vitali) and by far the most underrated Lennox's win IMO. I don't think it was a robbery, but Holmes vs Norton and Witherspon weren't as well. I've watched Holmes vs Norton twice and can't see how anyone can give the win to Norton. Fight was very close but, at the same time, very clear victory for Holmes (8-7). Witherspoon fight wasn't even that close IMO - I scored it 117-111 for Holmes. Lewis vs Mercer - I saw that fight 6 times and scored it 2 times as a Lewis win, 1 times I scored it for Mercer and 3 times scored it as a draw. It was very, very close fight, but no robbery. So, it was a great win for Lewis - beating a really tough opponent in a tough fight. Opponent whose chin he couldn't crack, who outjabbed him and put a lot of swellings on his face. Lewis was busy all night long, he landed some beautiful combinations and had to overcome a lot of difficulties in that fight to edge Mercer on 2 judges cards. FOr me, Mercer fight adds a lot to Lewis' legacy, and this win is badly underrated just because it wasn't a title fight. Imagine if Lennox won a title in such a great and tough fight instead of that ridiculously weird non-fight (rematch) with McCall? I think in that case people would rate this win properly. And it's strange to me that most of the people that bring down the importance of Lenox's win over Mercer are his fans. There is nothing bad in a tough victory, if your fighter showed heart, guts and skills (and Lennox did it that night). If it was a blatant robbery, than it might have been a reason to "forget" about that fight, but it wasn't - it was a very, very close victory in a great fight that could have gone either way. But nobody made him promise a rematch to Vitali, it was Lennox himself who said he will fight Vitali again. Plus, if we look at Joe Louis, Joe always gave rematches if there were some questions left, even if he KTFOed his opponents in the first fight - Buddy Baer, Billy Conn. There were definitely more questions left after Lewis' win over Vitali than after Loius wins over Baer and Conn. And he could have just retired after first fight against Walcott - he was clearly past his prime. But he decided to fight him again and knocked him out in the rematch. No, his career wasn't winding down when he relinquished WBA belt. Lennox was at his absolute peak then and had a lot of great performances left. And, anyway, relinqushing belts (Holmes did it once, Lewis did it twice) is always a relunquishing belts. And using additional parameters to justify an actions of your favorite fighter is a perfect example of double standards. PS: why people just can't admit their favorites aren't saint? It's not that hard IMO. Manny Pacquiao is my favorite fighter of all time and I think he lost at leat 3 of his 4 fights against Marquez... Ali is one of my favorite fighters of all time, but I think he got a gift in the third fight against Ken Norton... I'm a big fan of Wlad but I admit a lot of his fights were awfully boring to watch... Vitali has an awful resume for a guy that was inclued in HOF... Lomachenko clearly lost to Salido... It's not that hard.
Wlad is not top 4 but deserves his place in the Rushmore pantheon for being a handsome man that won't scare kids.