Prime Mike Tyson vs Prime Lennox Lewis

Lewis was too sloppy Pre Steward he wouldn't beat a prime Tyson during that period of his career.

As for Tyson's power being overrated ? He stopped two fighters in Spinks, Holmes, who were never stopped in over 100 fights.

There may of been bigger punchers than Tyson regarding 1 punch power, but his two fisted attack, explosiveness, handspeed, could still KO Lewis.

 

I'll take prime Iron Mike vs prime Lennox Lewis. In Mike's prime, he had the speed, power, tenacity, determination, and arrogance of being a killer in the ring. Yes, he lost focus after being led down the wrong path by a bunch of thugs. Although Lewis is definitely one of the greatest fighters of his era, he can be caught and downed.

 

I wouldn’t read too much into that.

Spinks only had five fights as a HW. For the vast majority of his career, he was a LHW. We simply don’t know how good his chin was for the HW division as he retired very early, straight after the Tyson loss, at only 32.

As for Holmes, come on now. Larry was not only old but more importantly, out of the ring for some one and a half years at that point. Also, Don King cheated him into the fight by bringing the match a month forward than what was originally agreed. Holmes simply wasn’t given enough time to properly prepare for a 21-year-old Tyson after almost two years of no activity in the ring.

 

Was Holmes ever stopped again after fighting Tyson ? or even come close to it ? I'm not saying it was the best version of Holmes. But it's still an impressive stoppage for Tyson.

Tyson certainly has enough power to KO Lewis if he catches him clean.

 

I'd say pre-Buster Douglas Tyson beats any version of Lewis, most other versions of Lewis beat a post-Buster Douglas Tyson. Prior to Douglas Tyson still had Kevin Rooney in his corner who was the architect of the head movement and combination punching. Once Rooney left Tyson was a completely different fighter, and is the main reason he lost to Douglas. Well that and probably 30 tequila shots the night before.

 

If this is a serious post it's probably the dumbest claim anyone's ever made on this forum.

 

Yeah just a testament to just as the quality of fighters has decreased from previous generations, so too has boxing knowledge.

 

Lots of things contribute to reputation... and lots of reputations get out of hand, especially with the more brutal fighters.

Heck, look at the ridiculous Zhang threads right now?
Or look how many people still rate Wilder as #3 in the division despite a third rate resume and extremely limited boxing skills.

Heck, look how many reputations get trashed when a fighter adopts a more cautious/defensive game - even if they're still good fighters, it can ruin fan perception... or on the flip side how a reputation can skyrocket when a pittypatty fighter starts fighting more aggressively (Fury?).

There's a lot more to it than whether they're average, good or great, and to what degree... more aggressive fighters get serious kudos with fans, and they don't come more aggressive than young Mike.

(Ps, I'd still pick Lewis.)

 

LOL.

 

The same can be said about usyk ;-)

 

So Usyk is a LHW now? You Furyettes are getting weirder by the day, mate.

 

You know what part of the quote i mean ;-)

 

Rooney left after the Spinks fight,gone was the dedication,fast combos with blistering hand speed.movement,elusiveness,body punches and Tyson became a simple head hunter trying to win fights with the brute force and intimidation approach and Tyson started getting hit ! First fight after Spinks was Bruno and he hit Tyson more than anybody had upto that point in his career .

 

I think perceptions have changed slightly over the years. All three came through around the same era. Although educated guys seen holyfield and lewis coming.....they knew tyson was the best of the three. This was a guy that battered mitch green and james tillis 17 days apart at 19 years old. Beat trevor berbick, bonecrusher smith, pinklon thomas, tony tucker, tyrell biggs, larry holmes, tony tubbs and michael spinks in a year and a half by the time he was 21. I dont think people quite realise how amazing a feat that was. One that no ones got anywhere near since.

Tysons hype was justified.

I think the reality is the stories been explained over again....tyson stopped doing the things that made him great. Not only did he stop he replaced them by training and living like a bad amatuer. At that point it was always going to be downhill.

Again no argument holyfield and lewis had much better longetivity and the better overall careers. Its also a hard argument prime v prime because the truth is we never got to see tysons real prime. No heavyweight is prime at 19/20/21 years old. If he,d have kept up what made him great tho....he,d have beat both. I actually believe 21 year old tyson beats any version of holyfield or lewis. One that had 3 or 4 months to train unlike the version we seen that was beating experienced fighters 17 days apart. Or fighting ex world champions 3 months apart. Taking some time off after fights etc.

Maybe not 26/27 year old holyfield tbh....who might have beat that 21 year old version of tyson with his unbelievable stamina.

 

As I'm posting this Lennox has a very slim 82-81 lead over Mike. This is a statistical "tie", that is the difference is not statistically significant.

As a long time boxing fan, it's ridiculous. The voting s/be at least 2:1 in Lewis favor. But Tyson's mythic aura is almost as strong as Ali's. Well, it certainly is here. Sure, LL could get caught and stopped by prime MT. But I think prime Lennox beats prime Mike about 8 of 10 bouts.