Did Tyson really duck Lewis in 96?

I know about the 4$ million dollar step aside money, And Lenonx on Twitter litterally flaunts this around.

The problem I have with Tyson supposedly ducking him in 96, is Tyson's sparring partner,literally knocked Lewis out in 94 and Lennox didn't avenge that loss until 97. So why would Tyson duck Lennox when the KO loss he had would give him all the confidence in the world

 

The Holyfield fight had been brewing for 6 years so I guess that makes sense.

But I don't really think Lewis fight with Ruddock would affect Mike's thoughts about that, because he knows what brutal fights does to people and he had beaten the crap out of Ruddock.

I just don't see why Mike, as lennox said, would duck him when his sparring partner KO'ed him easily

 

it just is odd that the story out there is that Mike ducked him with 4 million dollar step aside money, where if you really look at it, Mike really had no reason to think he'd lose.

But the narrative out there is Tyson ducked him for 4 mill

 

I personally don't see it. Watching a lot of Lewis fights lately, I see a lot of him being overrated. He had WAY more problems with Holyfield in the 2nd fight than he should have. Vitali could have knocked him out in the 2nd round of their fight, but decided to just look at him instead of finishing.

When Mike and Lennox fought, Lennox clinched him like 12 times in the first round alone and just kept clinching him for like 4 rounds til he gassed and he barely did anything but land 1 uppercut in the 1st I think. And this was Mike at his worst.

The more I see of Lennox, the more I feel like ,he only looked good,because the people that fought him were either old (Like Holyfield or Mike who needed the stamina to up their workrate and combinations and in Mike's case head movement and speed) ,beaten up (like Ruddock) or just not really all that great, aside from Vitali.

Watching Lennox fight Holyfield and Mike, there is nothing I see that doesn't suggest that the two of them woudln't have beat him in their primes. Evander's problem in the 2nd fight was he was afraid of gassing so his workrate was low.

 

Mike was "Afraid" of George because he thought it was a stylistic nightmare.

If you watch Lewis fight Tyson, I don't see anything different from what Bruno was doing compared to Lewis in the first 3 rounds. But I guess Lewis wasn't afraid cause he won