Lennox Lewis, Chris Byrd and the IBF

True true. So I guess LL was supposed to fight Byrd for peanuts instead of fighting Mike Tyson and Vitali K.

 

Why would you pursue a rematch with a guy that you turned into a punching bag last time you fought? You're the world champion, you shouldn't even think about it. Lewis also fought Vitali a year later not as a first choice. I commend him for that 100%, but the truth is, he ducked Byrd to seek out a rematch with badly beaten up Tyson, just to earn an easy buck. That's not what the real champion should do.

 

Well Lewis stopped the better brother and advised a golfer how to stop the lesser brother.

 

Vitali wasn't a better brother. Maybe at the time Lewis stopped him, yes, but it was like a 2 year stretch.

 

Where is the proof that Lewis was supposed to earn peanuts ?

 

Were you a boxing fan at the time? Because honestly the demand for Lewis v Wlad was nil.

Bigger demand for a Tyson rematch than that.

 

After he got sparked by Sanders, yes. Before that, there was a lot of hype surrounding LL fighting Wlad. They even "previewed" it in Ocean's Eleven. Wlad was widely viewed as the second best heavyweight on the planet.

 

There was the scene in Oceans 11, but the level gap between Lewis and everyone else was just seen as insurmountable.

There was zero hype around Wlad at the time.

The Ring ranked him number 2 yes, but that's only because he had a belt, but all the belts ran through Lewis anyway so it didn't matter.

 

It wasn't because of the belt. He had a WBO strap, which wasn't consider major at the time. He beat some Top 10 condenders during that time tho, that's why he was rated so highly.

 

No, it's was purely the belt. Wlad honestly had no hype whatsoever until he beat Ray Mercer.

 

Chris Byrd and Jameel McCline were both Top 10 guys at the time Wlad beat them. Mercer fight gave him some hype in the US, but he was highly rated before that. Jefferson and Botha weren't bad scalps either.

 

Nobody wanted to see any Byrd vs LL match. An IBF mandate at the time was absolutely worthless, LL was the champ, much bigger than any one belt.

You either were not following boxing back then or you have some strange reason for hating on LL, you should deal with that.

 

That's a very childish thing to say.

 

Like i said, he had no hype before the Mercer fight and at that point he wasn't seen as someone Lewis must fight. Lewis was either rematching Tyson or defending his WBC, all belts went through him anyways which is why no others were that pressing for him to defend against.

 

W Klitschko kept calling out Lennox Lewis after his fights in 2000, 2001, and 2002 but Lennox avoided him.

Lewis also avoided Byrd, who would be a difficult matchup for him, if Chris focused on defense as he did with V Klitschko and with Tua.

Byrd would have made him miss all night, maybe Lennox would have torn a rotator cusp from missing him so many times.