Lennox Lewis championship run

I'm not terribly impressed by Lewis as champion.

 

8.5 maybe

 

Very strong championship run one of the best imo beat everyone ducked no one till the end and also beat a future champ in Vitali. I would criticism him a bit for retiring without giving Vitali the rematch but I guess I can't blame him for realizing he was overmatched and probably would have lost the fight. Overall one of the best in history.
(Love to see you do one on Larry Holmes wanna see how he compares)

 

Anyone. He has no undisputed defenses.

 

I think Lewis fought everyone. The Tua defense was probably his most important defense and the second Holyfield fight was probably his best win.

I don't think he could have done much more. I would have loved to have seen Lewis-Ibeabuchi and Lewis-Sanders. But Ike was a nutcase and Sanders lost to Rahman.

But i can't blame him for the above not happening. For the record, i don't think Byrd or Ruiz had anything to threaten Lewis with. Moorer was shot post Holyfield 2.

 

Actually it was Lewis' team which sued King first.
King counter-sued and won because Lewis didn't follow what was actually contractually agreed on before the Holyfield fights (defending first against the n°1 WBA contender OR the leading available contender).

To answer your question, it was a very good reign (far better than the first) that cemented his place as a great heavyweight.
Golota, Tua and Rahman II were his stand out performances.
Briggs and Vitali were the most exciting fights of that reign.
Holyfield and Tyson were the legacy fights however their value is diminished by the declined state of his opponents (especially Tyson). But Lewis still had to beat them and did it convincingly.

8/10 overall.

 

Yes, it's true that the WBA allowed that at first because Lewis promised a shot at Ruiz within the mandatory time limit.
But Lewis also knew that Ruiz/King wouldn't agree to that, this is why he sued King first while negociating the fight with Grant.
He wanted to present King with a fait accompli but it backfired on him because he didn't follow on the contract he signed before.

 

Compared to everyone else who ever held a heavyweight title,. Lennox's combined reigns (14 successful defenses) are a 10.

Everybody misses someone. Joe Louis didn't fight any black heavyweight contenders until his last title challenger (Walcott). (John Henry Lewis wasn't a top heavyweight). And not fighting the top black heavyweights for nearly 12 years was a pretty huge "miss." Nobody picks apart his resume for that, though.

The initial post leaves out that he wasted Ruddock (the #1 WBC contender) in a fight that retroactively made him WBC champ, and he stopped Frank Bruno (who was WBC champ in 1995/96) at Wembley in 1993 in his first reign.

Witherspoon wasn't a factor at all, and his name shouldn't be mentioned.

The year Lewis wasted Ruddock, Moorer won the WBO belt against Cooper. Tim was supposed to fight Moorer, but Witherspoon lost a decision to Bigfoot Martin in a tune-up. And when Lewis regained the title, Tim went on a losing streak, dropping six of seven fights. He was just never in the mix, honestly.

Moorer was a miss. They shared a doubleheader together on HBO, but I don't think Moorer would've given him much of a problem. Moorer was so lazy and so hittable that I think Lewis takes him out quick.

 

Lewis went to court because the WBA wanted him to fight Akinwande again. Akinwande was the mandatory. Not Ruiz.

Lewis tried to block a rematch with Akinwande (which nobody, not even Henry, wanted) and negotiated to fight Grant, which is who HBO wanted him to fight.

Akinwande had hepatitis. Nobody was going to force Lewis to fight him. So the WBA swapped out Henry and replaced him with Ruiz. The judge said that the Lewis-Holyfield winner agreed to fight the WBA mandatory (which was Akinwande), but the loophole was Akinwande's name wasn't included. It just said the WBA MANDATORY.

Before the judge ruled, Lennox's team actually got Ruiz to initially agree to fight in England after Grant, but then Evander got lawyered up because he couldn't understand why Ruiz was rated above him, and then the judge said Lewis had to fight the WBA mando first.

So Lewis had to fight Ruiz or vacate. And since the fight with Grant was days away, he vacated. Ruiz, King, Holyfield, etc. then all agreed to fight each other rather than sue each other.

Lewis-Botha was supposed to be Lewis-Ruiz.