Lennox Lewis is great but

Let's remember the point we started on - A bigger purse than before doesn't make it a fair deal. Value has to be measured against market worth and context.

In the case of Tucker, he was the WBC's mandatory, and the fight was ordered. King couldn't risk losing the purse bid - not because he was desperate to "regain control of the heavyweight crown," but because he couldn't afford to let HBO and Main Events stage the fight. He bid big to protect his position. That's why Lewis made around $9M - not because King was offering him a fair deal out of choice.

You're also drawing too much from numbers taken out of context. The purses you seem to be alluding to weren't attached to superfights, so of course they didn't yield career-high money - nor were they meant to. Tucker, Bruno, McCall, Jackson... ...those were mandatories or routine defenses. Tyson and Holyfield were global events, and they paid accordingly. That's why it's meaningless to judge a $10M "offer" from King against whatever Lewis was earning elsewhere. The value of a contract isn't pegged to the last purse; it's pegged to the true worth of the fight at the time.

OK. Perhaps we should recall what was really going on at the time. The New Jersey courts had already ruled Tyson had to fight Lewis next as the WBC mandatory, which forced King to the table. Why should Lewis have bowed to King under those circumstances? The $10M figure was never a clean contract - it was King stalling to avoid purse bids and keep the fight on Showtime. Eliades was right to turn it down, pointing out at the time (Sunday Mirror, 12 May 1996) that the fight was worth $45m to Tyson alone if self-promoted. With a court ruling in his favor, Lewis had no reason to accept less than what he deemed his fair share.

And the "step-aside money" line doesn't prove anything against Lewis. He only accepted it because King and Tyson refused to honor the court ruling that ordered the fight. That wasn't reluctance - it was compensation for being denied what he was legally owed. The proof came soon after when Tyson fought Seldon, and the WBC stripped him of the title for refusing to face Lewis. That tells you precisely who avoided the fight.

So, rather than asking why Lewis accepted the money, the better question is why a court ruling was needed to force King and Tyson to the table in the first place - and why they fought to have that ruling overturned.

You are retrofitting a Judge's ruling into what Lewis was 'supposed to have known' before making the Grant fight. The obligation wasn't simple or clear at the time. Paragraph 10 of the Holyfield II contract was hotly disputed during negotiations, left ambiguous, and only clarified later in court when the Judge ruled in King's favor. The very fact that case existed proves Lewis didn't "know perfectly" in advance - he was testing what that clause actually meant.

When Lewis signed to fight Grant in January 2000, the WBA's "leading available contender" was still Henry Akinwande, who was medically unfit. Ruiz didn't move into the #1 spot until February, after the Grant fight was already agreed and announced. So the idea that Lewis was escaping Ruiz is pure hindsight revisionism.

And crucially, the WBA itself sanctioned the Grant fight on the 18th of March 2000, granting a special exception on the condition the winner defend against the WBA #1 within 180 days. That sanction undercuts any claim Lewis was secretly breaching. Instead, he had maneuvered within the rules, not outside them.

Which brings us back to the central point - Ruiz/Lewis was never in the same league as Tyson/Lewis. One was a routine mandatory, the other was a global event. To compare them as if they were equal is an overstatement, and to claim Lewis "knew perfectly" what the court would later rule is just overhauling history in hindsight.

Calling Byrd a "deserving" challenger is a stretch. He'd scraped a gift TKO against Vitali and then been taken apart by Wladimir - hardly the profile of a must-see opponent. Whether you call him deserving or not, Byrd was a commercial dead-end, unwatchable, couldn't sell a ticket, and HBO had no appetite for him. That's why the Lewis camp and HBO were building toward the Tyson rematch - which was also a contractual obligation - with Vitali Klitschko as another genuine mandatory. Under those circumstances, vacating the IBF title was both Lewis's right and the sensible move.

And let's not forget that he didn't just vacate - King paid him to vacate. King was chasing Lewis as early as August 2002 in Ghana, barely two months after the Tyson fight, to persuade him to give the belt up. If King genuinely wanted Byrd/Lewis, he wouldn't have opened the checkbook to kill it off before negotiations even began.

The reality is Holyfield had no interest in Byrd either and the only thing that coaxed him into that fight was the lure of becoming champion again. So King's payoff wasn't about "saving a December date" - it was about creating a fight that otherwise wouldn't have existed. Trying to spin that as some kind of down payment to save a booking date is frankly laughable.

And again, what is Lewis/Byrd in comparison to Bowe/Lewis and Tyson/Lewis. I'll give you a clue - only two of these fights are significant and make money.

Labeling this "classic reverse accusation" doesn't disguise the inconsistency in your own argument. You're trying to equate situations that aren't remotely comparable. Lewis pursuing Grant with WBA sanction in hand is not the same as Tyson vacating rather than face his WBC and court-adjudged mandatory, or Bowe literally dumping the belt to avoid Lewis after having agreed with the WBC, weeks prior to Holyfield/Bowe, that they would fight the winner of Lewis/Ruddock.

And with the IBF, you've admitted yourself that King paid Lewis to vacate rather than risk Byrd - that alone tells you how commercially dead that fight was. Calling it a "good business decision" isn't fan spin; it's the promoter and the network recognizing the obvious.

You can attempt to soften your position with a throwaway "Bowe was also to blame," but that doesn't balance things out when the rest of your argument pins everything on Lewis. The inconsistency is clear - You castigate him for not fighting Ruiz and Byrd while also blaming him for not getting the Tyson and Bowe fights - fights where it was the other side that walked away. In doing so, you twist both sets of circumstances back onto Lewis, so that somehow he ends up the one at fault in your interpretation - every time.

That isn't balance - it's bias built on selective history and misinterpretations. By trimming down what actually happened and treating very different situations as if they were equal, you create a platform where Lewis is always the guilty party. That says more about your version of history than it does about Lewis's career.

 

why is chatgpt lowkey cooking overhand

 

To be fair, you can argue that Young was robbed against Norton as well. Ken's claim becomes even weaker then.

 

@Man_Machine
1) Yes, King hoped to regain the heavyweight crown.
Context : the WBC ordered Lewis to face Tucker (a King fighter) although he preferred to face first Alex Stewart (funny how Lewis disparaged Bowe for wanting an "easy" defence first but wanted to do the same).
During that time (February of 1993), Lewis was still in negotiations with Bowe and King used this high purse offer so he could lure Lewis and secure the rights for the Lewis/Tucker fight. Lewis's camp used the King offer as an argument in their negotiations with Bowe's camp.
This is why I said that the 9,5 million purse was rather an oddity (at that moment of Lewis' career) and did not represent Lewis' true market value. The subsequent purses reflected that.
Also, when I said that money is one of the most important factor, I'm not tying that only to what was the previous best purse of the boxer was, so no need to imply that I denied other factors having their importance.
The point I made about career highest purse offer is that if nobody wanted to face Lewis, why were they offering him large amounts of money ? Of course there are others elements to take into account, but it's not like Bowe and Tyson straightly vacated their belt in fear of Lewis. Which is something a lot of Lewis' fans (I'm not pointing at you directly) seems to believe. Hence why I insist about the offers that were made to him.

2) Why King/Showtime would have wanted to risk losing the purse bids to HBO (owned by Time Warner), whereas they had the exclusivity of Tyson's fights who I repeat was boxing biggest draw and didn't need Lewis at all ?
What Lewis really brought other than his mandatory rank ? In the period where Tyson made 30 million challenging Bruno, Lewis took 2 million in a badly received performance against Mercer, which certainly didn't enhance at all his market value. And he was asking 15 million against Tyson ? That sounds like pricing himself out to me.
The fact that HBO was willing to bid that much for a Tyson fight is certainly the proof that the attractiveness of the fight stemmed almost solely from Tyson's own market value, giving Tyson's camp no reason to made him fight on HBO.
Interestingly, Lewis and Tyson were guaranteed 17,5 million in 2002, a time when the fight was more lucrative and Lewis far more established as unified champion. So him asking for 15 million in 1996 was just ridiculous.
And it's not like King/Showtime weren't willing to make compromises, they agreed to give options asked by HBO about others fighters and went as far as proposing the rematch on HBO if Lewis won.
Again, why Lewis didn't take 10 million on the original Seldon date ? It would have easily prevented the step-aside situation (which was necessary for Tyson because he was basically blocked from fighting anyone else if Lewis didn't take the offer) and Lewis would have the glory of beating Tyson. Instead, Lewis waited on the sideline and fought McCall for 2 million in one of the most bizarre heavyweight fight. Brilliant decision.
And the WBC didn't strip Tyson. It was Tyson who relinquished it, since Lewis didn't want to fight him unless he dictated the terms. According to Jose Sulaiman, they accepted it reluctantly and "no one on the WBC board could understand why Tyson lost the title on the desk of a judge rather than in the ring".

 

3) The fact that Lewis starting the legal battle by claiming the contract to be "fraudulent" means that he knew perfectly what he was doing. Before the unification with Holyfield, they agreed that the first defence will be against the WBA mandatory or leading available contender.
I have never claimed that Lewis "escaped" Ruiz in advance. I said he knew he had to defend against the WBA leading available contender - whoever that was - but he choose to pursue a fight with Grant instead.
Again, you are attributing me claims that I have never said. I didn't say that the Ruiz/Lewis fight would have been in the same league as a Tyson/Lewis fight. I said that Lewis used the same logic he criticisized other fighters using.
4) "Gift TKO" : funny when Byrd had Vitali missing all night. The fight was a lot closer than some people give him credit for. And talking about a "gift TKO" when many felt Lewis had a lucky escape against Vitali is quite ironic.
I read that Lewis could have made 7 million fighting Byrd, which is not little money and Byrd was clearly preferred by the public than a pointless Tyson rematch. Lewis had easily the time to fight Byrd during the second part of 2002.
Like I said, King "chasing" Lewis had to with Lewis already delaying Byrd (for the Tyson fight) and later statements that he was clearly not interested in facing Byrd.
Lewis could have added a quality tricky southpaw but opted not to.
5) It's the Lewis fans who are inconsistent. You give no importance to factors explaining why Bowe and Tyson were stripped/vacated but are willing to give every bit of argument about why Lewis didn't face his mandatories. I have no problem with that unless you are not willing to conceide the same thing for the others.
Hearing you, it's like only Lewis had to make business decisions and only he was concerned by boxing politics. I focus my arguments on him as a way to balance the situation and bring another perspective. You can call that what you like, as I said earlier, you are doing a reverse accusation since you are the one who is trying mitigate everything that don't suit Lewis narrative and not acknowledging outside elements for the others.
And if the prevalent view was that Lewis ducked Bowe, I would have brought the other side of the arguments demonstrating that Lewis was willing to fight him and Bowe putting difficult conditions to negotiate with.

 

OK. Captain Obvious. But King's aspirations for a piece of the "heavyweight crown" were not the reason for his high purse bid.

I have objectively explained the actual reason to you, but I cannot take it onboard and understand it for you.

You'll have to work that one out for yourself.

And you took media 'talk' of this seriously? OK. No one else did.

But, had there been a serious prospect of this bout being made, Alex Stewart was rated #5 contender by the WBC, #6 contender by the WBA, #10 contender by the IBF and ranked #10 by Boxing Illustrated.

Would you like to hazard a guess at where Dokes and Ferguson were rated?

Patently and demonstrably untrue.
Any noise about offers from the Bowe camp was just that - noise.

Newman is directly quoted, as stating: "If Lewis ever hopes to fight Riddick Bowe, he'll have to renounce the WBC belt," and "Whoever has the WBC belt will never fight Riddick."
(The Baltimore Sun 02/02/93).

Some fine negotiating skills there from Mr. Newman .

King secured the purse bid for Lewis/Tucker just a couple of days later (look it up)

So, why keep on the "career highest purses" mantra then?
What other factors have you mentioned?

Perhaps you think a casual insinuation that Lewis wasn't marketable is a sufficient addition to your not-so-comprehensive argument. It's just the only problem with your take is that Bowe/Lewis was the biggest fight out there and everybody knew it - apart from you, it seems.

And it's why there was A LOT OF MONEY on offer.
So, the "isn't very marketable" mantra isn't cutting it either.

The problem is that they were not offering Lewis vast sums of money. You think they were because you are and have been - from the outset - indexing what Lewis's expectations should be, on his behalf, to the value of purses he garnered from lower-tier defenses.

Most of the above is recycled garbage.

I'm not going through it again. As far as I am concerned, it's already been asked and answered.

The fact you are willing to nail Lewis to a cross for actually fulfilling his contractual obligations regarding his WBA title in 2000, but are equally willing to brush off to the point of lionizing the actions of King and Tyson defying a court order speaks volumes.

This is just one example of the double standards you employ to suit your position.

And your reliance on José Sulaimán as a cornerstone of reason is priceless; indicating a lack of awareness that you're a long way from being ready to take on.

The bottom line is that Lewis was Tyson's mandatory, supported by a court order, and Tyson didn't want it.

If you actually believe that Lewis accepting King's initial offer was a sound business move and would have actually translated into a Tyson/Lewis bout, then you're deluding yourself.

 

We have been over all of this already, so all you're doing now is circling the same ground, rephrasing the same points, and ignoring the replies put to you. Yours is not a coherent argument - it's just a continuous mass of contradictions that always finds its way to blaming Lewis.

At that stage it stops being a debate worth engaging with, because you're not responding to context or fact, only restating a version of history that suits your bias. If you cannot acknowledge what's already been covered, there's really no point going round this loop again.

Not having Byrd and Ruiz on his résumé does Lewis no harm at all.

Lewis was a smart guy who beat every man he ever faced and retired a champion - more than a little comfortably off and never looking back. Maybe one day you should look up what Lewis started earning from the bouts with those guys who avoided him, who wanted to defer for years on end. Look at what happened in the final analysis and be reminded of who it was that climbed the highest.

Or perhaps don't, because that'll no doubt take take the sheen off what you think you know about the business of boxing.

 

You lost me right out of the gate regarding his two amateur peers. I have no idea who the "two amateur peers" are you're referring to.

Tyrell Biggs beat Lewis in the Olympics at super heavyweight. Razor Ruddock beat him in Ontario "junior" championships. He and Ruddock never cared for each other. Lewis later faced Biggs and Ruddock in the pros, stopping both with relative ease.

Who were these amateur super heavyweight peers you're referring to?

You also seem to criticize him for not fighting 80s champs until near the end of his career, but also bash him for not fighting a 70s champion in the next breath. Which makes zero sense.

Lewis also agreed to fight John Ruiz in London in 2000 after fighting Michael Grant (a fight that would end up going to Botha). Lewis signed to fight Grant when Akinwande was found to still have Hepatitis. Then the WBA replaced Akinwande with Ruiz. Initially, Ruiz agreed to fight Lewis in London, only for Ruiz to change his mind when Ruiz realized he could fight for a vacant title instead.

As for the WBA super champion, after relinquishing the WBA belt over the Ruiz nonsense, Lennox just suggested the WBA should give a champion with multiple titles more time than 12 months to make a mandatory defense if they have multiple mandatories, something all the orgs now give champions with multiple titles, including the IBF, which has no "super" champions.

Lewis was never WBA Super Champion. In his 14-year career, Lewis was a WBA champion all of five months, if that. He never defended a WBA belt.

 

You can argue anything but Norton did fight Young, not duck him. Norton and Lewis were awarded titles because they were blatantly ducked by title holders who wanted no part of stepping in the ring with them. Young win particular blew it after by losing twice to Ocasio eliminating himself from title contention ..

 

Everybody including Holy and Holy's dog knows that fight wasn't the least bit close.

 

Your "common knowledge" has nothing to do with what was going on at the time. You know how things shook out over the last 40 years, and you are making the STUPID assumption EVERYONE in 1984 knew how EVERYTHING was going to turn out in the following decades, too.

Lennox Lewis was a super heavyweight from Canada who, in 1984, surprisingly made the Olympic team at the young age of 18.

I don't know if you're aware of this or not (clearly not), but 18 is young for an amateur Super Heavyweight.

Lennox's PEERS in 1984 were other SUPER Heavyweights who competed in his division. Tyrell Biggs was 24 when he beat the 18-year-old Lewis in the Olympics. Craig Payne, a 22-year-old who Biggs beat to make the team, was a super heavyweight who Lewis had already faced. Francesco Damiani, who also made the finals at Super Heavyweight, was 26.

Those were Lennox's peers. Those were the guys Lennox was competing against in the ring in tournaments in 1984.

Do you get that?

Evander Holyfield, a light heavyweight from the US, WAS NOT his peer. He was two divisions below Lewis. They had ZERO interaction as amateurs. Why the hell would Lennox Lewis "CARE" if Evander Holyfield turned pro in 1984? They had nothing to do with each other AT ALL. Absolutely nothing.

And Mike Tyson was a guy Lennox sparred with in New York for a couple days years earlier. Lennox Lewis sparred with a lot of guys as an amateur. But Lewis and Tyson weren't in the same weight class and never fought in an amateur tournament. EVER. The only reason people bring up that spar over other sparring sessions is they both became world champs LATER.

At that time, it meant nothing to anyone. Just two kids sparring for a couple days.

Why in the hell would Lennox Lewis CARE if Mike Tyson, who he sparred with for a few days years earlier, turned pro after losing the US Olympic Trials? I don't think Lewis and Tyson were ever even at the same tournament at the same time as amateurs.

Again, Tyson was just another random guy in ANOTHER division in 1984.

Why didn't you say Lennox's peers were Henry Tillman, who beat Tyson to make the Olympic team, and who won the Gold in Los Angeles? Or Willie DeWitt, a fellow Canadian, who lost in the Olympic Final to Tillman?

They were actually major players in the division just below him AT THAT TIME. Tyson and Holyfield were NOT. Holyfield wasn't even supposed to make the team. Ricky Womack was favored.

I asked the question because it just shows how nonsensical the arguments are you posed from the start. You didn't bring up Henry and Willie because, knowing how their careers would pan out, they never amounted to anything at heavyweight. But that wasn't known at the time, either.

Running down Lennox because he didn't turn pro like Tyson and Holyfield did is a completely baseless.

ALSO, Lennox Lewis AGREED TO FIGHT JOHN RUIZ in LONDON in 2000. The WBA approved the fight. Ruiz agreed to it.

People who badmouth Lewis for not fighting Ruiz are people who CHOOSE to ignore that a federal judge ruled days before Lewis-Grant that Ruiz deserved the next title shot ... and instead of telling the judge "we already agreed to fight in London next" ... Ruiz changed course and accepted a vacant title fight rather than fight LEWIS for ALL his belts.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/sport/683342.stm

David Tua, who knocked out Ruiz in 19 seconds, also went to court demanding he get the next shot at Lewis (instead of Grant) and for Lewis to be stripped. But Tua was denied.

If anything, TUA deserved a shot before Ruiz did. You can't watch the Ruiz-Tua fight, or their fights after that leading up to their title fights, and argue Ruiz deserved a shot ahead of Tua.

But Lewis haters never bring that up when it comes to talking about Lewis-Ruiz.

 

We can agree that Lewis's lack of fights with the best is his fault. We can disagree. It doesn't matter. He didn't fight them He first faced the number one in his weight class after... 10 years of professional career. Ten!! And he became a pro after two Olympics!!

His opponent after those 10 years was 37-year-old Evander Holyfield, who was soon beaten by John Ruiz. Before Lennox met Holyfield, Evander had fought three wars with Bowe, two wars with Tyson, two wars with Moorer, one with Quavi, beaten Foreman, Douglas, Stewart, Holmes, Mercer... and yet, for some reason, he's in Lewis's shadow. They say Holyfield was hot and cold, but would even a cold Holyfield have been knocked out so easily by McCall?

 

Lennox Lewis is great... but not the goat