Lennox Lewis is great but

What makes you believe Holyfield is in Lewis's shadow?

 

On most fan lists, Lewis is ahead of Holyfield
Even on this forum, Lennox is competing with Larry Holmes for the title of top three heavyweight fighter of all time. Vander isn't considered, even though he has better wins, a better style, and fewer bad losses. But he lost to Lennox in a direct fight and looks worse than the Brit. I think he also simply has worse PR. And Lennox finally became the face of HBO, not Hplyfield, who faded into thin air like Tyson. People remember the end.

 

The final years of Holyfield’s career were interesting to me… I can only imagine people saying “he’s still fighting?” Not only that but still chugging along keeping the young guys in check where he could and picking up wins over guys like Rahman, Ruiz, Botha or whoever they dug up he was still pretty competitive even with the best and Byrd sung his praises as the smartest opponent he had.

 

He was outclassed by Toney and Ibragimov. He lost decisively to Byrd, and people cried after his fight with Donald—literally, they cried. He had good moments, but he lost almost half of his last 12 fights.

 

That might be true, in general. I know Lewis is ahead of Holyfield on my list. But both are in my Top-10 and they regularly appear in other Top-10 lists I've seen - sometimes with Holyfield in front. But I've never really thought of it in terms of one fighter overshadowing another.

Better wins? Well, he scraped past Bowe in the rematch and he got Tyson at a more opportune time.

A better style? Entirely subjective, but if you mean crowd-pleasing, then yes he was most certainly that, albeit that this was sometimes viewed as a lack of generalship which put his competitive chances at risk (as well as his health, more generally).

Fewer bad losses? Holyfield has several bad losses. Granted, they occurred late on in his career, but still...
Additionally, Holyfield has a series loss against Bowe, a series loss against Lewis, and had a hand in perhaps one of the worst Trilogies in Heavyweight history (Ruiz).

Worse PR? I can't agree. Holyfield was painted as a heroic figure by HBO who stuck by him until his three straight losses from 2002 to 2004. By then and combined with an NYSAC suspension, and broader public perceptions about his going on too long, HBO were less inclined to platform Holyfield.

Lewis as the face of HBO? Wasn't that to be expect by the end of '99, once Lewis had become Undisputed?

The two Tyson wins keep Holyfield very much in the mix at the top. But Lewis has the better numbers overall, which make him a higher-rated Heavyweight, in my opinion. As for Lewis overshadowing Holyfield - maybe this could be applied from a head-to-head perspective, given what happened in their actual fights.

However, in the big picture, with both of them more often than not appearing in the top ten to fifteen ATG Heavyweights, this is a stratum of rare air that doesn't really leave enough room for such dramatic differences in appreciation.

 

Lewis is great but…he’s more of a bridge champion between the end of the great American amateur system producing top level heavies and the rise of the great Eastern Euro/Russo great amateur system freed of the Soviet handcuffs that would dominate the sport post USA.
Lewis couldn’t quite breakout in the early 90s when the heavyweight division had top level American talent in their prime / Tyson, Bowe, Holyfield. Lewis improved when those names were past their best. He then left the sport just before the dominance of Wlad and all the Eastern Amateur stars crowded the top spots.
Lewis was the beneficiary of good timing during a transition period.

 

It's a shame Vitali couldn't quite pick up the torch and carry it forth into this new wave of Eastern European Heavyweights, isn't it?

I mean, if Lewis was just a bridge, then surely that's how it was supposed to work, right? The old, tired Champion being undone by the division's heir apparent?

But it didn't quite happen like that, did it?

Not quite the bridge I'd want to use, given that it collapsed under Vitali's challenge and didn't quite reach the other side (Vitali's face can testify to that).

And, even if you exclude his latter-stage wins over Holyfield and Tyson, Lewis still managed to pull together a better '90s résumé than Tyson, Bowe, or Holyfield - effectively cleaning out the division.

Only after Lewis retired as Champion did the next wave take over, leaving the lineage broken.

 

The truth is, Lewis wiped out a completely cleaned-up division, skimming off the cream of the crop, and his fight with the rising Vitali was fraught with doubt. He didn't fight Wlad. He didn't fight Sanders, Moorer, Byrd, Ruiz, Foreman, Ike, Whitearspoon, Hide, Holmes, and, above all, Bowe. He didn't give Mercer or Vitali rematches. He surrendered the belt to the number one contender three times, a record. He never defended the unified title. Holyfield, Klitschko, and Tyson all look great on their resumes, but were those fights truly ATG-worthy? What is Lewis's greatest victory? He cherry-picked. He managed his career brilliantly. When HBO swallowed Showtime, a new heavyweight star had to be created. And Michael Grant was created. We know what happened next. Lewis's career has been one of brilliant management and a stroke of luck, but when he was fighting, no one held him in such high regard as he does now.

 

You do understand why your above post might not stand up to scrutiny, don't you?

Framing Lewis's retirement as a surrender of the belt while Champion kind of gives your game away - and in no inconspicuous manner.

But much of it seems to describe the typical messy upshots of boxing politics, which are really not unique to Lewis or any one fighter.

Have you actually ever watched Lewis fight, by the way?

 

Unfortunately, I watched almost all of them, starting with the McCall rematch and then even the earlier ones, which I couldn't watch while they were airing. Are you aware that the decision to retire was prompted by Vitali being named the mandatory title challenger? If not for that, Lewis would have fought the Tyson rematch and Roy Jones fight, as he announced before June 2003, when he gave an HBO interview with his partner, Manny Stewart. What about the other opponents? How is it that Evander Holyfield was able to fight Bowe, Tyson, Moorer, Foreman, and Holmes so many times?

 

Reinstating Vitali as a mandatory challenger merely put a timeline on when Lewis needed to finalize his decision.

Retirement had been contemplated by Lewis as early as 2001 and more prominently after the Tyson fight in 2002. In fact, the only reason the Klitschko fight happened is because Tyson activated the rematch clause almost immediately after his loss to Lewis.

Events from then on were designed to build up a Tyson rematch, but the approach went to **** when Tyson pulled out of the Staples Center double-header. This ultimately left Lewis with the Klitschko bout or nothing, and as co-promoter of the event, he stood to take a significant financial hit if it was cancelled, so the Klitschko fight went ahead.

Soundbites from a presser are not a contract to fight. They're not an offer to fight. They're not even a serious statement of intent. They are an act of self-promotion to maintain interest in any future promotions and events.

I find it genuinely strange that anyone would consider these types of promotional exchanges as anything but hype. Instead, they are framed as an 'announcement' and some kind of anchor to which Lewis's absolute intention to fight on can be tied.

The Tyson rematch was completely off the table. It never would have happened.


And there is your real reason for Lewis opting for retirement.


But it isn't just the wishful revisionism of Lewis's retirement that folds under scrutiny.

Accusing a guy who fought in at least eighteen contests involving a universally rated opponent does not support your claim of cherry-picking. Nor does the variety of styles and the punchers Lewis faced much help a case for claiming "Lewis's career has been one of brilliant management and a stroke of luck."

(If only that's all it took.... .... .... .... ....)


But that kind of a claim just doesn't stack up.

 

The facts are that Lewis relinquished his belt three times, to three different challengers. If he wanted to retire in 2001, he could have. But he did so after the most controversial fight of his career. He said A, should have said B. Evander Holyfield also talked about retirement constantly. Mike Tyson talked about retirement as early as 1988. What if Holyfield had announced his retirement in April 1999?

 

No. These are not the facts. Including Lewis's retirement as him relinquishing the belt, akin to his parting with the WBA strap (2000) and IBF strap (2002), is a clear sign of how desperate you are to clock up the negatives against him. It is not a credible position.

Of course, he could have retired in 2001 if he'd wanted to. What good does stating the obvious do?
There was nothing controversial about the Lewis/Klitschko bout. It was a clear win:

Lewis W TKO 6.

The most controversial fight of Lewis's career was the Draw awarded for Holyfield (I).

I don't really care to explore "what-ifs" that have no bearing on what Lewis eventually decided to do. As indicated in your post before last, you clearly believed (or believed that I would believe) that the Tyson rematch was still viable at the point Lewis retired. This was absolutely not the case.

"The facts" are as I have presented them. If you cannot accept them because they distract from the hurt you clearly need to feel about a man retiring at a time not to your liking, I can't help you.

 

Naaaah cancel this comment, thread actually made me realize how goated Lennox actually is

 

Lewis had three controversial fights – Holyfield 1, Mercer, and Klitschko. Only the first one went against him, but no one today disputes his victory over Holyfield, even though Lennox outweighed him by half an inch in the rematch (just like John Ruiz 10 months later).

Rematches with Mercer and Klitschko never happened, although both are cited as great victories for Lennox and enrich his resume.

Lewis only announced his retirement after the Klitschko-Johnson fight in December 2003, when it was known he would have to defend his title against Klitschko.

You can blind yourself to the facts; you can interpret them your way. What are Lewis's greatest victories?