Larry Merchant said Mike Tyson was on a carnival tour of hand picked opponents

Reread my post and you might comprehend that I never once said Lewis ducked anyone. Im glad you enjoy my posts enough to follow me around this forum.

Stay safe buddy, chat soon.

 

I thought the Golota fight was an inspired bit of matchmaking.

You’re pitting the guy known at the time mostly for biting a guy’s ear off vs an off-his-rocker Golota who may go full meltdown at any time. That had to move some tickets and draw some viewers.

It was billed as ‘Showdown in Motown,’ which is a bit disappointing. I’d have gone with ‘Ball Buster vs Ear Eater.’

 

Lewis was the best of his era. I don't see how that's even in debate.

 

Nope. He could not realistically be a threat to Lennox Lewis, it turns out.

 

Lewis missed Byrd... not that I care but "EVERY" is a stretch.

 

Interesting for someone who gave the belt to the top contender three times and at the same time did not give a rematch to the rivals who caused him the most problems

 

Interesting, as he only gave one belt up - IBF to Byrd. Also, nobody was calling for the Mercer rematch and the champion can retire whenever he wants and arguing that the challenger deserves the immediate rematch from the champion after he's been stopped is a stretch as it literally never happened before.

 

Yeah, he clearly ducked Byrd, especially looking at the fact that he did it to pursue a rematch with Tyson.

 

Lewis was the king of the 1999-2003 period.
Not before.
In fact, his biggest rivals, Tyson and Holyfield, started their career 4 to 5 years prior to him. When Lewis had his first professional fight, Tyson was already the undisputed and lineal champion ; Holyfield already unified the cruiserweight titles and was a top 5 heavyweight.
So I think it's a stretch to label Lewis as the best of his generation whereas he didn't face them at their best.

 

You can argue Lewis was a top dog as early as his Briggs win in 1998 when he captured the lineal title. But yeah, before that, the heavyweight division was a mess without a clear number 1 for years. The last universally recognized champion was Foreman in 1994 and lost this status within less than a year.

 

I respect your opinion but I disagree.
Briggs was never seen as the true lineal champion, given his controversial victory over Foreman who himself was lucky to get past Schulz.
Bowe was seen as the best in 1995 after winning the trilogy against Holyfield but was quickly derailed by Golota.
Tyson swiftly unified the titles but was beaten by Holyfield.
Looking at the whole situation, Holyfield was The Man. He had beaten Tyson and Moorer (the one who beat Schulz) and was an unified champion.
I would go as far as to say that Holyfield was the real lineal champion.
Schulz was a sort of uncrowned champion who was robbed twice against Foreman and Botha. Moorer beat Schulz and Botha. The same Moorer was beaten by Holyfield who was himself beaten twice by Lewis. Everything came to full circle at that point.

This is why I don't give much credence to Briggs lineal recognition.

 

Holyfield wasn't the man cause he didn't beat the man. He also wasn't the real lineal champion because of it. Foreman vs Briggs fight was controversial, but there were a lot of people who scored it for Briggs, so the opinion in this case can't overturn the official result. It wasn't a robbery like Lewis vs Holyfield I was. There was no clear top dog in the division from 95 to 99, however, both Lewis and Holyfield had a claim from 97 to 99. Lewis was the lineal champion plus he avenged his only career defeat at that point.

 

But who did Lewis beat to say that he had a claim to be the best between 1997 to 1999 ?
At least Holyfield beat Tyson (the top fighter of 1996) and Moorer (the IBF champion), who were easily top 5 fighter.

 

He was the man who beat the man plus he held the WBC title. Also, he beat the breaks off Golota, who of course lost to Bowe twice, but was battering him convincingly. And Andrew was doing it while Bowe was considered the best heavyweight on the planet.

 

Very good win indeed, but I give Holyfield the edge with Tyson and Moorer, who were both current (and former) champion on an unbeaten streak.
I guess we have to agree to disagree.