which all time great heavyweight champions (someone you rank in your all time top 25) do you find the most boring? Holmes i find quite boring. He was in some exciting fights but i found his style in itself to be boring. I found his combinations to be highly predictable, and he was so reliant on the basic jab right hand combo. Never found his offense to be varied or highly unpredictable. Wlad. Lol. Despite his immense offensive talent, i found his jab and grab and lean and clinch style to be unbelievably annoying and boring. Wlad is the king of boring heavyweight champions.
Lewis could have exciting moments when he let his hands go - vs guys like Briggs and Grant. But sometimes his hitting and holding was annoying, boring and also illegal. Never found his style aesthetically pleasing.
By that premise you can throw Jack Johnson, Ali and Holmes in there and Fury, too, depending on whether he makes Top 25 - 30 for you.
This is why i didn't have Lewis in my original post - he was sometimes exciting, sometimes boring, so overall quite average in the entertainment aspect.
Can I just ask why you didn't include Lewis but yet you thought Holmes was a more acceptable answer ? Holmes was in some of the greatest Heavyweight fights of all time. Holmes/Norton would be considered a top 10 Heavyweight fight of all time. Holmes/Weaver is one of the best Heavyweight wars of the the 70s. Holmes/Witherspoon would probably be top 3 best Heavyweight fight of the 80s. Lewis hasn't got any fight on his resume that compares to the fights above. Holmes schooling fighters like Shavers 1, Mercer, are much more exciting than Lewis's one sided points wins over the likes of Tua which was as dull as dishwater. I suppose Lewis did have some exciting early KO's but overall he was more lethargic and not as exciting as Holmes overall IMO.
Holmes-Norton, Weaver and even Witherspoon were exciting primarily because the other guys were pushing the pace and forcing Larry to do the same. I guess i give Lewis a bit of a pass since he could score those big ko;s - Ruddock, Grant, Golota etc. But yes, i often found Lewis to be super boring too. Perhaps you are right. Perhaps Lewis should be up there with Holmes too.
I was deeply impressed by Wlad's cold, clinical and ruthless dominance ... when I could stay awake that is.
For me Lewis at times could look a bit lethargic his footwork wasn't the best. And I didn't enjoy watching his jab work as much as Holmes who had a real snap to his jab, I think Lewis pawed with his jab too much at times. Don't get me wrong Lewis had some exciting KOs against Golota, Ruddock, and the Mercer fight was exciting. The Vitali fight I find overrated a bit too sloppy for my liking. If you look at Holmes vs Norton/Witherspoon I don't think you will find any fight on Lewis's resume that come close to the high level technical fighting in those fights. Probably the most technical high level fights Lewis had were vs Holyfield and I didn't find those fights particularly exciting to be honest.
I found Holmes less boring than Lewis. Holmes was usually more aesthetic in one-sided fights, more artistic. And Lewis's greater strength and firepower didn't necessarily enhance him towards being less boring. He tended to lean on his opponents a lot with that weight and strength, and used rough-house tactics in a boring way. He was frustrating. But he had some entertaining fights too, to be fair. I don't think either of them compare to Wladimir Klitschko, who really was boring in some of his 'biggest fights'. Ibragimov was a boring fight, and Povetkin fight is probably the worst we've seen. And the Haye fight was a bore too. Apart from that, Ezzard Charles during his heavyweight reign, if we call him a 'great heavyweight', maybe was boring.
Hmmm, so do you see more entertainment in fighters that go to to toe and put on absolute wars for the fans, but at the risk of their health, or fighters that know how to negate their opponents, maximise their advantages, happy to box their way to decision wins whilst taking relatively little punishment?
I don’t look at it this way. Ali was very exciting even when boxing from the outside due to his amazing speed, fast hands, creative combination's. So even an Ali boxing from the outside and not going toe to toe is exciting. I don’t mind fighters minimizing risks to their health as long as they do it reasonably and fairly. Holding and hitting, leaning, excessive clinching etc makes a fighter boring.
Most of the great champions had their share of boring and exciting fights. I find prime Ali fight vs Terrell as one-sided and uneventful, later Ali vs Young or Evangelista were borefests, as well as Ali-Spinks II. On the other hand, there were his fights vs Frazier, Foreman and Norton - truly exciting action-packed fights. Holmes has had great fights vs Norton, Weaver or Spoon, and borefests vs Rodriguez or Scott Frank Lewis - Akinwande, Tua or the opposite - Mercer, Briggs, Vitali. Wlad - Mercer, Brewster I, Peter I, AJ, Pulev. Borefests - Ibragimov, Haye, Davvaryll Williamson, Jennings, Fury. Holyfield's most borefests came later, when he couldn't pull the trigger anymore.