Lennox Lewis always beating Mike Tyson has become overatted

I actually agree with you.

I have always favoured Tyson to win this match up in their primes.

I believe Lewis himself was asked back in 91 when Tyson Ruddock was happening if he was ready to take those guys on and he didn’t appear confident with taking on Tyson.

Lewis has always dismissed the idea that Tyson could even be competitive with him. Which I have always found absurd. He claims that because Douglas stopping Tyson with uppercuts, he could do an even better job. But that ignores that Douglas was a faster more fluent boxer with better combination punching.

I personally think Lewis is far too risk averse and will likely get caught by a big combination by Tyson and stopped. Not an easy fight for either man. But I favour Tyson to get a stoppage .

 

Tyson's chin is pretty underrated imo, remember he went 13 full rounds against Holyfield, battled with Douglas for 10 rounds, went 8 with Lewis, 18 with Ruddock, 8 with Bruno, 12 with Tucker and none of them ever KTFO'd Tyson. When Holyfield TKO'd Tyson, he was still standing, when Douglas KO'd Tyson, he did struggle to get up but wasn't out of the fight, when Lewis KO'd Tyson, he was just about to get up and was on a knee for the last 2 seconds of the count. And when Ruddock Tucker and Bruno tagged Tyson he bounced back to win all 4 of those bouts

 

But a prime Lewis vs a prime Tyson fight would've been good, probably a 116-112 or 15-13 score for either man

 

Who says lewis always beats a prime tyson ?

Prime vs prime - It would be a hell of a fight , surely one of the best fights boxing ever saw and i have no idea how it would go but the 86-88 version of tyson was an absolute lethal wrecking machine so i,m not sure if i would put my money on lewis ...no idea .

 

Tyson was ****ed against Douglas. He was out of it.

 

This ^^^

 

Lewis' prime is generally considered some time around 1997~2001. Despite the caveats in favour of Tyson getting to people first, what you have described there is that a pre-prime Lewis often outperformed the prime Tyson. It kind of cuts both ways.

I don't think it would be an easy win for Lewis though

 

All we know is that lennox can be put to sleep by any HW with a decent punch.
So PED mike would always have a chance to do that in any fight.
But since PED mike is such a mentally-weak quitter and bully fighter, and is tiny compared to lennox, he probably loses most of the time.
But we've all seen what happens when a big RH lands on lennox's chin. Naps will be had.

 

A prime Lewis would've shut down Mike like he shut down David Tua, a lot of jabbing and grabbing and pushing down, especially early on. A pensive Wlad-like performance, and he would have the power to discourage Mike, too. I think Tyson starts well, maybe picks up the first 2 rounds, gets stunned with a monster right, and then just gets 1-2'd down the stretch. I would not write Tyson off, but he has a consistent track record of not knowing how to handle it when someone met him in the middle of the ring and wasn't afraid of him.

That's why Holyfield beat him, and that's why Buster Douglas eventually got the better of him. That's why he tried to attack Lennox at the presser before the fight and bit his leg, but Lennox was never scared of Mike, and Manny Steward said several times that Lennox beats any version of Mike, and I am inclined to agree.

 

This just isn't true, though. It's a lazy narrative people make to discredit Lewis, usually when they are trying to compare him to Wladimir. Shannon Briggs and Frank Bruno were both monster punchers and had Lewis in trouble in the first round, and he rallied back and knocked them both out.

Vitali Klitschko landed some excellent shots on him in the 2nd and 3rd rounds of their fight, and he rallied back and hit him with one of the greatest uppercuts in the history of the HW division and forced a stoppage. As soon as Tyson faced serious adversity, he mentally checked out. He has done it against Douglas, Holyfield x2, Lewis, and Danny Williams. It wouldn't be easy, but Lewis would beat him, too proven under the bright lights, too big, and too technically savvy. Lewis jumped right back in there with the two people who beat him and stopped them both. He beat every fighter he stepped in the ring with; that's the difference.

 

Twice is hardly a track record

 

Mike had a short prime with a sharp decline after his prime . What you describe is true but valid for the past prison mike . The mentioned 86-88 version of mike is not known for having such "problems"

Facing each other prime to prime would be the hardest fight of their career for both

Lewis would meet a mike quickly closing the distance and BRUTALLY treating lewi,s ribs as well throwing him uppercuts with a force he never experienced before . He would face a mike with the determination to kill his opponent

Mike would meet an extremely clever boxer and an enourmous puncher who vastly outperforms him in size and reach . He would have a very hard time to close the distance , being kept away with world class level jabs and the risk to catch very fast and devastating flush shots while trying to close the distance .
He would also be confronted with superior clinching

Hell of a fight of two legends and like said - i have no idea who of both would survive