Lennox Lewis is overrated

Rahman was a very good fighter, I don’t think the loss to him really hurt Lewis, particularly how he beat him in the rematch.

 

He was one of those late starters. If he would have started a few years earlier he would have been a really great fighter.

 

Yep. There's a big weird cult around him.

All you have to do in these circumstances is take Fury and imagine him getting one-punched by the two characters who took out this ATG and nobody would excuse it. They'd say he had no chin and couldn't be an ATG if he got destroyed like that.

Similarly if Fury got destroyed by 'buster' like tyson.

The two RH's that wrecked the napper make it pretty clear he'd mostly likely be utterly destroyed by Wlad. Because Wlad would land and he would only need one, unlike his brother, who needs about 100 then a ref stoppage. People seem to use the Vitali fight as evidence for a win over Wlad but all it showed was that Lewis had bad defence and would get nailed by Wlad.

 

Lewis would've splattered him all over the place like a 37-year-old overweight over-the-hill Corrie Sanders did. Would not surprise me if it played out like the Golota fight. Wlad looked sharp and technically brilliant when he was fighting punching bags on his own promoter's shows for a decade, with everything in his favour. As soon as someone put him on the back foot, he was a deer in the headlights and mentally checked out. He'd have struggled with fringe contenders if he were around in the 90s, like Ibeabuchi, Tua, Golota, and Bowe, never mind Lewis and Holyfield.

 

I wouldn't say he was 'beat up ' by Vitali - it was a very even fight, won legitimately on cuts. Not did he retire early... he was 38, past his best and had openly talked about retiring.

 

I watched his career unfold in real time, so I find how he is viewed to be an interesting journey. He was, in the 90s, incredibly underrated. Boxing was dominated at the time by America and because Lewis was not one of the big US name fighters (Bowe, Holyfield, Tyson) he was written off a lot by large sections of the fans and media. Honestly, some of the things that were written and said about him at the time were absolutely ridiculous.
What I was pleasantly surprised at was how quickly he became so highly rated, after he retired. I think it's quite right that he's top 5 in HW AtG lists. I have him at 3. Yes he lost twice, but they were to big punchers in fights he was under-prepared for. Both were avenged, and his resume is excellent in a very strong era. I often thought at the time 'how would Bowe or Holyfield be viewed if they had Lewis's resume?' Much higher I suspect, which to me, says it all.

 

And he underachieved despite the late start

 

I'm not sure anyone in history could get the better of a trilogy with him tbh. So no, definitely not overrated.

 

Yes, slightly overrated. It's ridiculous that his fans ALWAYS bring the line "oh, he beat every man he faced". Well, so did Ingeman Johansson and Riddick Bowe, does it make them greater than Ali, Louis or Larry Holmes?

And you can play this game the other way around - Lewis is 1-1 vs a guy who is 0-2 against Oleg Maskaev, who has one of the worst chins in the history of sports.

Also, when people say he beat every single contender that was around (which was claimed exactly in this thread) - well, that's simple is far from reality. He didn't beat Chris Byrd, John Ruiz (relinquished titles rather than facing both), Wladimir Klitschko, Michael Moorer, Corrie Sanders and some other guys.

But Lennox was great fighter. I have him in my top 10 heavyweights achievements wise and tot 5 H2H. Great, just not some undestructable monster some people are trying to make him look now.

 

@Serge @CST80 are you having fun again

 

Wlad beats all of these guys, except for maybe Lewis. But again, you didn't even know that Wlad dominated the era, so I assume you don't know about the younger Klitschko.

 

Depends on the context. If someone says that Lewis is an unbeatable H2H beast who would defeat every heavyweight in history, then yes, they are overrating him. If someone says he's a Top 5 guy a nightmare for everyone who ever boxed, that's a proper, objective statement. It's fascinating however how Lewis went from "he's not Ali, Tyson, Frazier, Dempsey" level in 2004, to even GOAT level now.

 

He dropped the belt not to fight Byrd, but he was screwed by King and WBA when it comes to Ruiz. He was willing to face him and WBA originally approved his plan.

 

TKO6

 

I don't think Lewis is overrated. And I think a boxer should be judged based on his career (mainly by looking at who he won against and how, who he lost against and how, and how long he was at the top), as experts usually do when ranking the best of all time. Lewis is 15-2-1 in world title fights and 14-2-1 against former world titlists. He lost only two fights and avenged both defeats. The best boxers he defeated are Holyfield (no longer in his prime but still competitive, who will become world champion again after losing to Lewis) and the prime Vitali Klitschko. Two certainly important victories (which in reality are three because the draw with Holyfield was objectively robbery). So I think Lewis is one of the best heavyweights of all time, definitely in the top 10.