List all the relevant Heavyweights who…..

I was being sarcastic when I added Half Man Half Amazing to the list for this particular reason below...

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Lewis could have boxed with Tyson instead of Weaver in his 16th fight .

 

Tyson was chasing Holyfield at the time, so impossible.

 

Lewis fought Weaver in June91.Tyson did not fight fromJuly 91 until September 95,and he was in prison in 92,not much of a window was it?

 

Tyson fought Ruddock on June 28, 1991 and went to prison on February 10, 1992.
By February 10, 1992, Lewis had defeated: Weaver, Glenn McCrory, Tyrell Biggs and Levi Billups.
The small window still existed, and that's what I really wanted to say.
I don't know how much interest there was in that fight; on both sides until February 10, 1992.

 

Like I said, Tyson was chasing Evander and wanted to fight for the championship, Lewis fight would do nothing to him. He had a fight schedule for November.

 

Lewis fought Weaver inJune 91. From July91 until September95 Tyson didnt fight anyone,he went to prison in 92.

 

Bowe ducked him
Wlad
Byrd
Sanders
McCline
Valuev

 

Aside from Bowe (who didn't want it when it mattered), really, only Wlad.

Seemed like they were on target to fight in 2000.

After Ibeabuchi went crazy, Wlad was in the mix along with guys like Vitali, Tua, Grant and others as possible opponents for Lewis.

When Lennox fought Botha (originally supposed to be Ruiz) and Wlad fought on the undercard, a fight between Lennox and Wlad seemed to pick up steam. They even filmed Lewis defending against Wlad for the film Ocean's Eleven.

But after VItali was upset by late sub Byrd, and, instead of Vitali avenging his own loss, Wlad went over and won the WBO belt in the latter half of 2000, Wlad lost his ranking with the other bodies. And Lewis was upset by Rahman in 2001, and that really was essentially it.

When Lewis regained the belt, the Tyson fight was much bigger in the public mind. We all wanted that one, even if it came too late. Lewis-Tyson was still one of the biggest fights in boxing history to that point.

But you can't fight everyone, and you certainly couldn't predict the future and know which of those guys was going to have a 10-year reign.

 

Let's not exaggerate. I'm the first to point out how and when Lewis chose his options, but in this case, it's hard to blame him for not having Tyson around at the time. Mike was busy with Holyfield!! And Lewis was much more intelligently managed than Tyrell Biggs, who got Tyson in his 17th fight and practically destroyed his career.

The most important opponent Lewis didn't fight is Bowe '92 or Holy '93, and Vitali in a rematch. The rest isn't as important. Moorer only shone; Whitearspoon would have been much more dangerous, but who cared about him? Ruiz and Byrd held Lewis's belts and should have fought them. Vlad was unstable. Valuev didn't even matter at the time. It's hard to blame him for not fighting Tyson. Holmes and Foreman were strong, but they were veterans. Bad PR.
Foreman was better than Briggs, but he would have had a terrible image. Sanders, well... didn't count. Ike would have been the best, but we know what happened. The truth is that Lewis didn't fight many top boxers, but it must be admitted that in the '90s, that wouldn't have been possible. There were too many strong opponents to fight everyone. Holyfield did that and exhausted himself with wars.

 

The 90's is the gold heavyweight era....superior to any other era

 

Lewis didnt fight many top boxers? I'm out!

 

My impression at the time, was that Lewis broadly followed the money, and fought who the fans wanted him to fight.

Wladamir Klitschko was the #1 Ring contender during Lewis's reign, but the stars never quite aligned for it, for reasons that I don't need to explain.

With the benefit of hindsight, that could have appreciated in value.

Thee was a lot of talk about him fighting Chris Byrd, and a lot of people though this should have been his last title defense.

John Ruiz held a belt, so he has to go on the list.

He was due to fight Kirk Johnson before he got injured, and Vitally stepped in, and that fight made more sense at the time than it does in hindsight.

There was a lot of interest in a fight with Roy Jones, after Jones picked up a strap, but it didn't happen for various reasons.

 

You're on fire lately, ikrasevic. Straight fire, like thai stick.