More skilled: Thomas Hearns or Lennox Lewis

Definitely Hearns. This isn't close. In truth, almost all top welterweights are more skilled than Heavyweights, so the answer should not be particularly surprising. But, I can't even imagine an argument for Lewis on this one.

 

I'm a big fan of both guys and I do think Tommy is the better all around fighter, however Lennox imo was just a bit more cerebral. Meaning he knew when to engage in wars and when not to, he works better in the clinch, and although his safety first approach wasn't as exciting as Tommy's style, but it did made him imo the best heavyweight H2H.

 

Okay, so, question number one: Is putting your weight behind a punch considered a skill?

Question number 2: Is the more weight that you can put behind a punch representative of having a better skill if that is a good thing?

Question number 3: How could Lennox or Rahman or anyone else walking around so much heavier not be more skilled than Hearns?

There's levels to this.

 

The skills required at heavyweight are different than at welter/middle/lightheavy. There's just a lot more risk at any given second and there's a lot more weight and size difference to take advantage of. Hearns had skill for sure but he was a frontrunner. His footwork and the tightness of this punches and combos fell apart when he was pressured. Lewis beat every man he faced by making adjustments. He faced giant dude, smaller dudes, a ton of punchers... and he beat them all by employing heavyweight skills.

Lewis.

 

Lewis had a better ring IQ, Hearns had a bit better fundamentals, his technique with certain punches, especially the left hook to the body and head and he selected his combinations better when finishing opponents, and had more punches to select from, but Lewis wasn’t bad in this regard, and he certainly had elite fundamentals himself.

I’d say Lewis overall as ring IQ is more important.

 

Lennox Lewis might be one of the most intellectually overrated people in history.

Lennox Lewis did not have a superior ring IQ. Nor did he have a superior IQ in general. He was smarter than the average professional fighter, but, that is not exactly a Mt. Everest of intellect. He is not a fighter who made major adjustments to win a rematch (such as SRR, or Azumah Nelson). He beat a recently incarcerated crack-head in Oliver McCall, and a TERRIBLE fighter in Hasim Rahman to even the score. Other than that, I saw no unusually astute acumen in Lennox. And, it is my understanding he is actually terrible at chess on the competitive level.

 

Hearns I don’t think Steward could teach all the same things to a much larger slower moving man than a smaller far faster one who started much earlier in the sport

 

I believe every word of it, Brother Bert. Every word. Been spending too much time watching this sport since the 1930's.

 

There's not a great deal in it, IMO.

Hearns was the more versatile all-round fighter, and pound-for-pound I’d rank him above Lewis.

However, Lewis was probably the more complete package within his own division – a disciplined tactician with virtually all the tools required for a modern super-heavyweight.

Hearns operated in the kind of layered chess matches (Leonard, Benítez, Hill) that we didn’t quite see Lewis have to navigate in the same way.

Conversely, while Hearns certainly showed heart, he didn’t really come out the other side of the ugly heavyweight gut-checks that Lewis did against Mercer and Vitali.

 

Lewis would make decisions based on what would give him the best chance of getting the W.

If someone like Hearns (sized up) fought Tua, he’s probably gonna end up getting carried away and trying to take him out, or if someone started swinging with Hearns early on, he wouldn’t think to get out of the early rounds, lean on them, tire them out and take them out late when they tire, the way Lewis did against Tyson.

Hearns would probably think ‘You wanna fight, let’s fight’, fighting on ego and emotion and he’d start trading with them rather than thinking strategically and long term and using the early rounds to allow them to slow down.

Or even when he’s in a vulnerable position in general, on the ropes, in the corner where he doesn’t have space to move back, when you should focus on getting out, staying tight etc, he’d often be trading with opponents still.

While this is a courageous way of fighting, it’s something Lewis wouldn’t always do, he’d think more strategically and situationally and think about what decisions would give him the best chance of coming out of there with the W.

 

I don't really dispute your observation. But, I think it was more a case of Hearns being courageous, and Lennox being far less so, than Lennox actually being more intelligent.

 

Going with Lewis.