Greater Heavyweight - HOLMES or LEWIS ?

I have Holmes at 4, Lewis at 5.

 

Holmes ahead, just. Holmes at #3 and Lewis at #4.

 

They're interchangeable in my opinion.

Holmes has a few things on Lewis. Unbelievable consistency and longevity among them.

Foreman's longevity gets him a lot of credit in ATG heavyweight discussions. Holmes fought on longer then Foreman did and never had anything approaching a 10 year lay-off either.

Holme's himself really should have picked up the IBO title from Neilson and some feel he deserved the real strap from McCall too. That's not how things panned out, but then again Holme's was never the attraction nor the moneymaker during his second career that Foreman was, so no surprise he didn't get any slack there.

 

Close, Holmes edges it for me...today.

 

Lewis. Close but clear.

 

Its not an easy pick to make but I will say that Holmes was undefeated in more fights than Lewis ever even had, and he was never KO'd by fringe contenders during his prime. Lewis definately sported destructive performances against a lot of young super heavyweights with pretty records, but I don't know for sure if it was enough to place him ahead of a legend like Holmes. We can talk about how Holmes never gave Tim Witherspoon or Carl Williams rematches, but we can also talk about how Lewis never gave one to Vitali Klitschko either. We can moan about how Holmes never fought Page or Thomas, dito with Lewis never fighting Byrd, Ruiz or Wladimir. We can even talk about how Holmes looked better against Mercer and McCall when he was in his 40's than Lewis did when he was in his twenties. We can do all sorts of stuff to fancy an argument.

 

Lewis fought everyone but Bowe but it was not his fault,,,still he handled Golota where Bowe got handled

 

Many of those are not fair comparisons, though. Holmes' refused to fight Greg Page (mandatory, high ranked) to fight Scott Frank or Marvin Frazier (i forgot which) instead. How does that compare to Lewis not fighting Byrd (who had been shutout by a similar fighter in Wlad) to fight the higher ranked Mike Tyson who actually had even odds going into the fight because of his puncher's chance? Don King sued Lewis for not fight Ruiz (who had done **** all at that point) when he fought Grant (#3 contender), who was perceived as the next big thing.

The only one that Lewis legitimately avoided was Wlad Klit. I don't think anyone blames him for not giving Vitali a rematch when he was 37 and clearly no longer focused on boxing, after beating Tyson.

The key difference here is:
-Holmes never fought the top challengers when they were available to fight, and made no secret about it, either. "I aint fighting no coke head". Dokes, Thomas, Page, Coetzee; at least one or two of those he should've fought.

-In the cases of Byrd and Ruiz, Lewis fought opponents who were higher ranked, bigger fights and considered bigger threats. We can't exactly say the same of the Frank's, Marvis's and Cobb's of the world.

-The only rematch that Lewis failed to give was against Klitschko at age 37 when he no longer seemed to be focused on boxing. There is absolutely no excuse for Holmes not giving Norton and Witherspoon very well earned rematches. I will give you the Williams one due to age.

There is a clear difference here. Lewis tried to fight the best out there, often did, and unified the titles. Holmes clearly did not try to fight the best and made no attempt to unify; in fact, he's the reason that the IBF title belt got recognition (he was gifted it when he dropped the WBC belt to avoid Page).


I have no problem with Holmes ranking higher, but to rank him higher on the basis that he tried to fight everyone is simply believing in something that isn't true.

 

Holmes clearly beat Norton in what's seemingly become a closer then it really was fight.

I don't see the point of a rematch. It would have been nice, but it wasn't as close as the Witherspoon fight.

 

That was not my position.

I never claimed that he thoroughly cleaned up his whole division. I was merely pointing out that he wasn't the only one who didn't, and you know as well as I do that he wasn't. I also mentioned that IF Holmes were to be rated higher than Lewis, that there could be a valid case made for it given his record, his never having lost to mediocrities, and his similar or even better performances against common Lewis opponents at a much older age..

 

Exactly,

Holmes was NOT GIFTED against Norton. He won that fight legitimately, and in so doing defeated the concencus best heavyweight in the world in 1978. Imediately following the fight, Norton was sparked in ONE ROUND by Earnie Shavers, who Holmes then gave a rematch to, and defeated in a grueling battle in which he almost lost his title.

This revisionist crap just gets better and better as time goes on here. Frankly, I don't care if he flat out said that he'd never fight Norton again. He beat him fair and square the first time, then went on to beating two of his conquerors in Cooney and Shavers. Not to mention Scott Ledoux who drew with him, and Tex Cobb who was possibly robbed against him as well. The Norton argument is getting old here.

 

I like this sentence a lot, and agree with it completely. Larry Holmes had remarkable recuperative powers. The right hand that dropped him against Shavers would have been the end of Lewis. Of course, there are many ( including myself ), who believe that Earnie living to land such a shot against Lennox would probably not happen. But, this isn't the point however. That punch would have KO'd a lot of great champions, and Lewis is definately among them.

 

I have Lewis one place higher on my ATG list. The main reason why I rank Lewis higher is that Lewis fought almost all of the fighters that mattered during his reign and for his H2H ability. It's not his fault that his 2 best opponents were past prime nor is it his fault that Bowe did not seem in a great hurry to fight him. As a sidenote to this, perhaps if Bowe's active career had been longer they might have met in the late 1990s, who knows.

I have no problem with people ranking Holmes higher (it's pretty close between them) but I have to vote for Lewis.