Lennox Lewis; Greatest Heavyweight of all time?

True greatness is having the ability to come back from adversity. The Shot that ALi took at the end of FOTC. Would Lewis have been able to rise & finish on his feet?

Holmes suffered a tremendous shot against Shavers. Could Lewis recover & still earn the victory?
Perhaps he very well could have. Hard to say.
If Lewis were knocked out by a prime Tyson, then avenged that with an impressive victory. Then his stock would indeed be alot higher.
Other ATG Heavyweight, which were stopped in thier or close to thier prime's were by other ATG's. Frazier(Foreman) Holyfield(Bowe) Norton (Foreman). Holmes(Tyson).
I still can't explain why Lewis was stopped by these two fighters, but it did hurt his stock.

 

My thoughts.

I am certain that Joe Louis and Muhamad Ali should ocupy the top two slots in whatever order you prefer (based on resume).

They both beat twice as many curently ranked contenders as anybody else and had twice as many title defences.

The battle for No3 slot is wide open with seven or so candidates and Lewis has a strong claim.

 

It's a shame Riddick Bowe or a Prime Tyson didn't fight Lewis. Then there would be little speculation as to Lewis' standing.

 

I think Lennox Lewis should be rated higher than Larry Holmes based strictly on the superiority of Lennox Lewis' opposition. Holmes reigned longer and had more defenses, but Lewis fought all the deserving fighters during his reign(or at least tried to) and regained the title.

 

Tyson before Holyfield?

 

Ali and Louis are locks for the top 2 spot. Anyone that doesn't have them at one and two are just wrong. Plain ****ing wrong. Lewis has a legitimate claim for the No. 3 spot, he's in my top 5.

 

Bowe did and got his ass kicked, then ran from the rematch earning him the name Chicken Bowe. Tyson was younger than Lennox when Lennox dominated and sparked him, but Tyson was more faded

 

1. What do you base your rankings on, I think Lewis is top3 on opposition, dominance and length of reign at the top

2. Agreed, these things happen and at least Lenny left on top beating every man he faced. And how many have beat the next big champ?

3. Agreed and many ignore than, imo Lennox physical prime was around 92-93 and technical around 97 onwards

4. Boxers are only human and plenty have off nights because of it, Lennox didnt have many off nights though

5. Iron perhaps not but its pretty damn solid, he was only clocked when he left his chin out to dry and if Chuvalo left his chin out to dry he'd be ko'd too

6. Is that your top10 list? Wheres Rocky/Wills/Johnson? I'll make the following comments on those match ups:

Louis - outboxed and floored on many occasions, never faced a boxer puncher like Lewis, vastly outmuscled.

Liston - too slow, smaller, I think he gets picked off

Tyson - a toss up

Bowe - beat him once and made him run from a
rematch

Foreman - struggled against boxers, nearly ko'd by Lyle, Lennox lands first and Foreman is equally liable to being ko'd based on the Lyle fight

Holmes - Holmes is the better boxer, Lennox the better puncher, and also bigger and stronger

Frazier - Frazier is there to be hit, Lennox probably does something similar to Foreman

Holyfield - beat him, while Holy was past prime Lennox probably was too and there's only 3years seperating them in age, does a younger weaker Holyfield do better?

Jack Dempsey - Too small and not as technically sound, caught by Firpo, could be wreckless and this would get him ko'd. Dempsey too has been ko'd by journeymen. Would punches from a 190lb man even bother Lennox? Schooled by Tunney, Dempsey has little chance

I say at most he loses 3 of those, Ali beats him too

Now maybe in modern times those fighters benefit from modern training/supplements/nutrition to add some muscle/speed to the equation. Head 2 heads arent always fair in that respect

 

How would Lennox have done over 15 rounds?

An old Holmes was better against Mercer and better after one bout against McCall than Lewis had been. (But yes, Lewis should have been allowed to continue against McCall.) His clean knockout loss to Rahman is devastating to any claim that he could be number one. Ali, Louis, Holmes, Frazier, Marciano, Foreman and Dempsey never succumbed to a single shot like that. (Dempsey-Flynn I was a staged, predetermined outcome.)

Lewis would have lost had he taken the knockdown punches Holmes recovered from against Shavers and Snipes (especially the surprise from Snipes). Holmes would have gotten up to defeat Rahman, and of course he nearly did upset McCall.

Riddickulous deprived us of Bowe-Lewis, which could have settled a great deal of speculation concerning the historical standings of both.

I give Lewis credit for not ducking anybody, and trying to establish his place in history as best he could, but the lapses against Rahman and McCall which Holmes and Louis avoided for so long knock Lennox down a notch.

My top three are Holmes, pre-exile Ali and Toledo Dempsey. Louis and FOTC Frazier come next, then Johnson, Marciano, Jeffries, Liston and Foreman. The successful comebacks of Foreman against Moorer and Holmes against Mercer are, of course, extraordinary in heavyweight annals.

 

I think personal career trajectory needs to factor a lot more in your analysis.

When Tyson faced Lewis in 2002 he was arguably 15 years past his best year as a professional boxer (1987).

When Holyfield faced Lewis in 1999 he was 8-10 years past his best year as a professional boxer. In fact, if you attach importance to the Qawi war at cruiser - one of his most accomplished performance - you could argue he was up to 13 years past his best year as a pro.

I don't know when Lewis' best year as a pro is, but from what I have read here it could have been 2002 (Rahman rematch) or maybe a wee bit earlier, say 1999 for the 2 Holyfield matches.

Either way, the dates of the fights with Holyfield and Tyson hugely favoured Lewis, and no amount of talk about their ages changes that fact.

No doubt Lewis' longevity is tremendous. Dramatic wins in '92 over Ruddock and Rahman in '01 is almost a 10 year span.

However, had he had multiple fights with Holyfield, Tyson and Bowe in the late eighties, early nineties, plus rematches with Mercer, plus got up against McCall and Rahman and then suffered sustained beatings, plus fought alternative to Fortune and Butler in '95 when at the peak of his physical powers - you can be sure he wouldnt have been quite so well preserved come 2000...

 

1. OK prime is needed BUT we can tell allot even from performances post-prime, prime is often used as an excuse
2. Most would say 1988 is Tyson's peak but how far did he really fall from that level and how much is the competition being tougher? By 2002 he was way past it, but maybe Lennox was 35-36 by then too, that isn't prime physically
3. This is wrong, Holyfield was not prime at 186lbs in any way, he used weights/steroids to add 30lbs of muscle because it would make him a bigger/stronger more competitive HW. His peak speed/stamina was around 1990-1992, but his peak strength/power came in around 1996, which he needed as he was just too weak against Bowe. So upto 1996 Holyfield was showing improvements while declining in other areas and arguably his best performance was in 1996

4. Physically Lewis was prime 1992-1993, when Bowe ducked him, technically he'd improve later, just as Holyfield technically improved his game post-Bowe and post-Moorer. As I said in 1999 against Holyfield Lewis was not as physically near prime as 1992-3

5.Lewis wanted Holyfield from 1992-1999, Holyfield chose when he wanted to fight Lewis. Lewis wanted Tyson 1996 onwards. Both ducked him. Saying Lennox won when it suited him is disingenous and unfair, Lennox could have faded into obscurity too at the ages of 33 and 35. The only reason Lennox is seen as prime and the others are past it is because Lennox won and the other man lost

6. Possibly but he did arguably face tough opposition year on year, he just didn't suffer much damage along the way. After all Golota ruined Bowe in 2fights and didn't last a round with Lennox. Rudduck gave Tyson 2 grueling fights and lasted 2 rounds with Lennox. Lennox also fought bigger punchers than both Holyfield and Bowe

 

It's true that Louis, Foreman, Marciano, Frazier, Holmes and Ali never succumbed to a single shot like that. But then again, Lewis never got thoroughly outboxed and humiliated by someone who literally did nothing but take punches (Foreman-Ali), or completely outboxed (Foreman-Young), Foreman-Frazier is nothing more flattering than Lewis-McCall, Holmes may well have 8th and 9th round TKO losses to Snipes and Shavers (both lesser fighters than McCall) if the same referee of the McCall fight was there, and Lewis was never knocked out by a weak chinned former light heavyweight in Schmeling... or how about losing 19 out of 20 rounds to a former lightheavyweight named Tunney?

And Dempsey-Flynn, a predetermined outcome? Why, because 6 years afterwards, when Dempsey became a superstar, people tried to rewrite history that it was a fix, while primary reports say no such thing? And this was in a time of many fixes, when even some clean bouts got booed as fix. And did you ever see Lewis lose multiple times against a Meehan, or get knocked down 9 times by a journeyman middleweight?

As said above: i'd argue the above: Holmes was in just as bad state against Snipes and Shavers as Lewis was against McCall, but Holmes was not stopped on his feet... and rightfully so.

You must rate very high on head to head ability (for which i CAN see a case for Lewis #1), because on resume, Dempsey has no business at #3.