Lennox Lewis - Whats The Lowest He Can Be Ranked?

the lowest i'd rank lewis is 3

 

Imho he can be ranked anywhere from 3 to 7 alsongside Marciano, Holmes, Johnson and Jeffries.

 

Lewis was much better into his 30s, but Tyson was champion at 20, beating up the best professional heavyweights in the world while a 21 year-old Lewis was still fighting 3-round bouts in the amateurs.

As for excusing a fighter's late-career low-points, personally I work on the principle that it counts when you are champion or considered among the top 1 or 2, because however far you might have slipped or ill-prepared you are there to defend something substantial.

But when you're coming off a 17-month layoff and your last trip into true world class was a bad bad beating by the champion - as was the case when Tyson went in against Danny Williams - then he's not really defending much, not even a top 10 contendership place probably. So, it's wrong to give a fight much historic meaning when it really did not deserve much meaning in it's own time.

Lennox Lewis, on the other hand, came into the Rahman fight on a career high, defending a real and meaningful status as the world's best fighter, and also coming off a performance against David Tua that ranks as a peak performance in his career.

Similarly, Evander Holyfield, though he was looking a bit dusty coming in against Lewis in 1999, was still holding the status as world's best fighter, and that was a meaningful win/loss on the records of both combatants.

That's just my way of looking at it. I agree, longevity counts, and Lennox definitely outranks Tyson on pure longevity, but the actual losses Tyson suffered very late in his career are mostly irrelevant.

 

Taking into consideration the weakness of the division during and after Lewis reign it means little really.

 

Either did Lewis. His division was weaker than Tyson's.

 

That's the bottom line.
But it's a language few here will be able to comprehend.

 

I rate him 7-9 in my top 10 heavy list.

 

jeffries:rofl:rofl:roflnut:nut

 

top five heavyweights all time aren't starched with one punch. twice. end of story. top ten sure but there has to be a toughness factor.

 

Lennox's stoppages against McCall and Rahman affect his legacy a bit,but he came back very strongly from both.

 

This is why I detest the idea of "P4P"

 

Again, losing time because of prison is an unfortunate thing, but in the end it hurts his boxing legacy no matter how you look at it. It's not an excuse.

His run at or near the top was very long, though.

Yes - it refers to the greater amount of quality AND quantity. You can criticize some of his opponents all you like, but one can make exactly the same argument about the 80's heavyweights: cokehead Thomas, glass chinned Williams, very limited and constantly holding Smith, padded record Tucker, etc etc. You know how this works. In the end, Lewis has bigger numbers and more meaningful wins.

I'm not interested in discussing the differences between the 80's and 90's heavyweights, and i don't know why you interpreted my post as such, or why you try to start this discussion.


I take it you conceded the points about Lewis having "better" losses and more wins and better wins, since you didn't respond to them?

 

Tyson fought at a high rate prior to prison. 10 title fights wins,(8 KOs), in under 3 years, against a good standard of heavyweight contender.

Lewis run of 14 fights between the McCall loss and the Rahman loss was much less impressive, in my opinion, featuring such lesser fighters as Lionel Butler, Tommy Morrison, Shannon Briggs, Zelkjo Mavrovic, Just*in Fortune !

Yes, you can be equally harsh and critical on both sides, or generous and positive if you like.
Either way, when we look at it even-handedly, subjecting both groups of opponent's to the same standard of scrutiny, Lewis comes off worse.

Ok. No need for further comment.

I accept that the win/s over Holyfield is better than any single result on Tyson's resume. But as a performance it wasn't particularly impressive.

No, Lewis doesn't have "better" losses. I ignore Tyson's very late career losses because he was already just a "name" and a relative irrlevance in the division before he even stepped into the ring.
Lewis got beat by a couple of crude mediocre contenders. By KO.
Tyson lost to the mediocre Douglas, but Buster was at least a well-rounded boxer at the time.

Edit - I have no idea why the name ****** is blanked out in the case of ****** Fortune.

 

Lewis scores points for being consistent at winning and staying at the top, BUT...
To me its about fighting and who and how he was winning, and thats where I have problems with Lewis.
Were seeing the same thing with the Klitschkos only with a weaker group of contenders (if thats possible). A weak division thats dominated by two fighters who have far better skills than the rest, but still show some serious flaws themselves.

Say what you want about the 80's fighters, but they were technically better fighters. Not bigger or stronger, but technically leagues better, which counts for way more than a big guy who can swing but not land.
They were capable of exposing flaws just on their boxing ability alone. Look what Tubbs could do to Bowe, Douglas could do to Tyson, Bruno and Mcall to Lewis.
With excpetion to Mcall, it was done with boxing, smart boxing, not brawling or overpowering. Guys who didnt have the power advantage could rely on their boxing skills to give a fighter trouble even at a physical disadvantage.

 

The 90s is considered the best HW era second to the 70s for good reason, most of those 80s fighters were still prime or near prime. Lewis fought everyone of his era, fought many prime fighters, all the best fighters from the era before, was ducked shamelessly and made to wait until he was past prime to get his shot and still.

How can you have a problem with how Lewis won? He dominated everyone bar Mercer. Destroyed plenty of top contenders like Tyson, Rahman, Rudduck, Golota, Morrison, Grant, Briggs, Mason all destroyed and no one else could do that to those men so destructively for the most part.

Whats more in his last fight as an old man he beat the next great heavyweight in Vitali, something no other heavyweight has done in history after their title reign