Getting ko'd in the 5th round sort of rules out the 'getting caught cold' excuse. edit: even so i voted Lewis, but there's really little to nothing between them imo.
Lewis fought the better competition and won more by KO or TKO. That matters to me when considering ATG status. He avenged his defeats & left on the top. Top 5-10 based on resumé & top 1-5 head to head. His strengths include power & accuracy with an ATG jab to set the rest up.
I think if you post this on the classic forum, you get very, very different results. I like Lennox much more but Larry is higher on my list. Both top ten HWs for me though.
Man all you do is twist things, Lewis only lost to two fighters, (by KO) He avenged them brutally (by KO) He was the Lineal undisputed heavyweight king He beat evry fighter he ever faced as a proffesional Hell an ancient Lewis ****ed a prime Vitali up Rahman, Tua, Botha, Briggs, Galota, Mcall, Mercer, Bruno not to mention Tyson, Holyfield x2, Vitali Lewis hands down
He's only been knocked out twice ever. I don't know why people hold that against him so much. He avenged them. What more can he do? Holmes has way more embarrassing losses.
hahaha what a bunch of kooks u all r lewis has had no heart larry wouldve taken lewis out in to deep water and let him drown fa sure
I'm not saying that Lewis isn't a legend of the sport. He did great things, but if there is anything to hold against him and his greatness it's those L's on his record. They do matter resume wise and should be taken in to account, but of course he avenged both defeats and that's really cool and shows that he cares about his legacy. He also knew when to retire that's another thing I like about his career.
Absoloutly Holmes. As was mentioned, Holmes got up when Lewis couldn't. Head to head, Larry's jab would trouble Lewis , and hamper his efforts to launch . Larry was way tougher than anyone Lewis had to deal with , yeah that includes Holyfield , who was hard pressed to beat an old fat Holmes. Holmes was an ATG, where Lewis , is not.
Lewis, clearly. By far better level of opposition, more dominant during his reign and head to head Lewis UDs Holmes.
Good god Lewis is overrated on this site. atsch Holmes, by a mile. Holyfield's better than Lewis too. Lewis was the ONLY top level HW champ taken out early by ordinary contenders TWICE when he held the title.
Larry got the benifit of the doubt long counts against Shavers and snipes, he got up and was shaky yet the ref allowed a wobbly fighter to continue, by wobbling he hdidnt recover to beat the ten count, the referee`s back then didnt look in the eyes and asses the fighter the way a modern day ref would. If the same ref applied the same interpretation of the rules to those Holmes knockdowns as the Lewis Mccall knockdown then Larry would have been on the end of tko`s. He was in a s bad if not worse state than Lewis. [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LijnCa33Uw[/ame]