The Ring Top Ten for September 18th 1991: 1: Evander Holyfield 25-0 2: Mike Tyson 41-1 3: Riddick Bowe 26-0 4: Razor Ruddock 25-3-1 5: Tim Witherspoon 35-3 6: Ray Mercer 17-0 7: George Foreman 69-3 8: Tony Tucker 41-1 9: Lennox Lewis 16-0 10: Michael Moorer 25-0 Using the list above as a guide, care to fill in the blanks below? Or of course, put your own opinion in, as some of the suggestions are with hindsight, unique... N.B. Obviously not all the fighters listed below are top ten fighters. Steve Farhood wrote the article and list... Best Puncher: Best Boxer: Most Protected: Favourite Opponent: Matchmaker's Dream Fight: Best Kept Secret: Deserves a Title shot: TV's Favourite: On the Way Down: Underrated: Best Fight this Year:
Best Puncher: Tyson Matchmaker's Dream Fight: Tyson-Bowe Deserves a Title shot: Tyson (owed one after beating Razor in the eliminator and rematch) TV's Favourite: Tyson Best Fight this Year: Tyson-Ruddock II
Dream fight was Tyson/Foreman Bowe deserved the title shot Tv favourite went to the Duke Fight of the year Moorer/Stewart...
I'm not sure Lewis was that well protected, he was thrown in with Gary Mason :think If only British fighters were as protected as Lennox these days they might actually fight someone half decent in their first 30 fights :-(
Remember it is The Ring, and I remember at the time Mason struggling with the Wills of this world and going life and death with Biggs. History has been kind to the big man, and his numbers, particularly taking into account how bad the division is now a days, look very good. So Lennox Lewis beating Mason in March 91 is a shrug your shoulders moment for an American, they had seen it all before, and they knew all British Heavyweights end up being horizontal when faced with a proper (American) challenge. A British Heavyweight who can be the best? What next? You will be telling me in twenty years time the Heavyweights will be dominated by a couple of Ivan Drago clones. :good
I liked Lewis a lot more than I liked the early Bowe. And anyway you slice it, Lewis was giving up a ton of experience to a guy like Mason. How many other managers are going to take that kind of risk with a young heavy? And Mason was much more of a fan favorite as well. to me anyway, it was like when Wlad took care of Schulz. A risky bout at the time and the crowd is going to pull for the other guy. Lennox fought another guy I was impressed with--Derek Williams. You certainly don't hear that bout talked about anymore. The Chanet and especially the Occassio bouts were good also because you knew the other guys would just fight to survive & had bags of tricks to turn to. It's always interesting to see how the heavies respond to those bags of tricks. The main thing with that era was that Tyson was going to have to deal with pedigreed up and comers. And a returning Foreman. we'd seen Mike clean out the division of the old names, but he had not faced the wave of high pedigreed up and comers. Me, I had a lot of doubts he was going to win many let alone come out at the top of the heap.
Mason had very limited support, he was the forgotten man of the Lawless stable, and when he did get to the top of the bill, he was so laboured and boring at times, for a man with such heavy hands, his support was minimal. I went to Lewis/Mason, although Lennox 'The Lion' (Thank god he dropped that!!!) was still to win over the fans, who remembered the seemingly poor efforts against Chanet and Ocasio (But you were right, they were excellent learning bouts), he had maybe 40% of the crowd. Which I remember at the time my mate commenting that, that was not bad for a Canadian!:yep
Lewis was top 10 after just 16 fights?! And they still gave him "most protected" Was Ruddock undderrated with Mercer "best kept secret"?
It went: Best Puncher: Tyson Best Boxer: Bowe Most Protected: Lewis Favourite Opponent: Michael Greer Matchmaker's Dream Fight: Tyson/Foreman Best Kept Secret: Phil Jackson Deserves a Title Shot: Riddick Bowe TV's Favourite: Tommy Morrison On the Way Down: Alex Stewart Underrated: Tony Tucker Best Fight this Year: Moorer/Stewart
1994: George Foreman Oliver McCall Riddick Bowe Michael Moorer Lennox Lewis Herbie Hide Larry Holmes Henry Akinwande Jorge Luis Gonzalez Lionel Butler