Lennox undisputed Title resume - your thoughts

Which is stupid because Lennox fought about 20people better than anyone Dempsey ever beat

 

Maybe Unforgiven would appreciate Lewis's reign more if he had been totally inactive for 2001, 2002 & 2003, then come back in 2004 only to lose a whitewash to Vitali, be dominated by Ruiz but destroy him with lowblows, then lose another whitewash to Vitali in 2005, rather than what he actually did?

 

This is where alphabet soups confuse issues. He became champ after beating briggs and his number one challenger was holy and he defended it vs him twice.

Instead of facing ruiz he faced unbeaten grant and also faced tua - the man who iced ruiz in one round. Instead of facing byrd he embarked on money spinning mike tyson and then fought the guy who dominated byrd up until a freak injury. The one name missing off his title rein is wlad klitschko. But the truth there is back in 97, lewis - akinwade would be a unification had wbo been considered a "real" belt back then. Replace botha with wlad and his ranking receives a huge boost.

He had I great pre-title run throughout the 90's and ensured that the 00's will be remembered as a split rein between himself and wlad, the long standing number 1 fighter.

He beat everyone he faced and it's only bowe and wlad that are missing from his resume.

 

(In your completely biased and unfounded opinion.)

If you can name 20 fighters LL fought who were better than Jack Sharkey - or even Bill Brennan - I'm sure the forum can do with the laugh.

Not that it has anything to do with the specific topic of this thread (ie the undisputed title REIGNS of LL and JD).

 

Again, a resume is fine to look over, but styles make fights.... Len Lewis has a fine resume and fine ring record... I rate the bloke in at # 5 on my ATG top-10 heavyweight champion list.... He proved to be the best of his era, though some will argue Evan Fields was better... I don't buy that notion at all...
:bbb:deal

MR.BILL:hat

 

I would maybe rate it a C. A questionable win over Holyfield a loss to Rahman and had the luxury of boxing in a gentler era in the Vitali win. God forbid a boxer ends up with a bad scar.

 

Yes, losing his title on a decision to Vitali Klitschko would have been better than getting stretched for the '10 count' inside of 5 rounds by Hasim Rahman.
Call me crazy, or old-fashioned, or whatever ...... but that's the way I see it.

 

I forgot about Sharkey, make it around 15 better HWs. Sharkey was good and Dempsey's best win but he did draw with an ex WW, lost to an ex MW, and got his title in a gift wrapped decision.

Holyfield x2, Tyson, Vitali, Tua and Rahman are all better than anyone Dempsey had a successful defense against, yet you rate Dempsey's reign better and then have the audacity to call me the biases 1 :-(

 

He didnt actually face all comers. He avoided both Byrd and Ruiz, but you give him a pass for that because he was going to fight Kirk Johnson who had been beaten by Ruiz.

 

He didn't avoid Byrd and Ruiz, he fought bigger challenges and bigger fights and was paid by King not to fight Ruiz as you well know yet always bring this up and Kirk Johnson was not beaten by Ruiz, he was beating him and cheated by Ruiz's play acting

 

Answer the questions PP. Were Byrd and Ruiz both his mandatory challengers for the WBA and IBF title? If the answer is yes, than he didnt take on all comers.
Would both Byrd and Ruiz offer a stylistic challenge that we hadnt seen Lewis fight, regardless of how ugly it might have looked? If the answer is yes, than he didnt take on all comers.
Ruiz beat Johnson, not by cheating but by Johnson falling apart not knowing how to deal with Ruiz's BS. Its his own fault, he blew it, and basically disappeared because he was never that good, certainly not as good as Ruiz who had a fairly respectable run as WBA champion.

 

Lewis was not the best until 1996. At that time most of the divison has turned into crapola!

 

1. Yes both lesser contenders to Grant and Tyson and both only got mandatory challenger via Don King bribing the sanctioning bodies. No one ever wanted Byrd/Ruiz fights, the people demanded Tyson/Wlad/Vitali matches and the only 1 Lennox missed was Wlad, so you could claim that's a duck at a stretch

2. No Akiwande was better than Ruiz, both were beat by a Lewis left over in Golota

3. Johnson was plenty better than Ruiz,the way your hyping up Ruiz now is laughable and your only doing it to discredit Lewis because in reality you know aswell as I do he's C CLass. You only started talking about this in the 'Bowe ducking Lewis' debates as some sort of quasi defense for Bowe pulling off 1 of the worst ducks in the sports history