Lewis was one of the most avoided fighters in history. After smashing Bowe up in the Olympics, Big Daddy wanted nothing to do with him in the pros and Holyfield refused to fight him until he absolutely had to in order to try to unify the division as per his prediction. Lewis was forced to do it the hard way by fighting all the guys who nobody else wanted to and all the up coming unbeaten contenders, again who nobody else wanted to. Of course what is amazing is the sheer amount of boxers he ruined. But I digress. I believe the issue was Tyson and you two boys know about as much about that little episode as you do most other things. Lewis was mandatory challenger to fight for Tyson's WBC belt. Don King wanted Tyson to unify it with Seldon's WBA belt. Lewis had a prior writ which said that Tyson must defend his WBC belt against Lewis after King had shafted Lewis out of his challenge to Bruno. King threatened to have Tyson fight just for Seldon's WBA belt and not defend his WBC belt and Lewis' lawyers told him that his case was greatly weakened under those circumstances. King didn't pay him step aside money. He paid Lewis in lieu of damages. There was then an agreement that Tyson would defend his WBC belt against Lewis after the Seldon fight but Tyson actually gave up that belt rather than fight Lewis. Who ever heard of a heavyweight champion giving up his title because he didn't want to face his challenger? Almost unprecedented. You'd have to go all the way back to Riddick Bowe who also gave up his belt so he didn't have to fight Lewis.
too big for me to read, i was just going to give a smart arse answer to the sentence you wrote i'll go with true
Was Lewis ducked? Yes, a bit. Was Tyson over rated? Yes, a bit. Is Don King a ****? Yes. That is all.
Yep,that post is broadly right. Lewis was on the outside looking in and King was trying to cash in on Tyson defences.
Very true Bowe threw the WBC belt in a bin rather than face him and Tyson paid him a lot of step aside money i don't think Holyfield would duck anyone though
The Holyfield fight was the mega money fight back then, the one everyone wished to see, with Tyson looking to meet him for mega cash just a few months after his next fight. I've heard the Tyson/Lewis thing discussed before and in the end it doesn't come out as clearly as simply 'Tyson ducked Lewis' there's far more to it, I forget the reasoning behind it though.
lewis was definatly ducked! he was to big of a risk for tyson and bowe thats why they fought holyfield because they thought he was an easier option, plus i dont think the fights would of been as lucrative in the early 90's because i dont think lewis was a big enough draw back then
Well I agree with all the points apart from you using 2 of them to refute another. Bowe didn't want it. Holyfield delayed it. Tyson didn't want it/delayed it. During this time Lewis literally fought all comers bar a couple if you want to nitpick on Ruiz and Byrd but then you could make this sort of stupid argument against Joe Louis who also fought all comers. Lewis was a true great and Britian should be happy to have had him represent them. His record speaks for itself and I think one day he may even be considered as high as number 2, maybe 3.
You have to remember that not only was Lewis a risk from a boxing perspective, he was also not particularly box office at that stage of his career compared to the other options these guys had. He was champion of the 'who needs him' club for a while there.