Not only that, it was a badly out of shape Lewis that did that to Vitali's face...god help Vitali if Lewis had actually trained for the fight.
Lennox was lucky the judges favored him over Ray Mercer, who deserved a win in that fight with his accurate, effective punching. from wikipedia: The unofficial Associated Press scorecard had Mercer clearly winning the fight by the score of 97–93. Despite giving up three inches to Lewis, Mercer was able to land 60% percent of his jabs to Lewis' 33%. Mercer also landed a higher percentage of total punches, 59% to Lewis' 44%.
Byrd's promoter Don King paid Lewis 1million dollars and gave him a car to vacate the IBF belt so he could set up a tournament, Hard road to glory series, Byrd Vs Holyfield for IBF, Ruiz Vs Roy Jones for WBA and the winners fight each other and the ultimate winner holding the IBFand WBA gets a shot at Lewis for Undisputed. Jones beat Ruiz but vacated instead of facing Byrd and it all fell apart. Meanwhile Tyson invoked rematch clause for Lewis then reneged and WBC wanted Lewis to fight Vitali next. This content is protected
Yes, so Lennox has second best resume at HW and people say his achievements are overrated? Closer to being underrated tbh...
The rematch not happening set heavyweight boxing back years. Fact is both guys took the first one on short notice and so too much weight is put on that one fight, when the reality is the rematch was the fight everyone wanted to see. I'd have killed to see what would've happened if each had a full camp to prepare for the other. I respect Lennox's decision to call it a day, but I don't know how any true fan of the sport could have not been disappointed it didn't come off.
Nah can't agree. Lewis beat some very good and very underrated fighters, look at how many former world champions or future world champions he beat. If you look at his resume, most of the fighters her fough in the second half of his career had at most a couple of defeats.. Tony Tucker, very underrated, former world champion was 48-1 when he fought Lewis. Golota had 2 DQ defeats, he was beating Bowe senseless in my opinion and Lewis done him inside a round. Michale Grant, unbeaten 32-0, blown away, not that great but still an unbeaten challenger. Shannon Briggs when he was young, 30-1, WBO world champion. Holyfield was 36-3 when he fought Lewis, it wasn't as if he was 92 years old, David Tua was 37-1 when he fought Lewis. Mike Tyson was 49-3, yeah not the best version of Tyson but certainly not the worst. Vitali was 32-1, RTD due to injury in his only defeat. Plenty of other that were not bad, they were good defences, Lewis could only beat what was put in front of him and he did, he avenged all blemishes on his record and retired a world champion, he couldn't do much more. He still has those names on his record, Tyson, Holyfield, Vitali and some others, it rare we get any champion having a list of prime opponents, it's the reason we remember certain eras far more fondly, because there were two or three, sometimes four great fighters. It doesn't happen often so we have to judge fighters on what they did, who was put in front of them and how they won, Lewis is rated fairly in my opinion, he is a genuine ATG in my opinion.
Mavrovic was European champ 27-0-0 ahead of the match against Lewis, Lennox being his only career defeat, he was never knocked out. He was an excellent technician but a vegetarian, only about 100 kg. For Lennox he only had compliments after the match, said Lenox strikes like a horse.
mavorovic showed one of the best chins ever in a heavyweight title match that night. He done himself proud. Took major bombs and don’t think he was even cut, just bruised up
Lennox Lewis represented his title well, the fault of not fighting more prime fighters like Evander Holyfield and Mike Tyson could be the fault of circumstance and the promoters. He did expose a glaring weakness , his chin. This was evident in his 1st bout title losses by knockout against Hassim Rahman, he reminds me of Reynaldo Snipes, and to Oliver McCall. He did acquire the tutelage of the great Emmanuel Steward, Lewis was better after this acquisition. Lewis did win his title back with stoppages of Rahman and MxCall. He was better defensively, as seen against Vitali Klitchko, he was rocked several times, but rallied to inflict a cut on the eyebrow of Vitali, forcing the stoppage victory for Lennox. But the bottom line here in all fairness, he was talented and his talent was cultivated by a legendary trainer in Steward, Lewis demonstrated his championship skill. It would have been interesting to see Lennox Lewis vs a prime Evander Holyfield, 1996, and a prime Mike Tyson, 1988.
He beat everyone in a strong as hell era, including Bowe as an amateur and made him bin his belt as a Pro. No-one has a CV like Lennox. And, in my opinion, he's also perhaps the best H2H HW in history. Not to say he's perfect (who is??); his chin was a relative weakness compared to others … but not made of glass as hyperbole would have it. His problems are mostly PR related. A slightly aloof personality that's different to most fighters. He suffered from bias in the UK because of the whole Canadian citizenship thing and bias in the US because of old fashioned envy and jingoism. Personally I put him at the top of the heavyweight tree.
Any heavyweights champion's achievements can be broke down if you want it hard enough: 1. Mike Tyson: Unified a weak divsion beating bums and cokeheads, the one ATG he beat is a way past it Larry Holmes, his biggest win Mike Spinks is a blown-up LHW, never showing the ability to weather the storm and came back stronger, got his ass kicked by anyone who is not intimidated. 2. Holyfield: Suspected PED cheat, gassed out in pretty much all his big fights, is too inconsistent, beating Mike tyson by using his head as a battering ram. 3. Vitaly: broke down more than a Vietnam-era AR-15, quit again a blown up supper middleweight, fough fat old Lewis at the perfect time yet somehow still lost, TKO6, never fought his brother. 4. Wlad: Is a better wrestler than boxer; is bigger, stronger and more skilled than pretty much all his opponents and still fought like a timid school girl, had no signature win, never fought his brother. The point is, these men tried their best in their given time, and still achieve greatness.
