Therefore, only fights in the period from January 1, 2000 to December 31, 2009 are counted. In that period, Lennox Lewis had only 7 fights, 6 of which he won (5 by knockout, and avenged his only defeat), although I believe that the peak of Lennox Lewis was the year 2000. So from the fight and victory by knockout over Michael Grant, to the victory by technical knockout over Vitali Klitschko. Lennox Lewis enters the 2000s as the last undisputed heavyweight champion, and remains so to this day. In the 2000s, he loses, and again becomes the lineal champion in a rematch. He also "hones" his resume and legacy in the 2000s. In the same period, Wladimir Klitschko has 24 fights with a score of 22-2 (one defeat he avenged, and the other he did not). In his last fight in that decade, Wladimir Klitschko becomes the lineal champion. Other significant victories of Wladimir (Povetkin, Pulev, Haye...) do not belong to this decade and topic, as well as to the previous Wladimir resume, and the complete picture. Therefore, the fights from Wladimir's victory over Paea Wolfgramm to the victory over Ruslan Chagaev are counted. While Lennox enters the 2000s as the undisputed champion; In 2000, Wladimir became the WBO champion. There are also common opponents; Frans Botha and Hashim Rahman.....
Nothing against Wladimir he is one of the best all time, but I don’t think he was as big of star or as famous in the 2000s as Lewis. Seems like during his time a lot of people did not even know who he was. Maybe in some countries he was more famous and more of a star than Lewis, but not North America imo.
I mean Lewis only had 5 o 6 fights during that time, Wlad probably had 12 or 15. Kind of a weird comparison thread. Lewis certainly carried himself as a champion and man of the people for that time though. Every time I turned around Wlad was getting KOd by some new journeyman. He beats the smaller, powder puff Chris Byrd twice and all of a sudden he's hailed as the second coming of Joe Louis. I'm still scratching my head about it
I'm not sure about the bigger star, but in Rummy's sticky, rank fighters by the decade thread, I ranked Wlad #10 and Lewis #14 based solely on fights contested in the 2000's. So, Wlad for me. Lewis the greater overall.
I think it is close. Lewis had the best win HW win of the decade, possibly of this century. But Wlad just has a much bigger body of work in the 00s, that is hard to offset with a single win.
Lennox built up his resume throughout the 90s and hit his peak in the early 2000s and retired shortly thereafter, Wlad peaked much later in the decade. Their fight careers in the 2000s didn't overlap, not a great comparison.
If we take the word star as being the key word, then the answer must be Lewis. Wlad unfortunately, never saw the day that he got the kind of respect that Lewis was getting, late in his career. In the run up to Lewis Tyson, even non boxing people were absorbed by it. The day after Lewis Klitschko, I went into a kebab shop to repair the damage, and ended up having a conversation with the man behind the counter about the fight. The same man probably didn't even know that Wlad Povetkin happened years later. This might be an anglocentric perspective, but it is how I saw it at the time.
