When exactly did Lennox Lewis fully get his respect as an ATG?

I'd say when he beat Holyfield and become undisputed is when he really started to get his props.

 

Same here although I thought he would beat Holyfield, because he had all the physical advantages.

 

Vitali
No matter how much respect Lewis had before that, he knocked out a future Hall of Famer in his 'swan song.' That is, no matter how much respect Lewis had before that fight; that fight added another boost to his respect.

 

Hi Guys.
Loath as I am to disagree with such esteemed posters, but I feel it was much later, sometime after he retired I would argue, and I believe this is the case with some fighters that don't immediately catch the public's imagination,as was the case with Lewis, he was begrudged his status as an ATG, over here we didn't see him as British, and over the pond, they sort of didn't like his beating up of their fighters, plus he was articulate, and knew his worth, traits that bizarrely sent him against the press, and the general fight fan, he came across as aloof and big headed at times, again that went against the tide, also from my recollection, his standing amongst his peers, also took longer than it should have, only after some time was he seen as No 3/4 in the all time rankings, of course where this great fighter deserves to be.
stay safe guys, chat soon.
Mike.

 

When he started talking about chess a lot.

 

What Was Lennox Lewis Greatest Fight? | Boxing News 24 Fan Forum
This is too good a chance not to quote @Dubblechin:
"Lennox's greatest win was his last fight ... tearing the side of a prime Vitali Klitschko's face off and stopping him in just six rounds.
No one else came close to doing what Lewis did to that Hall of Famer.
No other Hall of Fame heavyweight champion ended their career with a stoppage win over another Hall of Fame heavyweight champion.
Only Lennox Lewis."

 

What you are maybe missing, however, is that the win over Vitali took time to fully ripen and mature. Vitali's best work was done post-Lewis, over time. The more Vitali proved himself, the better the win became.

 

Lennox didn't get fully respected until we were waist deep in the Wlad era. That was in no small part because the same jingoistic American fans he couldn't win over because he was a foreigner found out it could, in fact, get a hell of a lot worse.

I was there for Lennox's rise and remember all the crap he took here and all the smack that got talked in gyms during his rise and reign. Some of it had merit; most of it was because he had the wrong passport and came up at the wrong time. The catch 22 being that, for a foreign heavyweight who was the first one to genuinely upset essentially a century of American HW dominance (and not just be a blip on the radar here or there), there was never gonna be a right time.

After Wlad came up and basically took the HW scene back with him to Germany, the critics magically started missing the same good ol' Lennox days they bitched about as they were happening.

 

After 2010...
...but there were several preliminary stages:
defeating Grant—an HBO favorite—and Showtime’s significant decline; at that point, HBO began to emerge as an influential voice in sports media, and Lewis became their premier heavyweight. It was precisely after beating Grant that Lewis began to receive massive acclaim, with HBO backing him with a brilliant marketing campaign.

Defeating Tyson in 2002—nobody cared about Tyson’s actual form; he was still perceived as a monster and remained the biggest name in boxing.

The Klitschko brothers' era of dominant, albeit boring, reign. Some people couldn't even tell them apart. Among casual fans at the pub, I often heard people say that Lewis had smashed one brother's face to a pulp and would do the same to the other if he came back. Vitali’s comeback was a huge boost for Lennox.

 

He didn't "knock out" Vitali.

 

From the British fight fans ? Probably since the day he turned pro.

From the rest of the world ? Probably some years after he retired.

 

Agree. I can remember arguments from 2007-2010 where a lot of people were still hounding him for the McCall and Rahman losses as if they defined his entire career. I think Lewis’s legacy is one of those that ages very well. Especially since the heavyweight division of the past 20+ years has been underwhelming.

 

I watched his career in real time and it wasn't really until after he retired. When active, Lewis was always struggling for respect in a US dominant 90s market. Though after retiring that respect did come refreshingly quickly.

 

True, he punched off half his face.

TKO6