What If Wlad Klitschko Had Fought Lennox, Instead Of Vitali?

It would have been an intriguing fight:

[url]https://www.boxingforum24.com/threads/2003-lewis-vs-2003-wlad.706058/[/url]

On paper Wlad has a very good chance but he'd need to go in with a "kill or be killed", early KO mindset. However, we can't have much faith that Wlad would do that.

 

Which was 6 years prior to Wladimir fighting him which is the big context you're leaving out.

Facing Mercer in the 90s is the not the same as facing a 41 year old Mercer in 2002.

Against who though ? you keep bringing up this win streak like it's relevant in favour of Wladimir beating him but it isn't.

Apart from Witherspoon who he beat in 1996 and again this is when he was still an active relevant fighter around the same time frame he fought Lewis.

But here's where the issue lies with your win streak argument.

Mercer took a year and a half break after the Witherspoon fight and then only fought 6 times against complete nobodies.

Hence as i said before Mercer's last fight against a world class fighter was 6 years prior to fighting Wladimir.

Because he was fighting a washed up guy that's a fact.

Mercer fought a couple of nobodies in his comeback between 1998-2002 and hadn't been relevant at world level since 1996.

Mercer wasn't ranked in the top 10, hadn't beaten a single notable name since 1996, and he was 41 years old.

That's pretty much the definition of a washed up fighter who's no longer relevant at world level.

Because you don't just look at the age you also look at what stage a fighter was at in their career.

Mercer had one of the best spells of his career around the time he fought Lewis.

He'd had 2 very competitive fights vs Holyfield, Lewis, and beat Witherspoon.

That was probably the best run of form Mercer had in his career against top fighters.

Rahman on the other hand hadn't been ranked in the top 10 for a few years. And his last real significant fight against a world class fighter was a KO loss to Maskaev in 2006.

For reference Wladimir fought Rahman in 2008.

I'm the biased one ?

You're trying to conjure up an argument that beating Mercer in 2002 has the same relevance to beating Mercer in the 90s.

Any knowledgeable fan knows that is complete an utter nonsense.

 

Wlad loses by way of devastation.

 

Lewis was a vastly better fighter than Sanders.

 

Sure. But styles make fights. Lennox beat vastly better fighters than McCall and Rahman, but got sparked by them.

 

Splat goes Wlad

 

Styles had little to no influence on Wlad losing to Sanders, and they can't really be considered a major contributing factor in Lewis's losses to McCall and Rahman, either.

 

Styles had a lot with Wlad losing to Sanders at that time. When it comes to Lennox, maybe, but he lost to these fighters while beaten way better ones, so the point stands.

 

at the time Big Klit was the more favoured of the two, so lil Klit may have been well beaten...

mind you Big Klit was ahead before the cut stoppage as I remember it. Had he won an lil Klit fight may have been made against LL thereafter

 

Disagree.

Wlad's lack of defense and poor survival instincts were the more likely culprits than any special stylistic advantage possessed by Sanders. Sanders landed cleanly, and Wlad completely unraveled thereafter.

If we are to believe that Sanders' southpaw stance and speed (neither of which constitutes a stylistic advantage, by the way) were supposedly essential factors in his defeat of Wlad, what explanation accounts for the very different, orthodox Brewster and his stoppage victory over Wlad?

It is more reasonable to suggest that Wlad, in 2003/2004, had general vulnerabilities and that Lewis was clearly capable of exploiting them, too.

No, the point doesn't stand. You introduced Lewis’s losses to McCall and Rahman as support for your argument about styles. If you now concede that styles might not have been a major contributing factor in those losses, then they no longer support that argument, do they?

I didn't dispute that Lewis beat better fighters than McCall and Rahman, did I? And, at any rate, this only establishes that a superior fighter can suffer an upset, not that styles were the cause of the upset.

 

Wlad of course had general vulnerabilities that Lewis was capable of exploiting, but simply saying that Sanders beat Wlad, so Lewis would beat him too, just because he was vastly better than Sanders is not good enough of an argument. Wlad ran out of gas against Brewster, this was a completely different situation where Wlad was dominating. He wasn't dominating against Sanders, he was blasted out.

The cause of the losses were certain attributes of Lewis' opponents (powerful right hands) and certain flaws of Lennox himself (chin and concentration). You can call it styles, you can call it something else, but you know exactly what I'm saying.

 

You're exaggerating a bit. Before the Lewis fight, Mercer hadn't really secured a significant victory in five years. He had a split-decision win and a split-decision loss against Ferguson, lost quite clearly to a returning Holyfield, and—in my opinion—Witherspoon beat him more decisively than Lewis did. He also scraped a lucky draw against Marion Wilson (who had a 7-9 record); essentially, he hadn't beaten literally anyone in three years. Literally.

 

I'm not exaggerating at all.

Mercer had a bad spell after losing to Holmes but he regained his form with a good performance vs Holyfield.

And then he followed that up with 2 good performances vs Lewis/Witherspoon.

Nothing I said was exaggerated Mercer was on a good run of form vs Holyfield/Lewis/Witherspoon.

The point is Mercer was competing at world level and still a relevant fighter in 1996.

The Mercer of 2002 clearly wasn't competing at world level. His last fight against a world class fighter was in 1996 against Witherspoon hence he was no longer relevant.

 

I didn't make that argument. I simply stated a fact, which was more than enough to address your insinuation that Sanders had some kind of an edge over Lewis.

So, another Wlad vulnerability identified, that any half-decent heavyweight might have exploited, let alone Lewis.

Whatever you're saying I've addressed it.

 

Lummox would smash the inferior Klit bro even easier than Vitali, on her majesty’s Canadian honour