If Muhammad Ali Fought Lennox Lewis At Their Respective Peaks..?

It's the natural conclusion of claiming that Tyson demonstrated that he was the best by showing it against anyone that was put in front of him when he was training properly. Naturally, this means when he was not the best, he must have not been training properly.

 

Douglas beat an unprepared Tyson.

 

Do you think that everyone Mike defeated prior to Douglas were ideally prepared?

I think Mike was prepared enough. His weight was right. He did score a terrific KD in round 8 and he lasted into the 10th, only falling to a series of titanic punches.

I should also note that Mike threw down very well in round 9, following the KD but Buster proved he was more than up to the task, resisting Mike’s energised offensives while dishing back his own significant offence.

Much ado was made of the KD suffered in sparring against Page but it really amounted to little more than a slip, Mike being clearly off balance.

If it did mean anything, including as much as what some people like to claim, Buster would’ve seen Mike off much sooner than he did.

A recent thread seemed to have some people appearing to almost dismiss out of hand Larry Holmes own surrounding circumstances when he fought and lost to Mike.

Do you duly factor Larry’s age, inactivity and lack of preparedness when assessing/rating Mike’s performance and victory in that fight OR do you simply give Mike absolute credit for same, without any concessions or due considerations and qualifications on Larry’s behalf?

I mean some people are clearly predisposed to the belief that an ideally prepared Tyson beats everyone - we read this belief being borne out in so many fantasy matches.

But then, how does one deal with the material losses Mike did incur during his actual career?

Well, it seems that many work backward from the fact of Mike’s losses to deduce that Mike somehow wasn’t ideally prepared or at/near his best - simply because they are predisposed to believing that an ideally prepared or near enough to Tyson was/is unbeatable - so a loss, by default, has to = a below par Tyson.

Not to be cute but that type of deductive mental processing is a classic example of circular reasoning.

Finally, I throw into the pot that the argument for Buster Douglas presenting as Mike’s best opponent (at least up to that point in time if not for all time) is a very strong and more than valid position.

To uphold my impartiality I will say that Mike may well have been robbed of a classic come from behind, totally against the grain, KO victory.

The count in round 8 was obviously long and even more telling, Meyran slowed his meter in the second half of that count.

One might argue that Buster would’ve risen to a faster count (viz: reasonable per sec meter) - but really, Buster barely made it up as it was and was still unsteady on his feet and there was no time left for Mike to follow up.

So, as opposed to Buster deferring to the ref’s count, I believe the ref’s count,
consciously or not, actually deferred to Buster’s ability to arise and the time required for same.

Certainly, after tolling “9” with Buster nearly but still not quite up from the canvas, it seemed Meyran dropped tools, making no effort to even begin an arm swing for a toll of “10”.

Of course many watching the fight, including myself, wanted and were trying to “will” the impossibly heavy underdog Buster to get up in time and carry on with the job - but of course, the ref himself should’ve been divorced from any such emotional investment and potential compromising of the objective execution of his duties.

 

In defeat, a fighter is forced to confront his limits, an objective exercise that clashes with a quality of soaring faith in the mortal borne along by ego. A boxer needs his illusion of supremacy to do what he does. As a consequence, rarely is a match fought for which the loser does not have an explanation for the “baffling” turn of events. In defeat there are the usual suspects: personal problems, managerial problems, injuries, I-got-thumbed, I-got-screwed. Excuses are the means to make the fighter whole again.

Boxing’s big lie it is, and ever since I came on the fight beat in the mid-’80s for The New York Times, I’ve encountered it regularly. But it did not quite register as a phenomenon until I began working on a story about Mike Tyson in January 1988. The idea for this particular story was to convey to the reader a sense of what it felt like to be in there against Tyson—from the point of view of the opponents he had beaten since winning the heavyweight title in November 1986. I expected that by the cumulative details of their accounts, an impressionistic narrative would emerge that would give not only technical insights into what Tyson does so well, but also a subjective sense of his ring presence.

Wrong. The interviews with fighters like Trevor Berbick, Tyrell Biggs, Tony Tucker, and Pinkion Thomas were an object lesson in boxing’s big lie. Mostly Tyson’s foes were disinclined to give him credit. As they saw it, his victories were accidents.

At that time, Tyson was fresh off a convincing win over Biggs. Against an opponent some boxing experts thought had the mobility and long-armed jab to confound Tyson, the champion fought his best fight since winning the title from Berbick. He dominated Biggs completely, cutting off the ring and then pounding him with a relentless attack.

Yet, to Biggs, who suffered a seventh-round knockout, it was not quite as conclusive a victory as it appeared to the estimated 13,000 spectators at the Convention Center in Atlantic City, and the millions who watched the fight on TV.

Biggs had had a decent opening round against Tyson, but steadily deteriorated after that. As he recalled it, though, his first-round stick-and-move tactics had “exposed” the real Tyson. He regarded the lack of liveliness that struck his legs for round two on as a quirk of nature separate and apart from the thudding punches Tyson landed on him. By Biggs’ account, the strange business with those legs became a kind of Bermuda Triangle mystery; his underpinnings just vanished into the night.

Tyson’s other victims had elaborate tales of could-have and should-have and injuries, white lies, and bald-face lies necessary for their staying in business. Poverty makes fighters; illusion keeps them going.

Berbick claimed he had had a breathing problem aggravated by drugs ordinarily forbidden by the Nevada Athletic Commission. He charged that Tyson’s managers, Jim Jacobs and Bill Cayton, had signed a document that permitted him to take the verboten drugs. But Chuck Minker, the executive director of the commission, said there were no agreements recorded with the commission regarding medicines Berbick was allowed to take, and there were no questionable drugs in his postfight urine sample.

Tucker claimed to have gone into his fight against Tyson with a fractured right hand. But Dr. Flip Homansky, chairman of the commission’s medical advisory board, disputed that. He said that Tucker had injured his hand approximately two weeks before the August ’87 bout, but it was not fractured. And Dr. Anthony Daly of Los Angeles, who days after the fight diagnosed “a fresh fracture” to the third metacarpal bone of Tucker’s right hand, said, “I think he told me that it happened in the second round against Tyson.”

Curiously enough, when Tyson finally suffered defeat, he himself was susceptible to the same impulse for self-protective excuses. After he lost the title to Buster Douglas in February, he told newsmen that he felt he was still champion, and that he had been the victim of a long count. That conveniently ignored the fact that Douglas had beaten and battered him handily.

“I can handle losing if I lose fairly,” Tyson said.

But in the days after the fight, the champion who had declared himself invincible appeared to be having a hard time coping with that long night in Tokyo.

From the article written by Phil Berger called “Boxing’s Big Lie” published in June 1990 issue of The Ring Magazine.

 

Also, who said Mike was ideally prepared for every one of his wins prior to Douglas? We don't know if he was. Because winners don't need excuses. Only losers do. And Tyson needed excuses to explain why Buster whooped his ass.

 

Same old Tyson we saw against Tucker and Bonecrusher.

 

Very nice! Thank for sharing that.

Hypothetically, the treatment, whatever it be, should be uniformly applied both ways.

It would never happen but one possible treatment applied both ways (sans, say, factors like obvious aging, protracted inactivity etc.) could/would be NOT to entertain any excuses from either side.

That would simply leave the material complexions and outcomes on both sides of the fence to be getting on with.

Now, where would that treatment leave Mike? Would he lose out on such excuses being completely forbidden?

I would say Mike would still have a great career to uphold and still be considered a great fighter in and of himself but viewed as such in a more realistic frame.

However, it seems to be more a case of some of his fans wanting or perhaps needing to “putty up” his less than great outcomes with numerous excuses and excessive qualifications.

I don’t think Mike himself needs that, at least not in many recent years.

 

Well, that’s right and the point. Less than ideal prep. wasn’t a factor either way for Tyson until Mike himself lost.

Putting aside contentions re Mike’s prep or lack thereof, when was Mike ever reasonably interpreted not to be in top shape and conditioning?

His ideal conditioning actually compromised a good measure of the superiority he held over his vanquished opposition.

Per the eye test, which opponent presented at least as well conditioned or even better conditioned than Mike? Imo, no one approached Mike in that regard.

Actually, I do recall one fight for which some excuse (the flu or something) was plied for Mike - and that was after the fact of his fight vs Tillis.

Now Tyson still won that fight but not anywhere near the emphatic fashion that was heavily forecast.

He didn’t look different to previous fights but Tillis’ style clearly gave him trouble.

Couple that with claims that Tillis, in the midst of an Irrefutable career trough, somehow fought the fight of his life (does that qualification sound familiar?) and it’s obvious that Mike was already been covered earlier in his career.

 

Lennox, on his day, fully focused and pissed off, I think gets the better of any heavyweight in history. When he was cheeky and dropped his guard, he got dropped—but when he was laser-focused, his size, jab, and power were enough to get him past anyone.
If Lennox went into a fight egotistical, then you could get a second Rumble in the Jungle outcome where Lewis loses. A calculated Lewis working with Emanuel would fight their own game and not Ali's. Remember Lewis turned up to the Tyson fight mentally controlled and that was after Tyson said he'd eat Lewis's children. Ali would never say something like that,so Lewis wouldnt be affected by the mindgames. Lewis wins a close decision.

 

Two of my top 5 alltime. Both unique talents. Neither fought anyonen like the other.
The biggest advantage between them would be Ali quickness. Both his quick footwork and his handspeed. Lewis had good speed for his size but not like Ali.
At his best form Ali could ðart in and out, getting off first. Lewis isn't the type to take one to give one. He going to stalk looking to time Ali. Very difficult to do.
I suspect Ali would be economical, keeping Lennox a step behind. Ali also had that chin but he would need all of it if Lennox connected with a clean right.
Ali walks a tightrope against a frustrated Lewis. Perhaps a boring fight.
Ali 10-5.

 

Douglas was going through much worse personal problems than Tyson heading into the fight. Douglas' mother passed away and he had to essentially suck it up and rise to the occasion. Somehow, Tyson choosing to fire Rooney and plowing Japanese hotel maids is worse than dealing with a deceased parent. I'll never figure that one out.

On a related note, several of Tyson's opponents were unprepared and not in an ideal condition prior to facing him. Do you allow excuses for the guys Tyson beat, yes or no?

 

On top of that his baby mama was in the hospital with a serious kidney issue and he was fighting sick on antibiotics. But like I said, winners don't need excuses. Only losers do.

 

Ali's speed, not only of hand & foot but just as importantly PACE would be Lewis' undoing. LL would be exhausted and beat up by round 10-11. Ali TKO.

 

Ironically Douglas's mother passing might have been the reason he was so determined. The reason he got up.
His mom was scared when she found out he was fighing Tyson. Buster told her he would win and she believed him. She told everyone her son was going to beat Mike Tyson.
Buster had to get up.

 

Douglas literally got off the canvas to rise to the occasion.

Tyson got knocked down and lost like he did in every fight where he got knocked down, unlike virtually every other All Time Great.

That sounds harsh, and to Tyson's credit he took his beating like a man and didn't quit despite being a young millionaire, he went out on his shield. But I'm tired of people always flipping the script when it comes to this fight acting as if Douglas just tripped and stumbled into the championship while failing to give him credit for getting things done in spite of terrible bad luck leading up to the fight.