A CBZ Writers Thoughts On The Greatest Heavies

Unless you whole heartedly agree with his opinions. In that case, it more or less feels like he's bringing the truth to light. :verysad

 

The Lewis omission was eyebrow raising, even taking into account when he wrote the column. Plus Bowe over both Holyfield and Tyson? :think

 

the Lewis omission is not that surprising, a lot of people don't rate him as high as he sometimes gets... Bowe, as the man stipulates "on their best night" could've/should.ve been perhaps the Best of his time.

it's subjective but equally all things considered he might have been, so achievements aside "on their best night" Bowe could beat these boys!

I agree too that they too could've just as well.

 

Even if I agree wholeheartedly with someone's point of view, I can still recognize my own bias. These are separate issues.

 

What Bowe's best night? Beating a hot and cold undersized heavy who is noted for grit and longevity but lost handily to likes of Moorer. Bowe lacks any depth to his resume whatsoever. And it has always made me suspicious the number of pushovers he was fed as champ and his firm reluctance to meet Lewis. No way is on par with Lewis.

 

Right. Many can't separate them. :good

Taking '93 Dokes as his first defense was a catastrophe. Jesse Ferguson followed, before Holyfield won it back. He fought more game opposition for Continental Americas and WBO titles. Herbie Hide had him out on his feet.

 

I agree; his dismissal (inexcusable ignoring is more accurate) of Lewis and instead going into a Bowe debate at all is alarming. There really is no comparison in resumes and fulfilled potential.

Even if his argument was on potential alone, Lewis should be in the discussion.

 

Even if it was potential, remember that Lewis stopped him in the amateurs.

So much is made of Bowe's "inside game". More should be made of the fact that he should have fought from the outside and used his length and height to his advantage... and that he should have worked harder on his defense, which for a big guy, is better on the outside.

 

Lewis has definitely become more appreciated in the time since his retirement, but so much so that 12 years ago he wouldnt garner consideration for the Top 15?! He had almost put in all his work by that point, wiped out multiple up and coming, highly rated opposition and beat #1 Holyfield basically twice through 1999.

I tend to place as much if not more blame on Rock Newman for what Bowe didnt do and who he didnt fight, but I'm not going to base a rating off pure speculation. And if we are, I think he's far too easy to hit and would find Tyson quite different from Holyfield if he tried to slug it out with him at ring center. He shouldnt rate above any of three, even having beat Holyfield 2 of 3. He did virtually nada outside of the series. And I actually like Bowe quite a bit.

 

Tyson's rumored statement to Don King regarding a Foreman fight:
"You get in the ring with that animal".

 

I posted that full column. Lotierzo has been close enough to people inside the sport to be telling the truth. It lost credibility when every other paragraph he's basically saying: "And I think Foreman wouldve knocked Tyson out!" or "Tyson's speed would be a non-factor here".

 

Looks as though ironchamp already covered it:

http://www.eastsideboxing.com/forum/showthread.php?t=264360

 

Alas, film PRESERVATION was **** -- NOT the films.

 

the mans desciption of old film footage sums it up... because we see them walking and running proper in later film footage 40s onward, doesn't mean they didn't walk or run proper before and indeed to the beginning of time.

True lots of film was lost or damaged due to poor preservation, but for the longest time MOST film footage was ****!

 

thistle1, I really have to 180-degrees disagree with you. From near the begining of film,good quality images could be produced.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nj0vEO4Q6s[/ame]

Wouldn't you love to see Corbett-Fitzsimmons or Jeffries-Sharkey II with this sort of clarity? People who saw screening of Jeffries-Sharkey II said the images were among the clearest they'd seen, so they were probably atleast as goodas the images in this youtube. The fight looks awful nowbecause you had to copy film onto paper to get it copyrighted, and those paper copies are all we have left of Jeffries Sharkey.

As for actual films of the time, often they've deteriorated, or copies of copies of copies of ect., or copied down to a smaller film (8mm); and often they're jerky because they're not shown at proper speeds. Idealy they would be shown on variable speed projectors; but often films meant to be shown at 16-to-20 frames per minute are shown on sound film projectors at 24 frames per minute.

Also,these old films should be shown on projectors with silent film aperatures; if sound film aperatures are used, the left side of the image is cut of, which may cause the viewer to loose sight of the fighters.

In general, the old fight films are often presented from low quality copies,and in a substandard manner, so that the original image quality of the film is no longer apparent.