Another Lennox Lewis point of debate...

I think you could add Tua for certain and in all probability Vitali as well to the list of iron chinned men Lewis faced. So if you call the first Holyfield bout a win instead of that ridiculous draw than Lewis was 5-1 or 6-1 in those fights depending if you put Vitali in. I think he has a track record of doing well against those type of fighters.

I thought Lewis beat both Mercer and Holyfield the second time, close fights yeah, but Lewis edged them. I wouldn't hold those against Lewis much at all.

As for other greats you mentioned I wouldn't put Marciano, Johnson, and maybe Frazier in the same class of durablility as Mercer, Tua, McCall, and probably Holyfield.

Foreman, Ali, Tyson, Liston, and throw in Holmes are all the roughest bouts for Lewis if you go head to head. Their durability helps but you could also find some of their less than stellar moments and find things Lewis does better than their opponents and say if so and so gave a Tyson or a Foreman trouble than how would they fair if it was Lewis in there? I think Lewis beats almost any heavyweight on their best nights including the durable ones.

 

Lewis was KO'd twice by decent fighters. I think he would be KO'd by at least by one of: Ali, Liston, Marciano, Holmes, Shavers, prime Tyson, Louis, Foreman, Frazier. This may sound crazy, but a guy like Jerry Cooney may have KO'd him with his size and power, if he landed 1st.

 

NickHudson,

I basically agree with what you're saying.
Lewis looks ordinary against Mercer, and even in his second effort against Holyfield. Any sustained pressure from a good boxer who can take his shots could make him look ordinary, IMO. Even Frank Bruno had him under pressure.

As you know, if Mercer had been in any sort of good shape he would have won the fight in everyone's eyes.

Lewis is a relatively slow-paced boxer, he can up the pace for the first few rounds, and when he does most men would fall. Lewis was an incredible powerful man, with a variety of damaging punches, and a cautious and competent ring general. Against the few men who weren't intimidated and cautious of his power he looked somewhat
unsophisticated defensively though, and a little ruffled and confused at times. And he was twice knocked out by right-hand leads/counters against average fighters, for a "great" fighter at his peak this is shocking.

I think he's vastly overrated on this forum.
In my opinion, a prime Ali would have stabbed him in the face all night with the jab, it wouldn't have been particularly competitive. Liston would have done the same with the jab and probably knocked him out - I mean, Liston had head movement, he slipped punches and covered up neatly when under attack. He had strict well-schooled moves.

Lewis wasn't as smart a boxer as people say. He dropped his hands down to his waist, and often attempted to pull his head back - like Ali - but he didn't have the speed to make it effective, he got hit. I rarely see him slip or parry. Against Tucker and Briggs I see him drop his hands in a show of bravado after getting tagged, a habit that cost him dearly against Hasim Rahman. These are dumb moves. Lewis got away with it so much because he was a powerful guy who could instill a cautious timid tendency in an opponent, few were willing to jump on him after tasting his uppercut. And his chin wasn't as bad as some say.

Lewis was so big and powerful, such a natural powerhouse, and had a burning ambition to be recognized as the best, I'm not surprised he became the best in the era that he did. He deserves credit, his record and achievements are remarkable.

However, on examining the way he performed his craft, his strengths and weaknesses, the mistakes he made, and on comparing him in his prime against the all-time greats head-to-head, I'm surprised he gets some of the accolades he gets. He looks very beatable, and proved so against ordinary boxers in two dramatic cases of amateurish defensive errors. Those results could be written off as meaningless abberations only if those errors or tendencies weren't present elsewhere - but they are.

 

Lewis does have flaws in his game. As I stated before, footwork is one of them. It is amazing how someone with his timing can appear so uncoordinated.

I usually am making this case for Foreman, but Lewis is another fighter that is great in spite of his flaws. His positives outweigh his negatives. He still has a victory over everyone he faced. Lewis defeated everyone worth defeating, when he could get them in the ring that is. Bowe is the only fighter he missed, and that was not Lewis' fault.

I thought that Holyfield was a bit past his best, but not much. Holyfield did go on to look better against Rahman than David Tua ever did.

Did someone say Mercer was not in shape when he fought Lewis? I don't think Mercer has ever been in better shape. Mercer only fought that pace one other time in his career, maybe. That was against Bert Cooper. For an out of shape Mercer, look at the fight that cost him his title shot against Jesse Ferguson.

 

I think Lewis could get up on his toes and box and move just as well as Ali when he wanted to, just see at times in this clip,

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=qq9lBt-pKJ8

 

Mercer was 235-240 pounds against Lewis, this was at least 10 pounds more than he had been a year earlier against Holyfield. Maybe it was extra lean muscle built with weights and/or drugs but maybe it was fat. Either way, it slowed him down, and could see him huffing and puffing after a few rounds.

Mercer won the Olympics in the under-201 pound (91kg) class, in 1988 at the mature age of 28. Against Tommy Morrison he weighed about 220 pounds, a good weight for him as a professional.

He was horribly out of shape against Ferguson, but he barely beat Ferguson in the rematch, Jesse was actually a cagey guy and Mercer wasn't that good. Mercer was also horribly out of shape against Marion Wilson.
Maybe he was in better shape for Lewis, but he was way too heavy, IMO. He lacked the stamina and speed he would have had if he'd trimmed down.

 

Mercer came to fight, and was motivated to win vs Lewis. It was a high stakes 10 round match with the winner getting a crack at McCall's WBC title.

Lewis " out gutted " Mercer, and proved his grit in this fight. Mercer landed his share of blows. I scored it 6-4 for Lewis.

On thing the anti Lewis people should think about is he fought a good amount of solid to hard punchers. If Lewis chin was poor, he goes down and and possibely out from the blows, Mercer, Bruno, Briggs, or Tucker landed.

 

When discussing mythical match-ups, looking at history and careers is fine, so long as we realise that in any fights involving the top 10 they are most likely to bring their a-game to the table, at least at the start of the fight. Part of the reason why fighters are dominant is that they are able to routinely impose their a-game (will if you like) on the other fighter.

Consequently, when postulating how Lewis might do against the other greats I feel that the above argument must be taken into consideration. For example, against Frank Bruno, how much of Lewis's initial mediocre performance was down to what Bruno did or what Lewis didn't do? In other words, did Bruno impose his a-game onto Lewis or was it simply a case that Lewis didn't even bring his a-game to the fight because he took Bruno too lightly.

Whatever ever you believe will have a bearing on how you think Lewis would do against the best in history. Likewise, against Rahman in the first fight did Rahman impose his will or did Lewis not bring his game face? In this case, the second fight provides the answers for me. When Lewis turned up fully prepared and focused he destroyed Rahman. Unfortunately, we usually only have a single fight to determine who imposed their will and thus we must make a judgment call. Even so, whether the a-game Lewis turns up or not, he still wins over 93% of his fights (over 95% if the Holyfield draw is rightly turned into a win).

The best fighter that Lewis fought was probably Evander Holyfield, arguably a few years past his best but still formidable. In the first fight I think almost everyone can agree that Lewis won the fight, clearly. In fact, it's fair to say that Lewis imposed his will onto Holyfield and fought the fight that suited his particular talents. In the second fight, undoubtedly because he was robbed by the judges in the first, Lewis elected to fight more in Holyfield's range, thus presenting more opportunities for Holyfield to impose his own game plan on Lewis. Lennox however, still won the fight, albeit on a much closer margin than the first.

There isn't too much hard data on how Lewis would do against the best in history because only a very few of the fighters he faced where even close to that elite category. Thus it's a judgement call. Whatever anyone else says it's a judgement call and therefore no one's opinion is invalid. My judgement is that Lewis would do very well but at the end of the day these fights are never gonna happen, except in our heads.

 

It's funny how people look at the Rahman-Lewis bouts, it's always "Look what Lewis did when he was motivated".

I think it's truer the other way around. Rahman was fat and out of shape in the rematch, moreso than Lewis in the first.

 

Lol well that's a new one, I've never heard that perspective before. If Rahman was so fat and out of shape for the rematch, how is it that he was 2 pounds lighter than he was for the first fight?

 

There is a big difference between
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=qq9lBt-pKJ8 and http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=oD99VbFzqAg&feature=related

 

Lennox Lewis weighed 229 at the age of 28 versus Frank Bruno. Lewis was 249 against Tua, when Lewis was age 35(the age of Mercer when he fought Lewis). Hell, Lewis was 247 when he fought Mercer; and that was less than 3 years after fighting Bruno. Weight changes can happen when you don't have a maximum weight in which to fight. Mercer never would have been able to go at that pace if he were out of shape. If you've ever sparred one round, you'll know that.