Anyone here rank Lennox Lewis top 3 all time at HWT ?

TOP 3 at least for me, you have to look at the context of Lewis's career to appreciate it:

1991 - steps up to fight Mason a 35-0 top 6 contender in only his second year as a pro, ends Masons career. Also beats up on old ex titlist Weaver (amazing physique but past it), ex cruser titlist McCrory, ex contender Biggs

1992 - destroys top4 rated Rudduck in 2 rounds, Rudduck was favourate to beat Lennox and given decent odds to topple the Bowe/Holyfield winner. This win is on par or better than Dempsey-Willard, Tyson-Spinks/Berbick, Liston-Patterson. Bowe then won't fight Lennox
1993 - takes out top5 rated Bruno, an underrated win. Then dominates ex-titlist Tucker
1994 - Just 2 stay busy fights AND DISASTER for Lennox and the division, McCall tags him with the perfect right hand, the rest is history
1995 - Dominates and KOs Top 6 rated Morrison
1996 - only 1 fight against Mercer a solid top10 guy, a tough close bruising war, Lewis fairly took this 1

Tyson ducks Lennox and drops his WBC Belt in order not to face him

1997 - McCall - Lewis cautiously dominated until McCall started to cry, not the grandstand climax of redemption but Lewis made him quit
Akiwande - underrated win, semi-unification as Akiwande was the WBO titlist, Henry was 32-1-0. Another that Lennox couldn't get the grandstand finnish in as Akiwande didnt want to get hit and hugged worse than Ruiz, DQ win
Golota - Many had Golota as number 1 in the world after coming out on top and retiring Riddick Bowe. KO'd in 1, HUGE Win, vastly underrated win
1998 - Briggs - Lennox becomes the Linear HW Champ, exciting KO win against a young powerful 30-1-0
Mavrovic - Keep busy fight against a 27-0 Euro Champ
1999 - Holyfield 1 - the unification fight Lennox wanted for years but was avoided. Holyfield is ofcourse top2 HW, P4P and an ATG. He wins 9-3 for most but is robbed with a draw in 1 of the worst big fight robberies
Holyfield 2 - wins 8-4 against Holyfield

Allot is made of Holyfield been old at 37, but Lennox was 34 himself in the second fight and past his physical prime, thats only 3years between them, Lennox wanted it years before (Bowe/Holyfield/Tyson) but wasnt granted the opportunity

2000 - Lennox already starts talking about retirement
Grant 31-0 Grant is seen as the heir apparent, Lenny ko's him in 2 possibly ruining him?
Botha - KO2 against an ex-titlist
Tua - shutout against 1 of the most exciting KO artists since Tyson, Tua ko'd future titlist Ruiz in 1, Maskeev in 11, Rahman in 10, arguably beat Ibeaubuchi in a war and would destroy former champ Moorer in 1. Another huge win
2002
Rahman 1 - underprepared and fighting at HIGH ALTITUDE (it should be noted how much harder competiting at Altidude is for an athlete), Lennox is looking exhausted and is KO'd, nearly 36yo it looks like it maybe over
Rahman 2 - sensational KO to regain the title at 36yo
2002
Tyson - Huge money against an ATG. Tyson is lated called washed up BUT he is younger than Lennox. He also was on a winning run that had scalps like Golota, Botha, Norris, Savarese (deserved a win over Foreman, beat Douglas, Lance Whitaker and was 39-3). A much better fight than powder puff Byrd could offer
Vitali Klitchko - future WBC and Ring Champion stopped at the age of 37 (nearly 3. Unnessarily controversal, the cut stoppage was fair, Lennox was landing the bigger more damaging shots and coming on strong in the final 2 rounds of the fight where Vitali was hanging on for dear life.

Retirement - Lenny did look old and way past prime and calls it a day. In truth the only reason he didnt hang em up in 2002 was because he wanted another mega payday against Tyson

In Summary, Lennox fought everyone he could fight from 1992-2003, cleaned out the division, fought 2 ATGs, destroyed and shutout contenders ranked in the top3, fought and beat unbeaten challengers and avenged all his defeats. He also fought for a Vacant Title, WBC Champ, WBO Champ, Linear Champ before unifying with the WBA/IBF Champ and is 1 of the few to regain his title TWICE. 1 of only 3 men to retire as champion

What more could Lennox have done other than being complacent against 2 HUGE Punchers

 

Bonivania and Buster Mathus are not mentioned when Frazier is talked about.
I had Bonivania up vs Ali to that beautiful short left, and have been told I was a fool...but that was live TV and one sees what one wants to see.
Mathus perhaps the best fat sack to ever box. And he was good. With out Frazier he could have been a Champ.

 

Well thank christ i'm not alone in my thinking. I was starting to doubt myself, just for a second there

 

Really?
Addendum: Lewis is great though...around 4-6 for me. Size and athletic ability, hard to beat.

 

Can't see why you persist in misunderstanding me. I'll try this once more, then I'll give it a rest:

When I rank Lewis (somewhere 3-6) I don't have steroids as a factor. This is because I don't see a reason why he should be viewed as any more or likely to have been using steroids than any of his competitors in general.

But overall I feel pretty sure that the 90's were an era where steroids were used more than in most earlier eras. And for this reason Lewis would probably be a cinch for nr. 3, if I somehow felt completely satisfied that he never used them while many of his competitors were. This is of course purely hypothetical, since such a thing is just about impossible to prove. It was just a thought.

So to summarise the important points:
1. I don't think Lewis should be suspected of using steroids to a higher degree than his contemprories. On the contrary, there are a couple I would suspect more of being guilty of this than Lewis.

2. I do believe that steroids were used more in the 90's than in most other eras, but I don't use them as a factor when ranking Lewis since there are no reason to believe he was more guilty of using them than his competitors were. There are some reasons to believe that a couple of his opponents were more likely to have used steroids than Lewis was, though. This could possibly elevate his standing, but since it's so hard to prove I just cut steroids out of the equation all together (see above).

In other words I don't accuse Lewis. But I think its' more likely that he used them than that for example Dempsey did, since Lewis was active in an era were steroids were used, which they weren't during Dempsey's day.

So, if anything, the suspicion is levelled at Lewis's era, not at him, and therfore doesn't affect his standing in my eyes.

 

How come you have totally avoided (time and time again) the possibility Ali used steroids?

Perhaps i should drop him from 1 to about 5 in my rankings?

 

I just didn't want to involve him in a discussion that was muddled enough. But as a separate discussion I'm happy to answer the question.

First of all I don't have the use of steroids as a factor when ranking any ATG HW, since none have been caught using them as a pro. For it to affect my ranking of Ali I'd have to feel pretty sure that he not only used steroids, but did so more than his competitors. And I have no information that would make feel this way.

I know Alu used benzendrine before meeting Holmes. If that was illegal, it would theoretically constitute as doping, but since it only messed him up it wouldn't really affect my ranking of him in any case.

 

That's a very different scenario to the one you painted for Lewis, no???

Of course it is :good

The Lewis scenario involved being sure he didn't use them full stop!

 

Don't know how this became so tangled...

Steroids doesn't factor in my ranking of either Ali or Lewis. But since Lewis was active in an era when steroids were used, definite proof (which of course can't obtained in reality) of him not using would probably elevate his standing in my eyes. Definite proof of Ali not using wouldn't make as much difference to his standing, though, since steroids seem to have been less common in his day.

Conversely, proof of Lewis using would harm his standing less in my eyes than proof of Ali using would harm his standing.

It wasn't ever meant as criticism of Lewis.

 

I think it can be argued that he does. Why not?