Barry McGuigan - Lennox Lewis Would Have Destroyed Fury.!

I think the division lacks a lot of the talent it had in Lennox Lewis’ time…but that’s not to say Fury wouldn’t or couldn’t present a serious struggle for Lennox.

A dominant champion, one the size of Fury, who is a good 12 round fighter, that believes in himself would be a nightmare proposition for any version of Lennox.

Lennox is the better fighter. Hands down. He does everything that bit better. However, Lennox was a thinker and it took him several carnations to settle into the well rounded linear champion he finally came in the latter part of his career.

However, for Lennox to win and he can, He needs to dictate pace and pick Fury off. The worry is without forcing one of those annihilation jobs onto Fury Lewis risks one of those befuddling epoisodes like he had against Mavrovic. One that will even things up immensely.

 

Do you mean that bout in which Lewis 'befuddled' his way to a wide UD victory?

 

Yeah. Wide decision but very sloppy performance that Fury can exploit to greater effect.

 

Fury has been down 4 times in 2 fights vs a very limited fighter in Wilder, and was also very sloppy himself vs at that time an unknown Wallin. Where Fury came very close to losing and was in much more danger than Lewis was vs Mavrovic.

 

The issue with Lewis was pace. Take him out of his pace and he’s half the fighter or even less than half. He would beat anyone at a walk. But faster than walking pace was another kettle of fish.

It’s not like you need to be as good as Lewis to beat Lewis. you need to be good enough to set that pace to present a real threat. I think Fury can be good enough to set that pace. He’s experienced enough now. He has that engine. Inch for inch he has that advantage too. Even if his resume sucks compared to Lewis fury represents the threat that Steward knew he would be.

If Vitali hadn’t have cut up so bad he might have got there because he was setting that pace. Kudos to Lewis for salvaging that fight because he was the one landing all the best shots and he ultimately got the job done even though he was forced to fight at that harder pace. But largely it was because of those cuts he inflicted on Vitali.

Not that it says very much but I think Fury is better than Vitali.

 

But Fury likes to fight at his own pace aswell ? When has Fury ever been pushed out of his comfort zone ? The only one I remember doing that is McDermott early in his career which Fury should've lost.

But apart from Fury being decked suddenly out of nowhere, in pretty much all his fights he fights at his own deliberate pace.

It's not like Fury has anymore stamina or workrate than Lewis, and out of the two fighters the only one who has won a grueling back and forth war where he was pushed out of his comfort zone regarding pace of a fight is Lewis.

 

Fury does, in my view have the better tempo. And stamina. Even when he’s not doing anything he’s jittering and feinting the other man into resetting. He’s not nice to fight. He can out-Lewis Lewis in that respect. All the pace setting control Lewis had, because of his size, Fury can do to Lewis. Lennox has to force it. And it won’t be at a tempo that is comfortable for him. The smaller guy has to work that bit harder. He has to lead. Whereas Lewis only lead when he took the early initiative.

I think that Lewis, to fight at his strength, has to get Fury out of there early. I think that’s what Steward would have him do. Because he cannot afford to be taken later into a frustrating chess match/ mauling affair with a slippery soul like Fury.

But I see that as too much of a gamble. If he can’t get Fury out of there, he’s going to be too tired to finish the fight. As he almost was against Vitali.

Fury represents what Steward saw as a potential threat to Lewis. I think he was relieved Fury was a few years away at the time Lewis checked out.

The pity was with Lewis that it was the older version that was the finished article. it was then he Knew what he had to be for each assignment.

The younger version had not quite settled into a prime even though potentially he was greater earlier.

 

All your points are speculation though really, until we see Fury in a hard grueling fight where hes having to fight round after round then we have no evidence to support your theory.

Let's hope we can see Fury in with the likes of Usyk, Joshua, etc. Then we have better evidence to work on in this debate.

 

Its not speculation though. Lewis banked on winning fights by working just one minute of a round. By the time he was the best he could be that’s what Lewis was doing. And he was big enough and good enough to do this.

It was also what Steward had Wlad do. Wlad was his Lewis mark II.

A fighter who makes Lewis work more than this will ruin his chances of being the best fighter he can be. If he’s made to work 2 minutes a round it shortens the fight by half. He’s forced to fight more than he wants to and it’s a gamble. A race against time.

when you get big guys like this, Tempo advantage is as much a factor as size advantage. It’s the longer guy who can dictate tempo here.

Lewis is no longer big enough to control tempo. And if he’s made to work that bit harder he no longer has the advantage. We saw this via Fury against Wlad.

steward feared Akinwande for this reason, but Lewis was able to bully Henry out of that fight. I don’t think Fury can be intimidated though. I think it’s a big problem for Lewis.

He can do it but the window is small.

 

"Very sloppy" by what standard?

From what specific aspects of the Lewis/Mavrovic bout are you drawing this conclusion?

You are using quite probably the worst version of Lewis to ever enter a professional boxing ring as a barometer for his likely fatigue in a distance fight with Fury. This is a somewhat questionable approach to forming a useful speculation.

 

By the standard of a fight set at walking pace. Specifically the Tua fight. Whereby Lewis was able to do what he liked.

Had Lewis been allowed to fight at a walking pace against Vitali, as he had with Tua, Lewis would have looked just as dominant. It was only at the tip end of his career where Lewis tied up the loose ends of the era. You cannot have it both ways. Everything happened for him at the end. It was where he redeemed himself as the significant fighter of that era. Where he realised this status. At the end. Without those wins there is no dominant heavyweight of that era.

He did this Beating Rahman, Tyson and Vitali.

On paper these were career defining. All stoppages. Lewis career is littered with every big name of the era, but so far as “career defining” goes, before revenge over Rahman there is only really the Holyfield series…full distance points affairs, which wasn’t exactly anymore focal in providing dominance on the era than the stoppages over Rahman, Tyson and Vitali were.

If Vitali is his “worst fight” then it is also the only fight where Lewis really showed he actually could dig deep. It took till his last fight to show it. And therefore not necessarily his worst fight.

 

They were each a different type of fight but I really don't see how you can call one a 'very sloppy performance' on the basis of the other.

Mavrovic did about as well as Tua. The main difference was that Lewis settled in to win behind the jab against Tua, whereas he got into a fight with Mavrovic and threw a good deal more big punches against the Croatian (who also just happened to be as hard as a coffin nail).

I'm still not seeing this "very sloppy performance" against Mavrovic that you seem to be.

Even if this were the case, I am not sure it has a bearing on anything. Vitali wasn't facing a prime and in shape Lewis but Lewis still won anyway.

I'm fairly certain not one bit of this has anything to do with the points made about Lewis being sloppy to the extent that Fury could take a significant advantage.

I didn't say Vitali was Lewis' "worst fight". I made clear that by you referencing the Lewis/Vitali bout, you were using "the worst version of Lewis to ever enter a professional boxing ring" as a measuring stick for a Lewis/Fury scenario. This is misguided, at best.

 

which can only mean that you cannot dispute one bit of those points either.

Vitali was facing the exact same guy who just beat Mike Tyson and Rahman. Same shape.

as a direct result of the pace the Croatian set, you don’t think Lewis looked more ragged and more vulnerable winning that Mavrovic fight than he did controlling and dictating things against Tua?

I’m using what was still a historically significant winning performance in relation to his overall career. It wound up being Lewis last fight. He won. He did not lose like he did against Rahman or McCall. Did he decline after these losses? As I remember he went on to be celebrated for coming back.

Having knocked out Rahman, Tyson and stopped Vitali Some might say Lewis retired before he could decline. He had righted wrongs and rode far off into the sunset.. People were certainly still raving about his standing as the best heavyweight of the era.

 

Good grief.

Or it could mean I simply have no interest in going over old ground with you in relation to where Lewis was in his career, by the time he fought Vitali.

Sure - It was very thoughtful of Lewis to go into cryogenic suspension for a year, just for Vitali.

No one who knows the history, who knows what they're looking at or who knows what they're talking about thinks Lewis was the "exact same guy" who had beaten Mike Tyson a year prior.

Do you not find it strange that the guy you are claiming to be the pacesetter was also being out-thrown and out-landed by a ratio of roughly 7-4?

I've already stated that I think they were each a different type of fight.

You are comparing apples to oranges and expecting the difference between them to amount to something meaningful.

We've been through this before - a few years ago. It's why I have no interest in your take on the matter now.

Lewis was talking retirement in 2002. The only thing giving him pause was the potential of a Tyson rematch and another mega-payday.

A year passed, no rematch was in the offing, but the course of events in having attempted to make that match left Lewis being contractually obliged to fight Vitali. By this time, Lewis was disinterested, hadn't trained properly, was in poor condition and had drifted some way from his best going into that fight.

The contest serves as no realistic benchmark for a fantasy head-to-head matchup involving Lewis, given that head-to-head speculations tend to take the best/prime versions of each fighter.

I have absolutely no desire to go over this topic of Lewis/Vitali with you again. As far as I am concerned, it has already been settled.

 

you predictably did not answer the question. Anyone but you can see The tempo was less comfortable for Lennox in the Mavrovic fight than in the Tua fight.
But that’s okay, Perhaps you only feel qualified enough to concentrate upon the theory & statistics of printed results rather than practical technical details of ring performance itself?

no I’m talking about the effect of tempo and pace in relation to the prowess of a fighter and how key it is when the pace is set higher than is comfortable.

let’s stick to Lewis vs Fury and the pace both fighters operate at then.

A fighter is as good as his last fight. Odds makers base odd on this all the time. Lewis a year older, he has not fought since winning his last fight. He’s favourite to win. He does win.