The clip was posted as an exhibit of the punch Rahman landed on Lewis. We can make a face-value judgement of the power and quality of the punch in question, because Rahman is the source of it and we see the punch from beginning to end. You give no attention to the point of the clip and, instead, take the same face-value approach to critiquing Lewis, without providing any any context. But, you're not interested in any context surrounding what we see in the clip because that would, at the very least, dampen your suggestion that Lewis' lack of skill was the primary cause of the KO. So - you are - without doubt - framing the symptoms as the causes for Lewis' loss, here. I don’t so much take issue with it, as I find your determination to scoff at Lewis, at any given opportunity, quite amusing. Your sorry explanations for why you are doing so here, are even funnier. So what if my observations were not on what occurs in the clip itself? As I stated, early on, I've provided some context (in response to your total lack of context). Do you or do you not acknowledge that Lewis had taken Rahman too lightly and was physically unprepared to fight at high altitude? If not, why not? If so, do you then accept that Lewis suffered the consequences of his poor preparation, for a fight at altitude, against a prepared Rahman, whom Lewis had underestimated and had convinced himself Rahman would be a walkover? Palatability is not at issue, here. I've already made these criticisms of Lewis myself so, your excuse for why you don't want to make reasonable comment on them doesn't even make sense. That you continually disassociate the clip from what is known about Lewis' approach to Rahman and the fight, makes you look willfully ignorant. You clearly value your own desire to use terms like "amateurish clown" and "fool" to describe Lewis, very highly. To the last, you purposely fail to connect Lewis' poor attitude; poor physical conditioning, coming into a contest at high altitude, with his poor performance. But, when it comes to you commenting on anything relating to Lennox Lewis, that shouldn't come as a surprise.
Why not, instead of repeating text I have already read, don't you answer the fairly straightforward questions I asked you, in my previous post, which address the context I provided in my initial response to your critique (and which you initially misinterpreted - sarcastically or otherwise - as me agreeing with your comments)? How many boxers could have been charged with having a lack of skills, after being knocked out? How many times, I wonder, have boxers appeared to be seen as abandoning their skills, during a contest, whether or not this results in a knockout defeat? And, how many reasons might there have been for such appearances? Yours was a poor critique because it favored needless put downs of Lewis, based on a whole 8 seconds of the fight, over offering a worthwhile view of Lewis' failure. I mean, in boxing terms, what exactly is the technical equivalent of " This content is protected ", anyway? In what way did Lewis " This content is protected " adversely impact his boxing skills? When it comes to boxing skills, how much worse is " This content is protected " than just plain old 'bad'? You're hilarious. And... ...You don't know what a primary cause is.
Always mention? This, your latest post, is the first one to contain an actual acknowledgement that Lewis' poor attitude and physical conditioning even played a part in his failure against Rahman (I). I'm hardly at fault for pointing out that, in your last four or five posts, one after the other, you didn't make that connection - LOL. It was a bad loss. No one is denying it and I have never, in thread or any other (that I can recall) said otherwise. But, as for the result's impact on Lewis' All-Time standing, I think the rematch, 7 months later, more than adequately deals with it. You, on the other hand, think it indicative of a more persistent failing in Lewis - at least, that is the distinct impression you give. Hence your focus on his 'lack of skills' being the cause, rather than what failed him, as a result of the actual cause (his attitude and ill-preparedness).
Joe Louis, and not by a little either. You never saw him getting starched early in his prime by fighters on the level of McCall and Rahman.
When Lewis goes down , he stays down, fact. When Louis went down he usually got up and won besides his two KO losses, once prime, once shot and washed up.
I wonder if the people saying that Lewis had a better chin, really think that Louis would have done better if he had Lewis's chin? I rather suspect not!
Most, if not all, of my questions were rhetorical. Thanks for the attempt to answer them, at any rate.
Not that I can recall and not in this discussion. Not until I asked your thoughts on these factors, specifically. Are you OK? Because, this really hasn’t been that difficult a discussion to follow. Of course, it doesn’t help that you chose to ignore key points made, along the way. No. My processing is fine. Thank you. However, I should point out that the very point you’ve just made, in your last sentence above, is more or less the one I made and you omitted (appeared to ignore) in a response to me, several posts ago. I guess I’d just be interested to know to what extent and in what way this one moment (and perhaps 8 seconds worth of moment) really impacts your view of Lewis’ All-Time Standing. Because, it seems to me that, whenever Lewis comes up in a discussion, you judge him very harshly and dislike him somewhat. Goes without saying…
Its interesting because you have two types of "chins" here. I agree with those who have said Lewis was harder to knock down, so better whiskers in that respect, and Louis was put down much much more, although in most cases getting up to win, so which is better? Obviously the guy who gets up to win should be considered to have better recouperative powers, but that doesnt equal better chin. There are also a number of factors that allowed Louis to get up from those knockdowns besides just better recovery powers. Put Louis in with Lewis' opponents and he goes down more than he did in this reality. Most likely he stays down more than once against the bigger, better guys. The guys who knocked Louis down obviously didnt hit hard enough to starch Louis completely and didn't have what it took to put him down again and keep him there (with two exceptions). Put Lewis in against Louis' opponents and those flatline KO's never happen and Lewis will be regarded as having an ATG chin.
Here is the problem with what you are saying. If you put a fighter down, but he gets up, then he is still in the fight. If you stop a fighter, then the fight is over! If you place a higher weighting upon knockdowns, than you do upon knockouts, then you have a definition of chin that inversely correlates to how hard a fighter is to beat. If you then accepted that definition, it would follow that chin was a low value commodity, compared to recuperative powers!
Well thats the point of this thread, isn't it? "If you put a fighter down, but he gets up, then he is still in the fight. If you stop a fighter, then the fight is over!" -You are stating the obvious. We are talking about chin right? Or are we talking about durability? What's the quality that differentiates fighters that get up from knockdowns from the ones who don't? Both were down. One gets up. So it isn't chin alone is it? I'm putting weight on chin (likelihood of being knocked down) because that's the subject. You are assuming thats everything to me. If I understand you correctly, you're saying being knocked down doesn't have to do with chin, which is absurd. Yes, it counts when a guy typically gets up from knockdowns to win. Again, that should be obvious. By your logic, you're still wrong. Both guys in this thread were stopped twice. One of those guys was knocked down at least 12 times over the course of his career. Which guy has the better chin again?
I'll add that I'm not sure I really have a solid opinion on the subject. It seems like two different measures. You can throw Roy Jones in there as an example similar to Lewis... He wasn't knocked down ever, until he was knocked dead. Roy seemed to have a solid chin, no problems until he got flatlined twice in a row and then a couple more times after that. Consider also that his questionable chin held up against a legit HW in Ruiz who not insignificantly to the discussion knocked down Holyfield. He's a hard guy to knock down, but if he does go down, he's staying down most likely. Patterson was like Louis in the way that he was knocked down on a semi-regular basis, but most of the time got up to win or at least finish the fight. Both Louis and Patterson had the resolve, recovery, mindset, conditioning, balls, right opponent, etc to get up after suffering knockdowns. It does count against them for going down in the first place though. Other qualities and variables were at work for them to get up and continue fighting.
I don’t dislike Wlad, as a person. Why would I? He's been a good ambassador to the sport (although I am sure he has a mean streak in him, like most leading figures in boxing have had to carry and use, on occasion). But, I do feel he is grossly overrated, as a boxer, by his fans, in the main - and I can support my opinions against his rating with probably a great deal more evidence than you can in support of yours on Lewis. Wlad's most ardent fans do give me a constant source of amusement, in their hyper-overrating of him, which often meets with caustic responses from me. But, I can also find some middle ground with a few of the more reasonable posters on the topic of Wlad and I am not entirely scathing of him in those kinds of debate. You, however, would be hard-pushed to provide a weight of supporting evidence for your opinion on Wlad being on an equivalent level to Lewis. Each to their own, though.
I am not sure I would consider this discussion particularly hostile. However, there is a very obvious point in our exchange, at which you decided to make it about something other than the first few posts. I did not dispute your general sentiment. I found your use of the negative and derisory language, in describing Lewis, to be in keeping with you; with our previous discussions involving Lewis and quite amusing; not upsetting - and I haven’t given you any indications to the contrary. Bar one brief courtesy response to you, all the posts I have written in this discussion - including this one - provides or refers to ‘context’ of the video clip in question and, when I told you that you had purposely failed to connect the context that I was providing for Lewis’ poor performance, I was absolutely correct to do so. It's funny how, you were happy to accept this context, when you felt it supported your perspective but then rejected (in more ways than one), once I suggested you and I were not entirely aligned on the matter. The constant reference you make to your comments being precisely in relation to the video clip does not preclude the submission of additional context from other posters. And, I’ll admit that I did find your attempt at hardening the boundaries, of what was effectively a citation (the clip), somewhat bemusing - particularly, since you seemed to have been ok with the additional context, initially. I’m sure I have seen you add context to the video snippets posted in threads, before now. Why suddenly discount mine, just to uphold your opinion on the Rahman knockout? At most, I’d say that your missing the difference in our perspectives (which seemed to me to be purposely obtuse and I have good reason to believe so) and then trying to defend your position based on literalism was a source of potential frustration. But, in the main, I found it a tad strange and funny. Clearly, you have been more concerned about my mentioning of your "pot-shotting" and "smug sneering", which were incidentals compared to the following: See: https://www.boxingforum24.com/threads/better-chin-louis-or-lewis.622514/page-5#post-19628445 And, you couldn’t see where we disagreed, from that? It was hardly nuanced!! This was only my third post to you in our discussion, which directly related to my initial response to you: See: https://www.boxingforum24.com/threads/better-chin-louis-or-lewis.622514/page-2#post-19626360 Your response to my third post didn't even include the quotation above. In other words, you manually removed that particular text from the reply you made to me and instead defended your "smug sneering"; the least important facet of my post. https://www.boxingforum24.com/threads/better-chin-louis-or-lewis.622514/page-5#post-19628463 And, this is where I was beginning to wonder what’s wrong with you - again, for good reason. In summary, I provided a context for your initial post in my initial reply. We actually were in “loose agreement” but “not exactly”. Pretty much how I described in post two. By post three, I’ve laid out the difference in perspective for you. However, as I have outlined and demonstrated above, you omitted to address this point and were more concerned with defending my criticizing your anti-Lewis sentiment than addressing the slight difference in perspective on Rahman’s knockout of Lewis. Thus, you missed the point, early on, and then went off on all sorts of tangents, declaring my comments were not about the clip and accusing me of vagueness and then it’s all about me not liking more general aspects of your take on Lewis... yadda yadda yadda… And, for all the [not particularly necessary] defense of your negative comments, you continued in failing to to see where you had missed that difference in our perspectives, until the near-end of the discussion; only to then, quite ironically, reproduce in your post before last, the very same points you had ignored and had purposely removed from a previous reply (as demonstrated). Priceless. PS - I’ve had a great day. Thanks.
