Do you consider Lewis-Holyfield to be a fair decision?

Throughout the fight, Holyfield often took away the jab with his own jab and his defensive guard.
Lewis needed very little in the first fight, just pecking away with the jab against a somewhat sluggish, non-elusive, non-jabbing Holyfield was enough. Holyfield sometimes fought a bit stupid and the 1st fight was one of those times, he even seemed to believe his prediction of scoring a 3rd round KO.
In the rematch, Lewis used more combinations and flurries, showed more variety.

As for your last paragraph, the live TV commentators state pretty much the same as my opinion.
OF COURSE Lewis and Steward would be disappointed, pre-fight all the talk from Lennox Lewis was about "not leaving it to the judges" this time, he seemed confident of a KO, and when the fight ended he absolutely needed good judges.
Lewis had just as much to prove and just as much reason to be motivated in the rematch, yet he came up against an old Holyfield who almost managed to turn the clock back.
If Lewis seemed weary mid-way through it's because Holyfield was giving him more to think about.

 

115-113 is fine. 116-112, a bit of a reach, but not a clear case of judging favoritism. 117-111, a bad card.

Lewis won it. 7-5 seems like the best score. Lewis threw more and landed more jabs and power punches.

Holfyeid past his best could still counter and go to the body, which I think is why Lewis played it so safe. And Holyfield did stun him at least twice. Had Holyfield been 3 years younger, he might have taken this one.

 

I think you and I may well have watched different fights, commonly referred to as Lewis/Holyfield I & II.

Based on what I watched, I find the claim that Holyfield took the jab away from Lewis to be implausible. Holyfield's jab didn't improve between Fight I to Fight II. He would have needed to have thrown a good few more of them, for a start and, if Holyfield did actually throw more jabs in the second fight, than he had in the first, then it was a handful. Either way, I don't recall seeing Holyfield beating Lewis to the Jab or using any other distinctly successful techniques to take his opponent's jab away.

I think it's more reasonable to accept that Lewis was erratic with his use of the Jab in the second bout; the weapon, which had been so effective for him in the first fight. That this presented more opportunities for Holyfield, as well as the time to exploit them.

And, this is just one aspect of the Lewis gameplan (whatever that was), which lessened his overall performance. For example, whenever Holyfield elected to stay out of range, Lewis did little to try and re-establish the range; seeming to rather wait until Holyfield launched/lunged into an assault.
Lewis was much sharper and intent on getting to Holyfield in their initial encounter.

Granted, the fight was more varied, due to this approach. Reverting to pure spontaneity and reactive tactics tends to spawn variety. But, in terms of boxing, I do not necessarily equate 'more variety' with 'better performance', even if it was a more competitive-looking bout.

If you're referring to Merchant, Lampley and Foreman, I'm not sure that they did. Foreman at one point alludes to Lennox having turned up in the belief that winning was going to be a breeze (implying he was not properly prepared, perhaps).

While there was consensus that the second time around was a better, more competitive fight and that Holyfield himself did better, I don' t recall anyone saying Lewis had improved on his performance from eight months earlier.

I'm not sure why you're being so emphatic, here. Lot's of fighters make predictions or are the subject of predictions made by their camps, which do not come to fruition.

Perhaps you misunderstood the initial point. Steward admits to being disappointed in the performance of Lewis in that fight; somewhat in contrast to the view of how Lewis performed in March '99. I don't think they really cared about not fulfilling the prediction of a KO (though I'm sure it would have been seen as a bonus).

And, surely, it's not a particularly common facet of victorious Boxers and their respective camps to honestly say things along the lines of "Well, wasn't I just shockingly bad that night...?" - At least, I generally don't find that coming from the winner of a bout - all too often, if at all.

 

A third bout would have been in order.

 

This fight is the best example of where size and size alone won someone a fight. Holyfield showed so much more skill than Lewis here, but it's hard to beat a guy who outweighs you by multiple divisions.

 

On fair scores cards, Holyfield who had good skills, decent power, and a tough chin is but 1-4 vs. Bowe and Lewis. Size matted, and multiply that factor when the bigger man has skills too.

 

I don't understand the argument that Lewis was less effective than in the first fight.

Fight one he should have won 9-3, fight 2 was 7-5. But fight 2 was against a clearly better Holy field.

It's better to win 7 rounds against a brilliant Holy than 9 against a **** holy.

 

Exactly.
I wouldn't necessarily characterise the change in Holyfield as going from **** to brilliant, but there was a marked improvement.
I don't know, maybe people say this is all done to Lewis putting on a poor performance?

I don't believe that at all though. The Holyfield of the second Lewis fight was the best he'd been since the Tyson fights at least. It might even have been the best Holyfield since the second Bowe fight, or maybe the Mercer fight. He was fighting an educated fight against a very good very big opponent.
For me, Lewis won again, a close one.

 

The Holyfield of that fight was the 2nd best heavyweight in the world.

He showed that if he had a bit more hand and footspeed he'd have give Lewis fits. Maybe enough that Lewis would have been forced to up the ante and go gung ho.

 

I wouldn't disagree that Holyfield put on a better showing in the second fight; just not a greatly improved one. I do, however, think Lewis underperformed, which accentuated Holyfield's efforts and also helped the contest appear much more competitive.

 

Yes that's how I see it. Lewis was focused for the first fight and gave one of his best performances in the first fight and totally dominated. But in the rematch he was probably over confident, he knew after the first fight he was the better man and come the rematch we saw a less than focused Lewis, which allowed Evander into the fight more.

If you just look at the punch stats, Lewis threw 123 fewer punches in the rematch, with a punch percentage of only 40% compared to 57% in the first fight. Holyfield's numbers where pretty much the same in both fights, he threw 31 more punches in the rematch and only landed 7 more punches than the first fight.

Lewis' level clearly dropped in the rematch while Evander's was pretty much the same in the rematch, maybe slightly better, just because Lewis under performed. In the rounds Lewis threw more jabs he controlled Evander with ease, like in the first fight, his jab was the key to beating Holyfield and in the rematch he simply didn't throw it enough, in fact he threw 133 less jabs in the rematch.

 

Indeed. Lewis more or less admits to this mindset, in reference to his rematch with Holyfield.

Whilst I am generally wary of punch stats, the difference between the two sets of numbers, in this case, is wide enough to warrant them as useful indicators. What the figures suggest is also starkly apparent in the actual watching of each bout.

I think an example of Lewis doing just that is clear, in rounds 1 and 2 of the rematch; to the extent that the early going hints that the second bout will be a virtual replica of the first.

 

The Bowe and Lewis fights were way different. Bowe showed skill and won. All Lewis had was a 245 pound long jab. If Lewis opened up he would've lost.

 

I still think a 92 version of Holyfield would have beat Lewis....

 

Lewis probably out-landed Holyfield by a ratio of greater than 2:1 - and they weren't all jabs.