Does Lennox Lewis not fighting Bowe the second best HW from his era ruin his legacy?

Maybe, but Bowe ducked Lewis.

 

But Lewis has his fair of ducks against Bowe as well. Do you really want to see the sources.....again?

 

naw.........

 

Bowe is one of those fighters with immense talent but undiciplined to stay at the top.
His skills surpassed Lennox's by a long mile, but dicipline in the sport is of utmost importance.

Bowe-Lewis is a fight that would have happened eventually had Bowe stayed at anywhere near the top, but he did'nt.

Both at their very peak, I think Bowe would have won a very wide UD.
Lewis' only has a punchers chance imo.

 

Bowe had better inside skills than Lewis no doubt but he wasn't as skilled as Lewis was in other areas.

Lewis had the better jab, better footwork, better control of range and defence.

 

First off, a lot of fools on here must think that Lewis is either as stupid as they are, or as stupid as a lot of Murican fighters.

1. He knew full well that big name fighters had been ripped of by that big mouthed flag waving fvck pig King, and there was no way he was going to have any dealings with vermin like that. So by extension that limited his choice of opponents.

2. It simply can't be Lewis' fault that Holyfield lost to Moorer ( who, as has been pointed out ) wanted no part of Lennox, when Lewis was more than ready to fight Holyfield next. Similarly it can't be Holyfields fault that 5 months later Lewis himself lost to McCall.

3. Only an idiot would try to put any blame on Lewis for what followed. Holyfield beats Mercer, gets TKO'd in 8 by Bowe, looks sh*t against Czyz, yet gets a shot at Tyson ( who paid Lewis millions in step aside money )
Meanwhile Lennox is effectively frozen out for 2 and a half years until he can rematch McCall. Again muppets try to blame Lewis for Kings desperation in bringing a fvcking basket case out of rehab to a title fight.

By this time Bowe has been battered senesless by Golota twice but got the decision on both occasions because the big Pole is keen to prove he can out foul chicken Bowe. Then off he goes into the wilderness kidnapping women and kids, joining the fvcking marines and whatever else weirdo's do to get their kicks.

Again absolutely nothing to do with Lewis. This is the story regarding the dumping of the belt.

n November 1992 he fought reigning champ Evander Holyfield for the undisputed heavyweight title. With his heart and dedication still in question, Bowe won a unanimous decision in an entertaining fight, even flooring Holyfield in the 11th. However, it was the 10th round that most boxing fans will remember. The epic and brutal back and forth exchanges helped make it Ring Magazine's "Round of the Year." Commentator Al Bernstein exclaimed, ""That was one of the greatest rounds in heavyweight history. Period!"

Only a couple of weeks earlier in London, Bowe's old Olympic rival Lennox Lewis knocked out Canadian Donovan "Razor" Ruddock in 2 rounds, establishing himself as the WBC's #1 contender. The Bowe/Holyfield and Lewis/Ruddock fights were part of a mini-tournament where all four fighters agreed that the two winners would meet each other for the championship. Bowe's manager Rock Newman made a proposal that the $32 million purse HBO were offering be split 90-10 in Bowe's favor, an "absurd" offer which Lewis rejected. Lewis's manager Frank Maloney rejected another offer of $2 million for Lewis to fight on a Bowe undercard, citing his distrust of the Bowe camp after the aforementioned negotiations. So in a move that would hurt Bowe's image he held a press conference in which he dumped the WBC belt in a trash can rather than fight Lewis.

So basically Bowe had his chance and declined it through his big mouthed manager making such a derogatory offer no one with any sense would have accepted it.

 

NO doubt in my mind Lewis would of won.

Now the LL that fought Bruno vs Bowe at that time, would be a 50/50 and I'd lean towards Bowe.

 

Typical response, you don't understand what happened.

Lewis only got the Tyson fight by agreeing to face Byrd next in court.

King bought the title days before the dateline to speed up the process and put together Holyfield/Byrd on the same HBO date set aside for the Byrd fight. Lewis' own lawyer said he never intended to face Byrd.

Duck is a duck. Lewis ducked a deserving contender to sit out of action for a year and sign to fight Kirk Johnson for peanuts.

 

Lewis/Byrd could have happened. Lewis didn't want it. Lewis ducked Byrd.

 

Factual inaccurate. Do the research. Very wrong. Lewis defended the IBF belt against Tyson. Byrd/Lewis was to happen after the Tyson fight in Nov. 2002. Think before you post. No wander you justify Lewis' ducking and belt trashing, you have just proposed a fantasy that did not happen.

 

Lennox Lewis signed a contract to face the WBA #1 contender whom at the time was Akinwande, a man he already beat. When Akinwande retired, Ruiz was named his replacement. Lewis than broke his contract to fight Grant, whom he still had 12 months to face.

:think


Both Holyfield and Lewis agreed before their title-unification bout that the winner's first defense would be against the heavyweight ranked No. 1 by the WBA or the best available heavyweight as determined by the WBA rankings

Lewis claimed that King had coerced him into signing a fraudulent contract to fight then number-one contender Henry Akinwande or the leading "available contender" even though King knew that Akinwande was suffering from Hepatitis B and not likely to fight any time soon.

 

Sure, the source is a signed contract stating that Bowe would fight the winner of the Ruddock - Lewis fight. I've been on these sites for about 15 years and only a handful of posters even bother trying to defend Bowe from such a blatant duck. And if anyone's legacy suffered from that episode it's clearly Bowe, because the vast majority of posters rate Lewis' career far ahead of Bowe's. Had Bowe manned up, fought Lewis and won, he'd likely be regarded as the best of the four (Lewis, Bowe, Tyson, Holyfield) instead of the footnote he became.

 

First time in my life I ever heard anyone actually defending King. And if you honestly believe that Lewis ducked Bryd, well there's no point arguing about it. I will say he choose not to fight him because the $$$ wasn't enough to warrant him wanting to take the fight, but believe what you want. I do know that for the most part, fighters, especially as the near the end of their careers focus more on big paydays than simply fighting for ultraistic reasons.

 

How is that defending King?

In this case, he made the most of a bad situation and put together a decent HW fight. That's what he does. HBO needed a fight on that date, he gave them Byrd/Holyfield.

I object to the assumption people make that King didn't want Byrd/Lewis. His actions that year lead us to the conclusion that he did, certainly more so than Byrd/Evander, and so did HBO. Lewis was going to hold on to the title until the last possible minute despite already stating he had no intention of ever fighting Byrd.

 

Any dealings with King is a joke. Tyson and others learnt the hard way never to trust King and Lewis gave up a lot of opportunities and perhaps even legacy fights, to ensure King couldn't get his hooks into him. King never offered any fighter he liked a fight that never included future options. You can either believe that or not, it doesn't much matter to me.