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

If Bowe was ever gonna beat Lewis it was when he was champ and Lewis was the arrogant heir apparent.

Bowe did duck him at that point but tried to make the fight at a later date when he needed it more to get his career back on track. At that point Lewis would have crushed him imo.

So I think both turned down the fight when it was the most winnable.

Vitali doesn't tarnish Lewis's legacy at all, it was a great victory over a man who would become a great champion. Ducking Byrd and Ruiz, well he beat Tura and Holyfield so to the Ruiz argument is a non starter for me.

Byrd he chose other opponents and arguably better opponents. His resume would look better with Byrd on it though.

It's a shame he didn't get to Wlad before Sanders that would have really been something.

 

Yes I agree with most of your points there.

With hind sight Byrd proved to go onto be a better fighter than many thought at the time. But had Lewis fought Byrd he would have not fought Tyson and that was simply too big a fight in terms of financial gain to ignore.

It's possible Lewis could have fought Byrd after Tyson but that would mean not having fought Vitali and I think Vitali adds more to Lewis legacy than Byrd ever could.

Afterwards all the talk was for a Vitali/Lewis rematch and Byrd got what many thought was a lucky decision against Oquendo so any chance of Lewis unifying with Byrd was squashed.

 

:deal

Lewis was extremely keen to fight Bowe. Bowe it seems hadn't forgotten the touch-up Lewis gave him at the Seoul Olympics and refused to reciprocate.

 

In an ideal world Lewis would have been more active but given the fights he had in the time he had them I wouldn't replace any one opponent with Byrd or Ruiz.

 

Lewis smokes any version of Bowe including his mythical prime version his fans made up when he fought and beat a cruiser 2 of 3 times.

 

Strawman argument. The fact remains that Lewis ducked Ruiz, Byrd and Vitali and lost all of his titlesoutside the ring. This is textbook definition of ducking.

 

Simple choice really. People can either read your self important meaningless opinions.

Or this.

Ticket sales were slow because they were priced as high as $2,400, but a crowd of 15,327 turned up to see boxing's then biggest event at the Pyramid Arena in Memphis, Tennessee. Tyson also had to pay Lewis $335,000 out of his purse for biting him at the news conference to announce the fight, which was originally scheduled for 6 April 2002 in Las Vegas. Las Vegas, however, rejected the fight because of Tyson's licensing problems and several other states refused Tyson a license before Memphis finally bid $12 million to land it.

In May 2003, Lewis sued boxing promoter Don King for $385 million, claiming that King used threats and bribery to have Tyson pull out of a rematch with Lewis and a fight on the card of a Lewis title defence.

Which would indicate Lewis was far more interested in a Tyson rematch than a fight with Johnson.

Lewis scheduled a fight with Kirk Johnson for June, but when Johnson suffered an injury in training, Lewis fought Vitali Klitschko, the WBC's #1 contender and former WBO champion. Lewis had planned to fight him in December, but since Klitschko had been on the undercard of the Johnson fight anyway, they agreed to square off on June 21.

As far as I'm concerned its a no brainer, as you appear to be full of manure.

 

Yes, that's the answer, he'll fight Tua winning pretty much by shut out, Rahman, Tyson, Vitali, Holyfield, Ruddock, etc. but he's scare to fight Byrd and Ruiz.

Glad you're happy in your little fantasy world.

I can't even imagine what Ruiz could ever do to beat Lewis and both Klitschko's showed that the feather Byrd would take a beating.

 

So by your rationale Vitali ducked Stiverne and Rahman, the fact he was injured and retired makes no difference as anything outside of the fact him choosing not to fight them is an immediate duck and no possible facts can alter that right?

 

Bowe would've been a great nam eV on the record. But it hasn't affected his legacy. We all know Bowe ducked Lewis.

 

Actually the FACTS if that what you want to talk about, is that Lewis did fight Vitali, and Lewis beat him. That's the only thing that really matters and you can yap about it for another 10 years and the outcome of the fight isn't going to change.

 

Didn't sift throughout all 18 pages but did anyone blame rock Newman? If not they should have.

 

If you mean regarding Newman offering Lewis a pathetic 10 % cut of the 32 million, then yes post 143.

Lewis ducked no fighter, and particularly no Murican fighter, as he enjoyed beating them more than others.

Getting more for beating one Murican fighter ( Tyson ) as opposed to Byrd is just common sense. As for Ruiz?????????????????????

Ruiz, who, what? Is it a bird, is it a plane? No it's a Ruiz.:zzz

 

I wonder how many hours of tape Wlad watched of Ruiz to prepare for the Povetkin fight. lol

 

Not a strawman. Fact. Lewis was never stripped of the IBF, WBC or Ring titles and you were wrong.