Does Lewis get to little or to much credit for beating Holyfield and Tyson

My take -
The Holyfield win was a good/very good victory for Lewis
The Tyson win should count very little for Lewis

Lewis over Holyfield

The Holyfield that Lewis beat was a past prime, but still formidable heavyweight. The first fight was a very good win for Lennox and should be worth a fair amount toward his resume. The 2nd fight was razor close, and in my opinion an argument can be made either way as to who shaded that fight. Holyfield looked very good in 96/97 against Tyson and Moorer. He looked 'okay' against Bean in 98. So he was certainly still a formidable, quality, but past prime HW at that point.

Holyfield was no longer prime after Bowe II in 93. Basically you can tell from a couple of factors. Number One - his workrate dropped off substantially from his prime self. He would no longer throw nearly as many punches as he did in his prime. (Holyfield's prime was from 89-Dokes - 93-Bowe II).

Holyfield was a high volume puncher in his prime who would win by attrition - see the Dokes fight or the first 2 Bowe fights for evidence of this. The best single example is his 15 punch combination he ripped off against Foreman in round 7 in 91. I never saw Holyfield pull off a combination anywhere close to that one, or throw the number of punches per round, from 1994 on.

Now you couple that with the so so performances against Moorer, Bowe III, Czyz, and Bean and that is the other strong indicator that he was past prime. A prime Holyfield would have disposed of Czyz and Bean easily, would have beaten Moorer clearly, and would have probably finished Bowe in the corner after the knockdown in round 6 of their 3rd fight.

Also age wise it makes sense that he had started to decline in 94, afterall he turned 32 that year, and had been through some tough fights (Qawi I, Dokes, Cooper, Bowe I and II).

Now I think it is clear that AFTER Lewis II, Holyfield was a badly faded fighter. He looked pretty lackluster against Ruiz in fight I, most notably the fact that he had several rounds where he didn't punch (I thought Holyfield lost that fight). He looked better in the 2nd fight for a while, then got knocked down in round 11. I thought he beat Ruiz in the 3rd fight (though he didn't look that good). He looked poor against Toney (outside of round 1), and against Donald he looked absolutely shot (worst fight of Evander's career by far). Also remember that he turned 38 in 2000.

So the Holyfield that Lewis beat is a very good win for Lewis and helps him a lot. But the win is not as big a win as a prime Bowe over prime Holyfield in 92, or a prime Holyfield over prime Bowe in 93.

I also consider Holyfield's win over a 30 year old, still formidable Tyson to be worth a bit more than Lewis's win over a 36 year old, but still formidable Holyfield. The ring wear on Holyfield was far more significant by 99, then Tyson's ring wear by 96 (only Douglas had beaten Tyson by that point).

Also the fact that Holyfield was at least 6 years removed from his prime, and the fact that he fought Lewis so closely in the 2nd fight, to me is a strong indication that a prime Holyfield would have outworked Lewis to a competitive, but clear UD.

Lewis over Tyson

This win to me is in the same vein as Berbick over Ali. Meaning the fight should count for very little. Tyson was clearly shot by the time they fought. He came in at 234 pounds! Only one other time did Tyson come in heavier in his career (Nielsen fight in 01). Tyson in shape is fighting ideally between 216-218 pounds. Hopefully no heavier than 222 (he was 221 against Berbick in 86 and 222 against Holyfield in 96). Tyson's skills were heavily eroded by that time as well. The last time Tyson was a formidable HW was probably the fights against Holyfield in 96-97. He looked pretty good against Golota in 2000. But I don't think many would disagree with the notion that Tyson was shot by the time he fought Lewis, or at least badly faded. After all, Tyson was 14 years removed from his peak performance (Spinks). And a smaller swarming, slugger like Tyson is the type of guy that would peak sooner than a bigger guy like Lewis.

To Lewis's credit - he did his job and dominated Tyson.

I take 2 things from the fight
1) Tyson has a great chin
If anybody has any doubt as to the quality of Tyson's chin, the fact
that he takes the power shots that he does (primarily some vicious
uppercuts), and it takes till the 8th round for him to be KO'd, against a
very big puncher like Lewis, shows that Tyson can take a punch and
has a great chin.

2) Lewis would present problems even for a prime Tyson due to his
enormous size and reach edge
One thing is clear from seeing the 2 of them fighting in the ring. Lewis
is 6'5 and Tyson is 5'10. And Lewis has a 13 inch reach advantage -
84 to 71. These physical factors would be a challenge for even a
prime Tyson.
Having said that, I think a prime Tyson takes Lewis out by a 3rd round
KO. Tyson was too fast, elusive (bobbing and weaving), and powerful
not to catch Lewis's chin at some point and put him out.

So I think Lewis gets too much credit for beating Tyson, but probably gets the proper amount of credit for beating Holyfield.

The 90s era heavyweights would be much clearer if these fights had happened
1) Holyfield/Tyson in 91 (best time they could have met)
2) Bowe/Lewis in 93, and a rematch in 95
3) Bowe/Tyson in 91 or 95 (better in 91, more likely to happen in 95)
4) Holyfield/Lewis in 93 or 95 (either time could have worked)
5) Lewis/Tyson in 96 (only time and best time this fight could have happened)

All of the fights listed above would be between fighters at their prime, or close enough to it, that they would have settled the questions boxing historians and fans have as to who was the best heavyweight since Larry Holmes

For me, it was Holyfield
A good argument can be made for Lewis

Too bad we can't change history and really find out

 

Again, great post friend!:good

I doubt anyone on Lews' side of the argument would clearly and concisely want or even attempt to counteract you consice timeframes and points.

Its as clear as day that Lewis never faced a great fighter at the top of his abilities or anywhere close to that......

As far as the Lewis side is concerned, they've argued as you have pointed out, that Holyfield was still the champion and very much competitive with the rest of the division......
.....and I agree, but I also agree that Lewis himself was a big and great Heavyweight in his own right.
For Holyfield to have clearly shown superiority over Lennox, he'd imo have to have been somewhere close to his prime.
.....as you said, Holyfield being quick and fast, and throwing loads of combinations.....something he was'nt capable of doing even as far back as his fights with Tyson over two years earlier.

You beat a bigger fighter than you are through speed, quickness, and workrate.....something Holyfield that Holyfield had significantly decreased in each of the categories.
Its a testament to his greatness that Holyfield was able to get up for and fight Lennox so close in that rematch of theirs, in a fight where he landed the cleaner harder blows, but his workrate was not enough to convince the actual judges.

 

Total nonsense.

The only Tyson fans thinking he would be competitive were 14 year old kids. I've been on message boards a long time, and the overriding consensus among Tyson fans back then was that Tyson would lose. At most he was given a puncher's chance, but that's it.

When asessing Lewis' career, I've never placed much stock in either the Holyfield or Tyson victories. As to the question, it depends who you ask.
Ask a Lewis fan and he'll say "NO", but ask most other people and they'd say "YES."

 

I was not at this message board back then, but the way you describe it is not as i remember it. I remember Tyson being given a good chance because Lewis had just got knocked out recently and was 36 years old himself.

How come the odds only slightly favored Lewis? Did those 14 year old boys get a lot of money from their rich dads to bet on Tyson?

 

Most so called ring experts were picking Lennox Lewis to easily win, but there were a few who felt that Tyson had a legit chance early to get inside Lewis reach and put him to sleep......
......however, those that felt that way, were quickly brought back to reality when Mike Tyson tipped the scales at 234 lbs.....
....16 lbs above his fighting weight for his 2nd fight with Holyfield.

The reasoning behind those that were picking Tyson by early KO was that Tyson would use his speed and quickness to get inside Lewis' reach and unleach thunder......
....after Tyson weighed in at 234 lbs, the great majority of those that had picked Tyson said, forget it.....Tyson is not in fighting shape!

Not only was Tyson percieved as close to shot.....he did'nt even show up for Lewis in fighting shape!:-(

 

It wasn't this board, but another one called boxing.com, which no longer exists.

The guys that were picking Tyson were like "Yeah, Mike will kick his azz!" Someone would ask why, and the reply would be, rather typically, something like "Coz Mikes the strongest!"
There wasn'tt much rationale coming from Tyson backers. How could there be? As a Tyson fan, my only hope for Tyson was a one-punch KO for him, honestly.
Most reasonable Tyson fans knew that, barring a Rahman-like right hand, Tyson was not going to win.
I don't know what the odds where or anything like that, but in my experience the overwhelming consensus on message boards was that Lewis would win.

I mean, let's look at the stats. Tyson was fighting 16 years past his first title. 16 years! What short man has ever been competitive 16 years past his title win? Not Joe Frazier, certainly not Rocky Marciano.
Tyson at that stage was a slowish 234 pound plodder getting by on picking overmatched nobodies. He was a 3 round fighter at best.

Really, if anyone places much stock in this win, then we must give all the credit in the world to Larry Holmes for halting Ali, or maybe Berbick for doing likewise. And we should laud Marciano to the rafters for knocking out Joe Louis, who incidentally was in much better shape than Tyson was when Rocky won.

Lennox had many fine victories in his career, but it galls me when people include this as one of them. He did what he was supposed to do against a faded, shot legend, but let's not get carried away.

 

Of course you can find all sorts of reasons why Tyson was going to lose, but he still had that power and Lewis still had that "weak chin".

Again i ask you, if it were only 14 year olds supporting Tyson, then why were the betting odds relatively close?

 

Casual fans may overrate his victory against Tyson, but he does not get enough credit, especially on this board, for dominating Holyfield twice, who was certainly not far off his prime, and could have fought Lewis earlier if he had chosen to.

 

Exactly the same can be said of Holyfields wins over Tyson, shal we completely ignore those too?
Actually Lewis' wins over Holfield are far far greater than Holyfield over Tyson!
No comparison.

 

Mostly correct.

Lewis vs Tyson was scheduled for '96 (post Bruno II), but Don King paired him with Seldon instead paving an easy route to what was thought to be a "certain victory" against the easier option (a washed up Holyfield). We all know what happened next.

When they eventually faced off in '02 Lennox basically feased on what was a washed up shell of a fighter- not entirely his fault. Lewis won the first fight vs Holyfield comfortably, rematch was closer and Evander was fared quite a bit better but still clearly a Lewis victory. :good

 

I think not giving Lewis any credit is a bit harsh, particularly for the Holyfield win.

Granted Holyfield was not at his peak - But he was still a formidable opponent. A better challenge than most of Lewis' title defenses.

Tyson on the other hand, was physically and psychologically washed up. I thought he actually looked better Vs McBride (he brought back his head movement) than he did against Lewis.

So while Holyfield was still undoubtedly in my opinion a top5, and possibly a top3 heavyweight at that point in time, Tyson was nowhere near the top10, despite his ranking.

 

Lewis should get credit for the wins, but he did not beat a prime or even near prime version of Tyson and Holyfield. Lewis was a pound for pound type of business man. He picked the perfect times to fight each of them. That is to say before the public knew Tyson and Holfyield were washed up. If either fifhgt had taken place say 2-3 years earlier, Lewis then would have beaten a prime or near prime verison of Holyfield and Tyson.

In the end, Lewis beat the best fighters of his era, and avenged all losses. His title record in world title matches is excellent. Only Marciano and Tunney can claim that at heavyweight. I think that is his legacy more so than beating Holyfield and Tyson.

 

I think his efforts get sold short as shown in this thread. Regardless i have him just ahead of both historically. They are all pretty close but Lewis' victories over both irrespective of claimed quotients sets him above them.

 

To rate Lewis ahead of them is fine - Debatable, but a case can be made.

To rate Lewis ahead of them BECAUSE he beat them both at the respective stage of their careers is silly - It'd be like rating Oliver McCall over Lewis, or McBride over Tyson, or Leon Spinks over Ali.