Here is your chance to convince me lennox lewis is a top 10 heavyweight of all time

SuzieQ, i wanted to answer your questions, but it got a little bigger than i anticipated and i got off path, so i made a new thread for it.

 

Lennox beat a slew of power punchers who lacked skill. I'm not so sure Lennox dominates the 80's which was flooded with tall, mobile, skilled boxers the way a Holmes or Tyson did.

 

I would say he belongs at 8, Holyfield at 9 & Tyson at 10. But that's it, not the rubbish no 3 as people propagate.

 

The thing Lennox did was to take the toughest path and go into the lions den for lots of his fights. So many of the other heavies would do this maybe 2 or 3x their whole career. Or most often, never.

Look at his contemporaries. Holyfield. Usually the house fighter & never fought in the other guy's backyard until when, valuev? or was it Ibragimov? Not Tua in New Zealand type fights anywhere. Always Vegas. And he took on DKP once & as a result signed up with the guy.

Bowe...never went into the lions den. Tyson was always the house fighter and the only time he took his act on the road was who--Julius Francis? He goes to Japan was a nuetral bout because the other guy from Ohio had to travel as well. But he sure didn't have that comfy home field advantage.

Look at Lewis. Even when he fights a guy like Bruno, he fights him at Wembley.The Tyson camp sure made sure they made Frank be the road warrior---2x. Coincidence?

All Lennox had to do as champ was to make the fight in nuetral territory. Make Bruno wear the shoes of road warrior.

How many other heavies were signing fights taking on the DKP guy? And walking out with wins? This goes back to guys like Butler even. Who else out there is signing a contract to fight a DKP guy with 15 straight ko's in a WBC title eliminator? For not big money? McCall was a DKP guy.

who else was fighting a guy like Morrison and Mercer? in non title bouts? Fighting Ray in his backyard. Now there's a guy to make a road warrior---who actually thinks Mercer brings his A game if the fight takes place in the UK?

It'll be a long time in the sport when we get another heavy willing to fight anyone anytime and anywhere. What we have gotten for decades is path of least resistence and very few road warrior or cross promotion fights. The reason why is strange things happen and it's impossible to not lose fights.

Lennox did far far less cherry picking than given credit for. The McCall fight does not happen with other fighters. They do not ever sign the contract to take on a DKP fighter. A cherry picker does not take on a veteran undefeated guy like Mason that early in his career. Most people thought that fight was actually crazy to sign for at the time.

Opposition fought and opposition a guy could have fought--and when and where--is what makes up a guy's resume. In boxing, you need to look a few branches past the trunk of the tree to see all the options available at the time. I, for one, am glad I got the above fights. And not guys like Joe Hipp. Or Alex Stewart. Or the 5 to 20th ranked heavies everyone else seem to fight all the time.You know, guys with a history of losing and never the house fighter.

 

Here's the actual, real question that answers SuzieQ's question, that nobody else has asked yet:

What is SuzieQ's top ten list?

Let's see it, and I will bet dollars to donuts that you will NOT find ten men on the planet with a better resume than Lewis.

 

No offense but it's a boring thread ... in reality the question should be is he top five or just top two or three prime for prime head to head ..

 

Uh...ok?

 

Suzie has posted it before. He has Louis #1.

Very few people alive do not have Lennox Lewis in their top ten.

 

Yeah, I don't see it. His resume is really good.

To place people higher than him based on resume you'd have to weigh his two KO losses heavily against him, highlight his shoddy performance where he won anyway and then tear down his opponents as being past it etc.

But here's the thing, when you will do the same to whoever SuzieQ has ranked over him, they will come out worse

 

He beat every man he ever faced and he faced a lot of good ones. His level of competition was better than many other heavyweights in the top 10 or even the top 5

 

Considering Holyfield went on to fight for another 10 years I'd say this version was more comparable to the Hopkins that fought
Calzaghe, or something like that

 

I'm not sure how long you go on fighting is relevant to how good you are in any particular fight.

Truth is, Holyfield's fight against Ruiz came right after his two fights with Lewis. His fight before the Lewis fights was the fight with Vaughn Bean. It's safe to say this period 1998 to 2000 was a very past prime version.

 

Lewis is easily Top 5.

Longevity, excellence in his own era, excellence in a rare great era for heavyweights, beat every man he fought.

Tell me those not named Ali and Louis that you rank above him.

 

Here's 5 for starters : Holmes, Marciano, Holyfield, Frazier, Foreman

 

Marciano had 7 title fights against no one (who didn't have a glandular problem) who was over 200 pounds. 5 of those defenses were against guys over 34 years old. He was a defining presence in the division for 4 years (Layne to Moore).

Lewis had 18 title fights against the greatest array of powerpunchers any champ has faced. He faced young, old, strong and skilled. The average size of his opponent was 229 pounds (excluding a fat but ranked Lionel Butler). He lost two but scored KO's in return. He was a defining presence in the division for 11 years (Ruddock to Klitschko).

You do the math.