His weight actually played a bigger role in the performance than many are willing to admit. He was always much, MUCH more effective at around 225. That said, those lead right hands from Lewis would have landed on any version of Tua.
He did what he had to do and made a decent and dangerous opponent look shite. He also ended the fight looking fresh as ****. Another top win chalked up on the road to legendary status.
A silent pact was made between the fighters within the first couple of minutes of the fight. "I wont hurt you if you dont hurt me!" Absolutely a disgrace of a Heavyweight championship fight considering it had the makings to be a dragout shootout fight of epic proportion. Tua simply cant box a lick, what was disgraceful the most was the Heavyweight champion agreeing to such a pact! :-(
You can't see otherwise because you're not a boxing fan, but just a boxing hater; the cold FACT is... Lennoz wasn't at the level of Wladimir, like Steward himself said various times; Lennox's resume is not at Wlad one's levels, and lennox never faced anyone with the combination of speed/power/mobility Haye has; Anyway, Lennox WAS strong, but mainly he outreached/outweighted his opponents and used his power to control the fight, nothing else; some of his fights are what can be called deadly boring, for a non-fan, but i would still watch them, because even a slow, short Tua could have taken down Lennox in any moment, and that makes Heavyweights fights exciting. If you don't like Lennox style, go watch middleweights and their flashing speeds; at heavyweights, counts the power and the ability to control the fight; and this is what lennox did against Tua, and against Tyson for what matter. By the way, for his own admission, Vitali is not the stronger between the two brothers, and this is enough clear in a lot of small things.
The story goes that Tua is wearing a lava-lava in the promo instead of trunks to hide a prominent gut he had by that stage of his career. He hadn't gone beyond three rounds for almost two years before that fight - as he was holding his mandatory challenger spot and not wanting to risk it. That's what I remember anyway. We didn't see the best Tua that evening by a long shot - this is the game where some times you only get one shot though. This content is protected
it was a boxing lesson showed by lewis. if you look for fights non showable to people then wlad-ibragimov takes the price. wlads cowardly show that night cost him the american audience, disgracefull showing from a hw champion.
Very boring, I'd love Tua to have landed a flush left hook and sent Lewis reeling across the ring only for Tua to jump on him and totally destroy him.
It was exciting until it wasn't. Seriously though, you just kept waiting for one of Tua's perfect monster left hooks to come crashing home just right to Lewis' chin and it just never happened. Completely anti-climactic. :verysad Haha, Huggin' Henry!! All he wanted was a snuggle!!
I thought it was a decent fight. Tua had me worried for Lennox but Lennox completely schooled him, he hurt Tua a few times too and Tua chickened out the rest of the fight IMO
Tua just can't deal with jabs and decent movement. Rahman was absolutely schooling him until the KO shot landed (after the bell even)
Outside his loss to Ibeabuchi, who beat Tua at his own game, the blueprint on how to defuse Tua has always been there. A 10-1 Maskaev was even terms until being stopped in the final round, the great Jeff Wooden couldn't miss Tua with his jab and Tua only scraped by with a MD. Rahman was winning their first fight until being hit after the bell and Rahman should have won the rematch despite coming in looking like a black sumo.