We all know the first was a sham The second.... how did a cruiserweight go the full 12 with the man many regard as the Greatest H2H HW of all time?
Then we can disagree to agree But how did Evander manage it? Lennox bombed him to Kingdom Come Did Evander have an ATG chin?
Holyfield was a tough ****er. Lewis also wasn't exactly the most aggressive guy against Holyfield. Lewis could be aggressive against certain opponents and more cautious against others. Lewis was respectful of Holyfield. Not just his power, but how dangerous he could be when he was hurt, or appeared to be hurt. Holyfield put up a good effort in the rematch and won 4-5 rounds. He ate a monster right uppercut in the 9th and took it well. Holyfield fought so many punchers, it's kind of funny and shows you unpredictable boxing is when he faced 3 of the most powerful HWs ever in George Foreman, Lennox Lewis, and Mike Tyson (5x combined), and other heavy-handed or fairly powerful punchers like Rid**** Bowe (3x), Hasim Rahman, Dwight Qawi (2x), Bert Cooper, Alex Stewart (2x), Michael Moorer (2x), Ray Mercer, etc.....the most damage anyone did to him with a single shot was John Ruiz in the 11th round of their 2nd fight. Bert Cooper also dropped and genuinely hurt Holyfield with his short right hand on the inside in the 3rd round of their fight (I'm excluding the 3rd Bowe fight when he was exhausted, took a lot of punishment beforehand, and was suffering from the effects of Hepatitis or HGH-itis or whatever). Just shows you boxing isn't predictable or simple, and I often SMH when people say things like "if so and so dropped/stopped this so and so, imagine what this other guy would do to him!" Most of the time when people say **** like that, it's totally simplistic and can easily be refuted by other examples with the same fighters.
The Lion couldn't put a dent in old Holy's armour, could he. John Ruiz didn't do much worse a year later and a year after that he was getting beat by Byrd, then later on Toney and Donald. Overall Holyfield doesn't add a huge amount to Lewis' resume.
No Ali is but did he not get flattened by a 185 lb cooper only for his corner to cheat and use smelling salts and rip his glove to buy time for him to recover Lennox proved he was better than those 2 by winning the rematches.
Ali got a grand total of about 6 extra seconds in the first Cooper fight from the glove thing. Cooper was more hurt by the fact that the KD did not come at the beginning of the round. By it being at the end of the round, Ali had a minute...oh I meant 1 minute and 6 seconds, to recover between rounds.
I think Ali was the best , I'm just saying even the best can get hurt by anyone. Cooper was 185lb journeyman with multiple losses and a 50% knockout record. Rahman and McCall certainly hit far harder than Cooper. Years later he was taken bombs off the likes of Foreman. Imagine the threads if the fight happened today, everyone would be dissing him saying Ali had a worse chin than Wilder. Let's remember Cooper was was 30 pounds lighter than a young clay and around 50 pounds lighter tban the heaves today. Cooper barely makes cruiserweight. It would be like Joshua fighting Cleverly
oh so when youre fighting in the division when one clean shot can spark you out.... that disqualifies you from being the best lets ignore the fact he obliterated Rach in the rematch and turned Oliver into a waddling crying baby drop the hate pal Lennox has as good a shout as anyone in the history of heavyweight boxing as the H2H GOAT
