How do we rank Lennox Lewis in terms of greatness?

I think most people would rank him anywhere from 3-10. Personally, I have Ali, Louis, and Holmes as my top 3. I don't put too much emphasis on head to head. Most important thing is resume (quality of opposition, dominance, longevity) and skillset (box or no box). How you'd use your skills against the greats of other eras is subjective and a flawed approach. Fantasy matchups are interesting but they can't be used to determine someone's legacy. In terms of resume, I don't think Lewis would be top 5. In terms of skillset, he is arguably top 5. He may have beaten a lot of great heavyweights of the past but that's also because he was massive. In my book, you don't get extra points for being bigger. All in all, Lewis is a lock for top 10 and he cracks my top 5 from time to time (more often than not). I have seen people make a case for Lewis as the HW goat but that's never gonna happen. A case for him being #3 is more reasonable. But still.

 

Bruno
Tucker
Biggs
Williams
Akinwande
Golota
Briggs
All had good jabs, you are talking rubbish

 

The first being Holyfield, when was he ever an easy fight for anyone?

 

Rahman 82"
Grant 86"
McCall 82"
Ruddock 82"
McCrory 80"
Quarless 80"
Garber 82"

Viltali 79"! Case closed!

 

Excellent. He comes in at #3 for me.

 

I think he has to be top 10. I don't think there's a credible argument to not have him in there based on the quality of his wins and longevity.

Where in there you rank him depends firstly on the criteria, how comfortable you are comparing him to much smaller heavies throughout history, and your thoughts on whether he dodged a bullet by not getting big money fights against Bowe, Lewis and Tyson in the early to mid 90s.

 

Top three P4P heavyweight for sure...and maybe even better than that H2H.

 

Lewis was totally superior to the top four heavyweights of today, and with the territory, therefore better than any of the other ones by default.

 

Considering Mc(Chin)Call won with him thanx to a very lucky combo thrown with the eyes closed and that he lost with Rahman cause a co*ky spirit which possessed him a moment before to be knocked out, I put Lewis among the 5 best HWs of all time.

 

Never, but I was actually thinking of Mavrovic (and Mercer of course).

 

LOL Head to head my butt...

The only champ of any weight
class who was not once but twice Ko'ed with ONE single shot against genuine ham and egger opponents. Fact.

Greats from the past will find that Achilles heel, guaranteed, more often than not.

Also, what are his career defining fights ? Walzing with Oldiefield for 24 ? IMO he won both but come on..... next fight Holy went life and death with Huggy Bear Ruiz.....the Ghost of Mike Tyson.......he caught all those guys when they were spent. Fact

So that leaves us with the Morrisons, Tucker/Biggs who when prime were beaten by Tyson years and years before Lewis got a hold of them.....Butler, lol, trial horse Mercer, a fight he won clearly because Mercer did not do jack coming to the finish line, the Mohawk Euro bum....HBO hype job Grant..Octopussy Akinwande..Mental midget Golata who a stoned Tyson impersonator waxed like 90 sec later than Lemmie.........

Briggs? A fraud .....

So the best Heavy he fought with gas in the tank is that Arm puncher VK who got carved up for Thanksgiving...........and that "best" could not get the job done against a old borderline shot Lemmie....that shows how much he sucked....shows that Lewis was better than the pot who came after him but is below the golden years before him and as I said before, his chin wil lbe found by the Elite fighters and the excuse that he fought "big" bangers is nil, because the so called bangers he fought were B and C level and even that level were able to flatten him without too much trouble.

 

McCall timed Lewis with an excellent counter. Rahman set Lewis up for the right by going to the body. Lewis was better/greater than both but upsets happen. No need to discredit McCall/Rahman.

 

Far from me to discredit McCall and Rahman who I consider good fighters but all the videos show McCall who throws that one-two for defending himself and with his eyes completely shut while Rahman hit well the target in a period of the round in which Lewis was provoking him in a coc*ky way. Without these 2 accidents I dont know if McCall and Rahman would win those bouts.