How was Michael Grant viewed before facing Lewis?

Was a lucky punch. Can happen.

 

Nope.

 

If It was or not a lucky punch, HasBeen Rahman lasted for a short time though.

 

He was setting the punch up. It wasn't the first one he landed and he narrowly missed one before the knockout.

 

Spot on.

To paraphrase Voltaire, at that time if the next great American heavyweight did not exist, it was necessary to invent him.

While Grant was not without merit and showed plenty of potential, there was a real sense that the role of heir apparent was borne out of necessity rather than overwhelming credentials.

The spin machine was in overdrive after the Golota scare; commentators were waxing lyrical about the heart and desire he showed, rather than focusing on nearly getting bombed out in a round by a guy not noted as a one-punch KO artist, and essentially only winning the fight because Golota pulled a Golota.

It was a strange fight in that Grant raced out like he was staging a live-action reenactment of Hagler-Hearns, and was soon staggering around in eerily similar fashion to the first round against Golota.

After the Klitschko era (and whatever the current era ends up being referred to), it’s easy to forget that prior to that the division had been dominated by Americans for over a century. There was probably a bit of denial going on with Grant, as it was hard to believe that the next generation was actually just a former super middleweight and a guy nearly decapitated in 17 seconds by David Tua.

 

Wasn't Lennox expected Briggs,Rahman and Morrison pretty easily?

 

That's odd, it was probably among the most hyped up HW title fights around that time.

More than that - there were people who genuinely believed he would usher in a "new" HW era of supersized HWs. Turns out he was about 2 decades ahead of his time.

 

HE'S BROKE HIS LEGSSSS!

 

Foreman had some good ones didn’t he

 

An interesting bout to watch is Grant in there w/ former lh Adamek. Actually Adamek made a successful transiton to heavy and has the scalp of another highly touted guy--Andrew Golata.

 

He was viewed as the number 1 contender at the time. Very hyped by HBO, maybe even overhyped, but you could argue this based on merit.

 

He was being touted like the next big thing, then fought Golota on HBO and was getting the tar beaten out of him until Golota quit as usual.

That was the fight that exposed Grant as not being as great as they were marketing him to be.

 

People like to hate on Grant now but he was a solid Heavyweight his wins over Savarese, Izon, Golota, were solid victories even if the Golota fight did show some of his limitations he still showed alot of heart to comeback in a tough fight.

Do i think Grant was overhyped based on his size being American and having the "look" in regards to his physique ? yeah. But i also think he gets slightly undersold nowadays aswell.

Grant unfortunately broke his ankle vs McCline when he tried to comeback after the Lewis fight and that injury derailed his career so we never got to see if he could've rebounded.

 

Totally hyped manufactured fighter. Hbo badly wanted the next face of boxing to replace the old depleted American heavies. Grant wasn’t that good and Golota exposed him badly.