How would you rate Lewis

Seriously dude, I'm hard to win over... giving Lewis a spot at 12 or 13 is pretty gracious.

I am bigger on resume than I am on skill.

I don't care how good Roy Jones jr. looks in training, if he can't do it vs the best, then **** him.

 

Fair enough.

Who's missing on Lewis's resume then from his era?

Bowe obviously.

Some could say a half decent Tyson, but pre-prison Tyson, Lewis wasn't ready - despite being older, and really IMO post prison Tyson was nothing more than smoke and mirrors.

What 12 fighters would you rank ahead of him?

 

I have my top 10 in the other lewis thread, but I think it went a little something like this.....
(mind you i'm drunk right now)

Ali
Louis
Dempsey
Foreman
Johnson
Marciano
Frazier
Liston
Holmes
Jeffries

was my top 10
After that I go...

Langford
Fitzsimmons
Lewis
Tunney
Charles


But there is room for correction and movement amongst them.

 

I would say yes. Some of them still are, at around 40 years of age.

The 'young' guys (under 30 is considered young these days) still have trouble with the old guys.

Rahman, Maskaev, Briggs etc have all held some version of the title recently.

Holy has had title shots and not disgraced himself in the last 2 cracks he's had.

Tua - despite being around 75% of what he was, and that's being generous - could still make some noise.

McCall had a Mando spot only 2 or 3 years ago.


When you look at guys like Golota, Mercer, Bruno, Ruddock, Tony Tucker etc, and watch how they fight, just to the naked eye they're miles better than the current breed (IMO only of course).

Most of them had skills. Most fought in shape. The Cocaine generation of US fighters, (Thomas, Tubbs, Tucker, Witherspoon, Dokes etc) were pretty ****ing good fighters. Lack of professionalism hurt them, but they wre pretty skilled fighters.

How do youthink Buster Douglas would go in todays division? he'd wipe the floor with guys like Arreola, Thomson etc.

No, the win over Tyson wasn't great. It was for money and name value only IMO. Lewis just wanted to not end his career and always hear "but you never fought Tyson", and Tyson needed the money.

Of course guys could beat Lewis. When you're talking the top 20 or so heavies ever, they're all **** hot fighters, and most could beat any of the others with a few things going their way.

 

That's not unreasonable. However, growing up in a town in NZ where Fitzsimmons was a blacksmith, he'd have to be #1 surely.

Can't argue too much about the old timers places, because to be honest, go any further back than Ali, and my knowledge is name recognition alone.

Holmes and Liston can also have the 'resume' argument against them - in fact Holmes and Lewis seem to suffer the same issue "but who did they beat".

I would go more on "who didn't they beat", but I get it.

Glad to see you didn't have Holy or Tyson above Lewis. I got your argument and Zaks "Ham'n'eggers" mindset slightly mixed up previously.

 

I know, I agree with you on a lot of these points, but Holmes never got dropped by C level fighters and this is pretty much the only reason I set lewis a little behind the rest.

Being a chinny heavyweight sorta ruins a lot of hypothetical fights for me.

I'm not crucifying Lewis.. he's a great champion and an ATG, he is just barely shy of my top 10.

I wouldn't remove any of my top 10 for him I guess is what I am saying. I wouldn't feel comfortable booting them for Lewis based on the fact he's been stopped by some mediocre heavies.

 

I think lewis is one of the best heavyweights of his generation. His resume is solid. I have huge respect for the guy. I think he has a good chance of beating some of the top heavyweights of past eras.

 

Lewis's chin is a total mystery to me. I've seen him cracked extremely hard, and not seem too badly affected by it. But he's gone down like a sack of spuds a couple of times too - and has been rocked more than once (but what heavy hasn't?). He also has a pretty good record against some big punchers. (um, apart from 2 of course.)

The Rahman KO was devastating, but more down to conditioning IMO - but still you can't remove it. If you're arrogant and not in great shape, it serves you right.

The McCall one, there is no possible excuse. Poor technique from an over confident, right hand banger IMO. I've seen guys far worse be allowed to carry on, but I've seen guys in better shape not allowed to continue either.

Not sure getting stopped is worse than being outboxed, but it's certainly more definitive.

I guess after that spiel I'm agreeing pretty much with you. It's a knock on him that other guys don't have.

(Hopefully now I can be removed from being "no different to a Mayweather fan" now........... )

(My top 10 would look very different because as I said, my knowledge of the old timers means if I put them in it would be because I think I should based on nothing more than trying to seem like I know what I"m talking about).

 

I thought Vitali was kicking Lewis' ass, but I still hold lewis in higher regards than Vitali.

So I definitely hold the guy in a high regard.

 

Yeah, I use the mayweather fan type **** when someone is just riding a boxer without any actual evidence.
If you said to me that it didn't matter that lewis was stopped by a couple of would-be's I would just think "okay, super fan with a bunch of bias" but when you acknowledge that he shouldn't have been stopped by the guys, it helps your cause.

Trust me, I have a lot of respect for Lewis(a lot of americans write him off, honestly)
And top 13 in the most celebrated division in the history of boxing is pretty f'n good.

I am sure if I lived in England I would easily be able to justify him being in the top 8, but I get bombarded with american media and american heavyweight history, so you do have to recognize that.

 

To be honest, i didnt appreciate Lewis when he was around but now that ive watched his career set, he's without a doubt, one of the greates of all times.. H2H he could have beaten anybody on any given night imo..

I miss the guy really. I mean his performance against Vitali was top ****in notch even when he wasn't fully prepared. That shows volumes..