Is Lennox Lewis Overrated

read Lewis turned down £9 million which equates to $18 million+and a guaranteed title shot.... yet he accepted a meager $3 million... Seth Abraham said Lewis never had any intention of fighting Tyson... The $3 million step-a-side-money was paid so that Tyson could fight Bruce Seldon and add the WBA title to his WBC title and fight Lewis next.. Lewis accepted the $3 million and Tyson won Seldon's WBA belt... Lewis then wanted nothing to do with Tyson and in the exact way that he done 3yrs earlier with Riddick Bowe he dragged his feet and priced himself out of a fight knowing fine well that Tyson would be stripped of the WBC title just like Bowe was to be stripped of it back in 1993 with the difference being that before they stripped Bowe he beat them to it and said,"up yours" to the WBC and dumped their belt in the garbage can Riddick Bowe tells his side in the video and even with it right here under your nose you still cannot accept it and still go along with the drivel that Tyson & Bowe was terrified of Lewis.. put some proof up to show this is not the truth.

 

I'm not going back 20 or 30 years of history,but didn't lewis take Tyson/king to court?

Also there was a video of Evander telling Bowe to his face that he ducked Lennox.

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Mavrovic had never been stopped in his pro career though. Wlad never stopped the much smaller David Haye (who had been stopped before) but that doesn't reflect on Wlads power. Besides he has Ruddock, Tua, Bruno. No person had managed to do a 1 round job on Golota either

Mercer was not a gift decision. Most people scored it for Lewis on the night. I had always seen that Lewis edged it. Very close fight though.

It's fine if you see him as overrated but you're selling him short.

 

Time to put a thread posting bar on newbs.

 

No

 

Who did Wlad ever beat? He also lost 5x. I love Usyk but he has 1 great win at heavyweight, way too early to mention him in LL's class at heavyweight.

 

Jesus christ where are all these Alts and crap threads coming from.
No one says Lewis is unstoppable...so the premise of the thread is garbage.
Most of the clowns on here are merely trying to undermine bacause a/ he beat their fighter (TK06) or b/ Undermine to make the current crop appear better despite being a weaker era and most of them avoiding each other.
The fact is Lennox was in a good era and finished having avenged his two losses and was undisputed.
People now crying like hoes nearly 20 years later is telling in itself.

 

Well Vitali was 30 so........It's irrelevant Lewis stopped Vitali by punching him in the face lots of times.....
Who did Vlad beat? Haye?
Jesus wept some of you are so transparent and dim.

 

Based on his performance against Lewis, I'd say Tyson should have been terrified.

 

I’ve discussed this over and over, Haye wouldn’t even be in Wlad’s Top 3 wins if you look at the facts. I have several posts on this in my history. Guys like Povetkin, Byrd, and Chagaev>>Haye. Povetkin would beat anybody Lennox fought by the time Lennox actually fought (except probably Vitali, but who knows) them.

 

Personally, I have him #3 atg heavyweight after Muhammad and Larry.

 

Lennox Lewis is arguably the GOAT at heavyweight. He certainly had the greatest career of them all.

Lennox Lewis beat future World Heavyweight Champion (and Hall of Famer) Riddick Bowe in the Olympic final to win gold. That win was arguably the biggest Olympic gold medal win of any man who went on to win the World heavyweight title.

Did Patterson, Ali, Frazier, Foreman, Wlad, Joshua, Mercer, etc. beat a future World Heavyweight Champion and Hall of Famer in their Olympic final? UM, NO.

Lennox beat every man he faced as a professional ...

Including 13 former, reigning or future heavyweight champions: Vitali Klitschko, Evander Holyfield, Mike Tyson, Henry Akinwande, Hasim Rahman, Ray Mercer, Tommy Morrison, Frank Bruno, Tony Tucker, Shannon Briggs, Oliver McCall, Frans Botha, Mike Weaver ... Two cruiserweight champions: Glen McCrory and Ossie Ocasio ... and nearly a dozen heavyweight contenders like David Tua, Razor Ruddock, Andrew Golota, Gary Mason, Michael Grant, Tyrell Biggs, Zeljko Mavrovic, Lionel Butler and Phil Jackson.

And Lennox retired on top as the World Champion. His last defense was against the man who succeeded him World Champ, Vitali Klischko.

Again, who does that? Did Tunney retire after beating Schmeling in his last defense? No. Did Marciano retire after beating Patterson in his last defense? NO.

If you could ask any heavyweight in history if they would want to have Lennox Lewis' career - Olympic Gold Medal, beat every man you fight as a pro, retire on top as champ with tens of millions in the bank ... your health and all your marbles, they would ALL TAKE IT.

Would anyone have rather gone out like Ali ... losing his last fight in a dilapidated baseball park, on a card where all the boxers had to share gloves, with a cowbell for a ring bell?

Or Joe Louis, fighing to pay the tax man and having to become a pro wrestler?

Or like Holmes, fighting in old-timer bouts and against freakshows like Butterbean?

Lewis probably had the best career of any heavyweight champion and that great retirement continues to this day.

If you can't name a fighter with a better combined amateur, pro and postfight run than Lewis, then I'd say his career is not overrated, but underrated.

 

Lewis and Holmes are weird their either rated too high or far too low. I think those two are in particularly hot and cold for some.

 

Larry Holmes chose his final retirement point. He was financially set before he came back in the 90s. Unlike many, he wasn't fighting at the tail end because he needed the money, he was fighting because he wanted to fight.

... and he fought Butterbean because he thought Butterbean was a freakshow joke, and wanted to show the world that even at age 52, a real fighter could whoop Butterbean. And he did. He won every round. At age 52.

Sorry, I'm a Holmes fan. Don't actually disagree with anything you said about Lewis.

 

“How many opponents did he stop who were never stopped before”?

That’s a new one on me. Haven’t heard of that measure.

I don’t know how many but Mike Tyson is regarded as the best heavyweight puncher of modern times and I don’t think he had a whole heck of lot of those.

Interesting criteria.