Britton had the edge in the series,he was a fine boxer,,but Lewis fought all weights ,undoubtedly one of Englands best ,p4p I might rate the "Dashing Bashing Crashing" Kid higher.Lewis,real name Gershon Mendeloff is credited with introducing the gumsheild.
It's like this - they both did incredible things and I don't think there is very much in it. When there isn't very much in it I always, always, always drift back to head to head, this is the case even if the fighters fought 50 years apart. These two had the argument and settled it conclusively. Britton is greater.
Lewis ranks higher for me. For those who are gonna rank them based on their boxrec records, I'd warn you against doing so, with those newspaper decisions. For example, their first fight, 1915-03-26, is listed as a NWS win for Britton, but according to Lewis' biography: TK waited to read the morning papers before cabling home. A clear majority of reporters awarded a close fight to the English boy."
Holding that belief, what then distinguishes Lewis for you from Britton to make Ted the greater fighter?
I feel he's slightly more versatile boxer, more adaptable. Although Britton also rarely repeated the same mistake twice, so they are close at this too. It may come to personal (subjective) preference, I suppose, as they had so many fights, and I've read only about very small portion of them, to figure all the details. They are always next to each other in all ratings.
Another example, supposedly Lewis lost to Mike Gibbons on 1916-05-18. According to his bio, "the majority of the press found for Ted Kid Lewis". Nat Fleischer years later wrote, that "Lewis, actually outpointed the St Paul Phantom and those who had come to cheer Mike to victory turned to cheer the cocky Britisher instead. When the bout was over, Gibbons was bleeding from several cuts about the face, and his wind was none too good. Lewis left the ring without a scratch. There had been some Irish boos when Ted climbed through the ropes, but nobody appreciates true fighting qualities more than the Irish, and the New York Irish rose to cheer him in the end. He had won the American support for his cause and thereafter they flocked to his bouts because they knew what kind of action to expect." Who knows what there actually was, but the thing is the NY Times with it's "easy decision for Gibbons" was a BS claim, even if Gibbons (probably the best middleweight at the time, while Lewis was possibly only a lightweight at the time) won, it was by very narrow margin.
Yeah I've heard about the controversy surrounding this fight... What motive do you think the NY Times had in calling it an 'easy' decision for Gibbons? I can understand then saying Gibbons won close, but easy? Weird. Are there any other sources from the time that covered the fight? As you've said yourself, Nat Fleischer is pretty unreliable when reminiscing.
NY Times of that period, honestly, wasn't the best NY newspaper covering boxing. Not only did it ignore many fights that had taken place in NY (not reporting them at all), but a lot of time it only gave short articles about fights, as if they were wire news, no description of the fight itself, only result and short commentary.
