Journalist Asks Lennox Lewis Whether He Purposefully Avoided Southpaws

Lewis resume and still people say he ducked.

Fighters cannot win.

 

Lewis would have jabbed the crap outta Byrd all night
Byrd was nothing special but Lewis will go down as an ATG

Maddness

 

Lennox was a great fighter, but he clearly avoided Byrd, who is a tricky opponent. If Byrd would’ve been such an easy fight Lennox wouldn’t have thrown away his belt. Also, Chris going into the Wlad fight was training for a rematch with Vitali, who’s team wanted nothing to do with Byrd, but instead offered him Wlad at the last minute. Wlad indeed did beat Byrd, but Wlad was better at fighting clever boxers than either Lennox or Vitali was. Vitali lost to the only clever boxer he fought and Lennox barely beat a shot Holyfield in the rematch.

 

I think Moorer would have been a tough fight for Lewis. I would still favor Lewis but MM was a good combination puncher and could present some problems. I'm sure Manny Steward knew the risk outweighed the reward.

 

Moorer didn't want it.

"In the afterglow of his triumph Friday over Evander Holyfield, Michael Moorer is reluctant and evasive about topics ranging from unifying the heavyweight division in a fight against Lennox Lewis to his future as a boxer.

"I don't have a burning desire to fight anyone," Moorer, the new heavyweight champion, said at a news conference in Manhattan yesterday. Lewis holds the World Boxing Council title. Moorer just won the World Boxing Association and International Boxing Federation titles."

https://www.nytimes.com/1994/04/27/sports/moorer-rejects-idea-of-unification.html

 

Moorer didn't have the chin to beat Lewis, once Lewis lands it would be all over and as my previous post shows Moorer had no interest in unifying with Lewis, he fought Foreman instead and we all know what happened.

 

Byrd was his mandatory that's true and he did accept money from King and a car to drop his belt and let King make Holyfield/Byrd for a vacant title. But Lewis was at the tail end of his career, he was bigger than the belts by then, he was looking to make big money fights then retire, so Byrd who one posed no threat whatsoever and wouldn't provide him with a good payday wasn't a fight he had any interest in.

Byrd would of gotten KO'ed by Lewis, he lacked the power to do what Rahman and McCall did and he was simply too small and would be picked off from range to try and out box Lewis. Byrd couldn't deal with Wlad's reach and needed an injury to beat Vitali in a fight he was losing, no way he beats the even longer reach of Lewis and can do enough to win.

 

I'm not saying MM would beat Lewis. I would definitely favor Lewis but MM was a good fighter and his bad chin is exaggerated. His only knockout losses were to Foreman (who he was beating when he got caught) and to Tua who while limited, could punch like a MF. No shame in getting Knockout by those guys. He climbed off the deck plenty of times in his career and had a style that could present problems. I agree with you that he choose to pursue a fight with Foreman over Lewis. George was to good of a payday to pass up.

 

Makes you wonder how Holy and Wlad got around to fighting southpaws considering Tyson, Bowe, and Lennox couldn't find them.

It was still common and accepted in the era to avoid southpaws. They've always been bad business: higher risk than the payday that comes along with them. It winds up becoming a self fulfilling prophecy.

Lennox has a fine resume, but I also think it's silly to give him credit for something that isn't on it at all. Having a stacked list of orthodox sluggers on the ledger doesn't give a great translation on how he'd handle southpaw slicksters or counterpunchers. Maybe he'd have destroyed them all, maybe he'd have struggled. We'll never know.

 

How would anybody know that Lennox would knock him out without the fight happening? Going into the Holyfield fights I remember people saying Lennox was going to easily knockout Holyfield, but it didn’t happen.

Also, Vitali got figured out and quit. Vitali had a rematch clause, but let Wlad, who is the superior fighter take his place against Byrd, since Byrd would’ve just beat Vitali again. I’d also like to add that it wasn’t Wlad’s reach that troubled Byrd, but Wlad’s ability to figure out Byrd’s crouch and time him, but even Wlad wasn’t able to time him as cleanly as Ibeabuchi did. I can’t just assume Lennox would win, since he didn’t fight Byrd.

 

So do you believe Byrd out boxes or KO's Lewis?

As for Vitali you know full well he was injured in the Byrd fight and that's why he quit, Byrd hadn't figured out anything, he got lucky like Charles Martin did vs Glazkov.

 

Botha? LOL. Byrd beat prime David Tua who was in MUCH better shape against Byrd than he was against Lewis. Byrd beat Vitali, old Holyfield, McCline all of whom were superior to Botha.

 

Non of that was before 2000, accept Vitali who he was losing to before he quit. That's not a victory. It's a gift.

 

Moorer was odd he never really trained that well and said he was thinking of retiring while he was champ to become a police officer, his heart was never in it at all.

 

Byrd could have been competitive with Lewis...until getting KTFO.