Larry Holmes and Lennox Lewis

Lennox is 3-0 against top fighers of his era while you could argue Holmes is 0-3 or 1-3 against the top fighters of his. Lennox beat Tyson while Tyson beat Holmes easily. Lennox has the no unavenged losses thing.

Holmes run into his 40s actually hurt him because he removed whatever asterisks would have otherwise been on the Tyson and Spinks losses. Its hard to argue someones washed 10 years before they fight for a belt. Holmes run was a lot less impressive than Foreamans who beat Moorer while Holmes could not defeat McCall. All he really accomplished is proving he wasn't washed during his later run as champ.

Don't confuse this as me saying I don't think its close. But virtually anything you could use as a tiebreaker favors Lennox.

 

I'd pick Holmes most of the time, the only things that you can put against him are when he was past his best, and he fought better competition than Lewis in their primes (Not exactly Lewis' fault, though).
Norton, Shavers, Weaver, Witherspoon... yup.

 

I wouldn’t say Holmes fought better opposition at all, personally.

 

I'd definitely consider his opposition superior to guys like Ruddock, Golota, or past prime Holyfield.

 

Lewis was the top dog in one of the strongest eras of boxing Holmes was the top dog in one of the weakest. Despite this Holmes struggled against his opposition while Lewis for the most part didn't.

 

Lewis was KO'ed twice in his prime Holmes wasn't Lewis also had some shaky moments vs Bruno, Mercer, Briggs.

Holmes had his Rahman, McCall, moments vs Shavers, Snipes, but unlike Lewis managed to comeback from heavy knockdowns.

Lewis did have better opposition overall yes but was still stopped twice in his prime which is one advantage Holmes has over Lewis considerably.

 

Lennox is an incredible ATG. But I keep thinking about how Holmes never got knocked out by a second rater.

 

It’s tough one. Holmes for me, but Lewis isn’t far behind him.

And yes, Lewis was knocked out by McCall and Rahman, but he avenged them both.

 

Have Holmes way lower. Prob have Holmes around 7 while Lewis is my 3. Lewis would have had a shot to be up w the top two w three more good wins

 

Because Holmes was allowed to keep fighting while both of Lewis knockouts were early stoppages when he could have kept fighting. Lewis later avenged his defeats Holmes never did.

 

Rahman stoppage was certainly not an early stoppage come on......theres no way Lewis could continue.

Maybe you have an argument for the McCall one but Lewis got up and staggered 3 times so I don't see much wrong with the stoppage.

Well Holmes could've revenged the loss to Spinks but was robbed of a decision, 2 of his other losses were against ATGs in their prime Holyfield, Tyson, whilst Holmes was considerably past his best. And his final losses were at the age of 40+ that's not really a fair comparison. That's a bit different to being 1 shotted by McCall, Rahman, when you're in your prime much easier to revenge those losses one of those "revenge" losses was when McCall wasn't even mentally fit to fight BTW.

 

Lewis, but I'm starting to waver

 

Fair enough to Rahman but I think getting cocky and knocked out by a hard punch in a fight you were winning shouldn't be held against you too much when he proved he was the superior boxer in the next fight. Overall Lewis was still the champ in a much better era beat better fighters while not having the amount of close fights or difficulties that Holmes did against worse competition.

 

Calling the Shadow era one of the worst is real funny. You only usually hear this argument from guys that aren't super familiar with the era or haven't seen fights. And Holmes struggled with his opposition? We are comparing his performances to Lewis, right?

 

Seriously go back and look at Holmes' fights, get a refresher, even if you didn't see em in the first place.
Shavers
Norton
Evangelista
Unbeaten Ocasio
Weaver
Shavers again
Unbeaten Jones
LeDoux
Berbick
Spinks
Unbeaten Snipes
Unbeaten Cooney
Cobb
Unbeaten Witherspoon
Unbeaten Frazier
Smith
Williams
I didn't even name everybody, and he started to decline and was still unbeaten until Spinks. He was out taking scalps.