Larry Holmes and Lennox Lewis

I'm not saying it's an argument for Holmes being greater than Lewis. In some ways he wasn't, and I rate Lewis higher H2H. If Larry couldn't outbox someone, he was done; if Lewis couldn't outbox someone, he could fall back on being a physical brute who can crack.

I have Lewis at #3 behind the obvious. Holmes at #4. When all said and done for him, though, Usyk is going to enter the conversation -- especially if he beats Fury in a rematch, then beats Parker, Kabayel, and Zhang.

 

Would you not regard the Ruddock performance as one of his best?

 

For sure I just hope he's able to keep it up he's getting up there in age but skillwise I consider him the most skilled heavyweight I've ever seen.

 

Holmes made 19 defences of his title. It's more than twice the number of Lewis' defences. So we can give him easily a pass for the weaker defences he made. And contrary to Lewis, he was never beaten in his physical prime, let alone KOed.
He reached the 48-0 mark before losing in two close fights against a light heavyweight legend. Lewis never attained 48 fights in his whole career. Larry had incredible longevity and I think he should get great credit for that.

Lewis was at first a paper champion (1992-1994) and became truly the Man when he beat a declining but still good Holyfield twice. He then had an excellent year in 2000, beating two highly regarded opponents (Grant and Tua) but was one shotted by Rahman the year after. He regained the title in great style, but for me, this defeat exclude him for being rated higher than a consistent champion like Holmes.

Holmes was able to keep up with younger contenders/champions while he was in his 40's. And he never was down.
Lewis was just down twice, but was never able to get up and continue the fight. But to be fair, he was beaten with excellent right hands.

 

His losing effort against Holyfield was great too in a way. He was defeated in that fight by father time, not by Holyfield. I saw enough there to be convinced that in his prime, he'd have taken a prime Holyfield without a lot of issue.

 

Was the Marvis Frazier fight counted as a title defence ?
It's true for Lennox but I only took in account his second reign.

Shavers is recognized as of the biggest punchers in boxing. No wonder Holmes was more shaken.
The ref stopped Lennox because he was clearly unable to continue : you can see that his legs were still shaky when the referee waived the fight off.

 

The difference is that Holmes was able to clearly stand up at 9 whereas Lewis wasn't.

 

Frank Bruno was straight up out jabbing Lewis.

Won or lost, it was a close fight that could’ve gone either way against good but not top level contender who was already past his prime and out of shape.

Another close fight that could’ve gone either way, except that was a past prime Holmes against a prime Witherspoon, who was frankly better than most of Lewis’s top opponents.

 

These are good points in Lewis' favor. He had a bit of a strange career because his highs were very high, and his lows were very low. Holmes doesn't have as many stellar wins as Lewis, but Holmes also usually didn't look as bad as Lewis did in his 2 very bad losses.


Holmes Pros & Cons:

-Pro: Longer reign, more title defenses. Quantity over quality
-Pro: Continued to beat much younger men while well past it such as Mercer.
-Pro: When Holmes was KO'd, it was when he was pushing 40, inactive, and coming off 2 losses against a prime Tyson.
-Pro: His other losses were often quite controversial such as the 2nd Spinx fight (many thought he won, and I gave him the nod), and the loss to Nielson which was also controversial.
-Pro: He did manage to get off the floor to win very rough moments against Snipes and Shavers and fought through rough adversity such as when he was sick against Weaver, had a torn bicep against Norton, etc.
-Pro: In terms of h2h, he had one of the best jabs ever, a good laser right hand, good uppercut, good defense, and incredible recuperative powers.

-Con: Holmes didn't avenge any losses.
-Con: You could argue he shouldn't have lost to Spinx in the first place, and it happened 2x officially. He has the distinction of being one of the very few lineal HW champs to lose to a light heavy moving up.
-Con: Some of his wins were also controversial/very close nail biters such as the Witherspoon match.
-Con: Never became undisputed despite numerous opportunities and missed some key prime opponents (Page, Thomas).
-Con: In terms of h2h, he lacked variety in his offense lacking a good hook, had a fairly basic guard on defense relying on sheer reflexes/clinching to survive, wasn't very powerful, could have issues closing out close rounds convincingly, was a sucker for looping right hands.


Lewis Pros & Cons:

-Pro: Numerous good wins such as prime and/or ranked opponents Grant, Tua, Golota, etc. Quality over quantity.
-Pro: 3x champ and also became undisputed.
-Pro: Beat nearly every single notable fighter across an entire decade.
-Pro: Avenged both of his losses.
-Pro: Has more elite A level names such as Holyfield, Tyson, Vitali, etc.
-Pro: Ended his career on a high note refusing to pass the torch to a future great.
-Pro: In terms of h2h, he was arguably one the best big men/super heavies of all time. Knew how to pop out his heavy jab and frustrate smaller opponents, heavy right hand, crushing uppercut, strong as an ox, high ring IQ and ring generalship, and knew how to win rounds and play it safe.

-Con: Really shouldn't have lost to either of the men who beat him in the first place and never got off the floor to win (although technically Briggs knocked him down unofficially).
-Con: Missed a few important names such as Bowe (egregious), along with Byrd and Ruiz (both fairly understandable).
-Con: Some of the best names he beat were on the slide or past their prime (Tyson, Holyfield, etc). This was partly due to Lewis' insistence on remaining an amateur longer to win gold while his peers beat the crap out of each other.
-Con: In terms of h2h, he could get lazy or overconfident. He would sometimes paw with the jab, had leaky defense, occasionally had questionable stamina, abused the jab, grab, and move tactic to play it safe (boring to watch and easy for an elite of equal skill to overcome), wore his trunks high to discourage body shots, had a questionable chin, etc.


Holmes has 6 pros, 5 cons.
Lewis has 7 pros, 4 cons.

Lewis narrowly edges it and gets my vote. Lewis had the slightly better career, and was a slightly bigger threat h2h, but he also had more notable weaknesses as a fighter and worse losses.

 

Norton visibly showed his age in his previous fight vs. Young (which he arguably could've lost, or at best, just barely eked out in the final round) & then was blasted out by Shavers in only a round less than a year after Holmes beat him.

There's no reason to think Norton was something "Lewis has never fought" - he would've been a likely KO victim for at least a few of the big punchers on Lewis' resume, let alone Lewis himself.

I'd say that principle more appropriately applies to Holmes than Lennox. For example, his wins over Witherspoon & Smith look good in retrospect, but neither one had more than 15 fights at the time they were given title shots.

A past-best Holy was still coming off a strong run of wins that included stoppages of Tyson & Moorer, & a "shot" Tyson was essentially the equivalent of Cooney - a big name that captured the public's imagination w/ a string of wins over B & C tier opposition, but wasn't tested or proven vs. top tier competition.

 

This. I agree Lewis was not in the prime of his career, but let’s not overstate it, either.