Lennox Lewis chin: is it bad as advertised?

But ask yourself this. Do you think the shot he threw that KO'd Lewis would have knocked down McCall, Mercer, or Holyfield? Being honest, I don't. McCall would have walked through it. It might have made Mercer or Holyfield back up a step before they shrugged it off and went right back at him.

Lewis's chin was fine though. As has been pointed out (I wish I had), his issue was more in his recovery ability. Some of that is just genetic I guess. How many times did Patterson get off the canvas to win a fight? Hard to explain it other than something genetic. Can't call it lack of heart, Lewis had plenty of heart.

 

There's a hilarious clip of them as old guys discussing this fight.

Holyfield: well what happened is that I had hepatitis
Bowe: don't blame it on hepatitis. what happened is that you had Big Daddy on you.

Side note from that vid -- Holyfield still looks really fit, Bowe is literally pounding a hoagie in the video (and looks like he's spent his retirement pounding hoagies)

 

Complacency was a bigger issue for Lewis than was his chin.

I honestly believe there were only a handful of his fights that he actually got fully up for - the McCall and Rahman rematches being two of them.

In the meantime, Lewis faced more heavy hitters than most and took flush shots off a few of them. If his chin was this major weakness, to the extent Lewis' detractors would like to have people think, then he simply would not have had the career that he did have.

 

Rahman had 42 stoppages out of 50 wins he was no slouch in the power department.

Also beat Corrie Sanders and should've had a win over David Tua but was robbed.

 

Nope. He had a good, solid 6-7/10 chin. This highlight video shows how good his chin was when he wasn't complacent.

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Gotta feeling you're right JT !

 

I'm in the middle regarding Louis's chin. It was not quite as bad as made out to be, or he wouldn't have made it anywhere near the top. However out of all the ATGs, their are quite a few I'd rate above him in terms of durability. Frazier, Ali, Holmes, Foreman, Liston, Tyson, Holy, to name some.

Another thing is I think his chin was inconsistent for lack of a better terms. When he was better conditioned, he absorbed punches much better.

 

Rahman was a pretty good power puncher.

 

He was a flawed fighter when McCall rolled him. Still quite amateurish and IMO without a really defined style. Steward later said his training camps and sparring were most ordinary as well. He was still hard to beat with all his athleticism and power but he was to get a lot better and more structured under Manny.

He dogged it in training (well documented) and acclimatisation for Rahman, gassed fast and got caught and smashed.

It makes you wonder how fine a line there is between a champ and contenders at times, per dedication and preparation needs. Holmes was likely a bit sick against Weaver and got the fight of his life. Louis - Schmeling with extenuating circumstances. Holmes took Spinks lightly and looked terrible but looked a lot more able better prepared in the rematch, even if old. Tyson - Douglas. Duran is another solid example of rocks and diamonds at times tho i don't accept excuses for his every loss. Azumah was another who could be flat in various fights and dynamite in others. Perhaps he was slacking it or going thru the motions at times. The list goes on.

 

Well that's Joe sorted, how about Lennox?

 

Oh, for sure, Lewis was still a work in progress, going into the McCall fight. However, I would go a step further and suggest that his development had not only stagnated but had also actually regressed, over a period of two or three years, leading up to that bout.

One of the Lewis biographies, 'Mama's Boy...', does reasonably well in chronicling the struggles there were in those earlier days to get the right Lewis/Trainer mix. The decision to hire Pepe Correa is subtly lambasted and, for mine, it's where we see Lewis' technical improvement go into stasis and then into a retrograde phase.

To say Correa took an unorthodox approach to training would be to put it mildly. It was verging on 'The Bohemian's Guide to Training your Boxer'. I suppose it would be referred to as 'organic' development in today's parlance. "Let the creativity flow..." and "Make it fun..." kind of thing.

That's not to say that there would not have needed to be a shift from Davenport to a new trainer at some point but, in my opinion, the timing of the decision and the selection on Davenport's replacement was just wrong. From that point in early '92 there was an accident waiting to happen - and it happened.

The paradox here is that by then, it had actually needed to happen, so as to shock the Lewis team out of that ultra-relaxed dynamic, which had almost entirely relied upon Lewis' innate talent for it to appear successful. The added irony, of course, being that Manny Steward - the architect of that 'accident' became the trainer who would get things back on track and take Lewis to the very top.

 

Great takes mate, great takes.

 

Funny also was when Bowe surprised Lewis to apologise and bury the hatchet. Lennox still looked very wary and with good reason - Riddick being a somewhat loose cannon.

Lewis always appeared just a bit taller than Bowe but Riddick’s “apparent” loss of height is notable - Riddick’s stooped posture also making the difference in height even greater.

https://youtube.com/shorts/49vFca_8ziE?feature=share

 

his chin is average at best.

 

I will put it this way.

No fighter could afford to go into a fight with Lewis, with a plan that depended on his chin bailing them out.