Lennox Lewis, Greatest Heavyweight of all time

-I meant after Tyson, sorry. I know Tyson/Lewis was big and just posted it as #2 in that other thread for biggest fights of 2000s.

-Two completely different situations of course. I got baited into that one.

 

Well, you have your definition but I think it must be noted that in the end this fight not happening was Lewis' decision and I've done enough to make that case. There is no other party to place the blame on. Lewis refused his contender. Rather you think he was right or wrong is going to be a personal decision. I think he was wrong.

I'm not going to take the Champion at his word. Like Byrd said, if he's so weak, take the 10 million payday and prove it.

 

No, I just think it's funny watching you go blue in the face attempting to convince everyone (but convincing no one) that Byrd was a viable threat or in-demand challenger for Lewis.


Not just this particular thread, but like - any time Lewis is brought up.

 

That's not the thread I've seen at all.

I've had good discussion with Magoo and McGrain and provoked some interesting comments. Some agree with me on some points, and some have respectfully not. That is fine.

Redman and Foxy01 are the only people going blue in the face and making fools of themselves because I dare criticize Lewis. Maybe you should reserve the smugness for their creepy posts and bizarre overreactions.

 

Well the second point is fair although it was an official eliminator for the ibf. As to the first although Lewis wasn't particularly popular he did have the cachet of being heavyweight champion of the world which was enough to get him a part in oceans 11 and a share in one of the biggest fights iof the century. Byrd had guys threatening to quit there jobs as boxing reporters. He had a small window and he was unable to press the issue.

 

-And Lewis was the IBF Champion.

-I can't agree there. I think Byrd pushed the issue as far as he could. Lewis simply did not want this fight to happen. Byrd beat Holyfield and held the belt for three or four years, tried his best to make the big fights and often failed.

-ESPN had Byrd's back at this time but your right, his pecking style was not liked in general. Still I think the Tua, McCline, and Golota fights are good fun. He did what he had to do against Holyfield. The Williamson and Oquendo fights generated the nastiest press.

 

OK

If Lewis had announced his retirement after his hand was raised in the Tyson fight, the talk would actually have been whether Tyson or Holyfield was going to replace him.

Byrd was absolutely being talked about as a challenger for Lewis, and there were those accusing him of ducking Byrd.

Roy Jones was also discussed as a possible challenger, and Lewis was interested in this fight.

The Klitschko’s didn’t seem to get much mass media attention at all.

 

That's all true. Especially the first part, we really weren't ready to give up on Tyson and Holyfield.

 

These old school analogies really don't work, there was only one Champion then.

Say in 1949. It would be like if Mills had two LWH belts. And say RING#1 Maxim was busy fighting cans in Germany and RING #2 Moore became his #1 contender to one of thoes belts and he was like "f**K that! I'm dropping that belt, I'm the real Champion, that belt means nothing, I got another."

 

Not been funny but this is / was a thread about where Lewis rates amongst the all time best heavyweights.

You've derailed it with a bizarre multiple page discussion about whether or not he ducked Chris Byrd of all people.

Are you related to Byrd or something? I've never seen someone debate such a non issue so hard.

A fight between Lewis and Byrd was never clamored for at the time and it's not like Byrd went on to achieve such great things afterwards which make the Lewis / Byrd match up really interesting in hindsight.

Now everyone is obviously entitled to their opionion but I don't see how Lewis ducking Byrd, if you want to believe that, impacts on Lewis' greatness ranking at all, it certainly doesn't impact enough to warrant discussion about it dominating this thread.

There are plenty of legitimate weaknesses to Lewis' resume / career that are worthy of discussion in a thread about where he ranks in the heavyweight pantheon but him not fighting Chris Byrd isn't one of them.

 

I disagree.

 

-Nor should you. But when #1 is not available and said #2 contender is worthy, ready, available for a 10 million payday, and has done everything he can to secure the fight only to be outright dismissed with no alternative opponent or valid reasoning beyond not wanting to fight him, it raises a red flag.

-And as janitor pointed out, there were ducking accusations. I've even linked articles discussing it on such terms.