Lennox Lewis: How does he rate?

Lewis is top drawer.
You cant have such a long career and be great every fight .
As a person he is analytical,which led to over caution at times. He had 2 loses to haymaker punches that would have put most people down.He took those 2 fights lightly especially the second one. I will make one statement about Lennox ..."Nobody he EVER shared a ring with proved themselves a better fighter than him,NOBODY ever bettered him in the ring".
That statement is true and does him great credit in such a long career.
True,their will be posters that i expect will say he missed peak fights with Bowe Tyson and Holyfield, but i believe that was not his fault and you can only judge on what he did.I have read people on here calling him 'chinny' ,a comment that is absolutely laughable.
He ducked nobody and fought a long list of good heavyweights and some very good ones.
He was awesome at his best,frustrating at his worst.
A great fighter and a good man.
Pleasure to see him with a wife and family,happy and well.

 

H2H a beast, great resume, exciting to watch. He could box, and if you outbox him he would resort to his physicality. Top 10 imo top 15 if youre a dick about it or have a lot of old timers. Exciting to watch. I'd favor 80s, 91, 96 Tyson over Lewis, 92 to 95 Bowe,
73 Foreman. Possibly Liston I feel Lennox would lose by KO in the aforementioned bouts. Not an iron chin but Lennox could take a decent shot. Not a glass chin by any means. What I find most impressive is the way Lennox comes out aggressive when physically threatened. He absolutely destroyed Ruddock, Biggs (although past it not an embarassing loss imo), Morrison, Golota, Briggs, Grant, etc. Took a peak Vitali's best
shots and turned his face into a Picasso. Nuff said.

 

You have to rate him highly. He was a big, big guy with great power and a good all-round game.

I will admit that for large stretches of his career, I was not all that impressed. But in the grand scheme of things, once the smaller, less significant flaws he had faded from memory, I realised that he was a hell of a fighter.

I do think that he sometimes looked slightly clumsy and a bit disorganised sometimes, but over the course of his career he only lost twice, so whatever small ungainliness showed up now and then, it didn't matter.

What impressed me with Lewis is that he handled adversity pretty well and when he was active that was one question mark I always had of him. At the time, I doubted his inner toughness, but the Mercer and later Vitali fights showed to me that he could fight in the trenches and pull out a win against stubborn, quality opposition.

My favourite performances of Lewis are the Ruddock, Mercer and Rahman II fights. Each showed us a different element to his overall game and each helped to define his legacy. I also liked his destruction of Tommy Morrison.

He's not a favourite of mine and never will be, but nonetheless he was a great fighter.

 

It's a good question.I don't know.
To me Lewis' legacy is similar to Holyfeld's.
These two fighters' carrier are based on Mike Tyson relation.
Somehow Tyson's fame carried these two guys' legacy.
And their wins/win against Tyson saved their lagacy.
Tyson was heavyweight champion in 1986.But who was Holyfield or Lewis in 1986?
They were total nobodies in the pro-heavyweight scene.
It's bizarre because these fighters are older (Holyfield is much more older) than
Tyson. What was Holyfield's and Lewis' problem ?
Their heavyweight prime started later than Tyson's .It's bizarre.I don't know similar
case in the boxing history.For example the Ali-Frazier-Foreman was a logical thing.
In my opinion we must ignore Lewis' and Holyfield's win or wins against Tyson.
I think Lewis' carrier montage without the Tyson win-isn't so impressive.

 

I think his size unimportant factor in this question.This is a propagana blah-blah.Valuev was much more taller and heavier.Plus Valuev hasn't
ko loss.He has two close losses by points.Is Valuev greater than Lennox
Lewis because he was a bigger(taller/heavier) and tougher fighter with much more better chin ?
I say again the size isn't advantage because the heavyweight division
is/was full of tall/fat/big etc. fighters. A good fighter can beat everybody.
Otherwise his size never was an important factor because two shorter
and lighter fighter destroyed him.This proves his size couldn't save him
from the shame.A bum Rahman destroyed him with classic one punch ko.
The "prime" McCall destroyed him in the second round !
And this Mccall couldn't knock the 45!! years old Holmes out.
The 45 years old Holmes did better against McCall than Lewis.
Bruno beat the prime McCall.
-Lewis punching power is total overrated.He has maximum 28 power kos/44
fights.
-But i think he had more problematic ko wins also.
His kos against Bruno and Tyson are based on stamina problem.
-The Golota ko was impressive but Golota's had knee problem and i think
the Lidocaine influenced Golota dramatcally.
I wanna say Lewis has 25 really impressive kos .
But i couldn't i think his ko against Ruddock is based on his opponent's
destroyed punching resistance.
1. Smith knocked Ruddock down but Ruddock came back and won.
2. First Tyson fight,Tyson knocked him out.
3. Second Tyson fights.Tyson knocked Ruddock down two times and
broke Ruddock's jaw and Ruddock headed to the hospital without
hesitatin.
After these things Ruddock was an easy victim for the fresh Lewis.
Poor Ruddock faced into a punch in the first and Lewis
knocked him out in the second round.
And it's sad but very true Lewis couldn't knock Mercer,Holyfield,,Mavrovic,Tua,Billups,Ocasio,bad Tucker,Epps,Akinwande
out.He couldn't knock with his best punches vitali down.
The Chanet and vitali kos were cut kos,Mccall ko was mental problem,Mason ko was an injury.
Rahman and Mccall destroyed him on their first fight.
A what's the typical excuse? I think the following: IRON chin or Lewis was UNPREPARED.
To me Lewis hadn't enough punching power.

 

somewhere in the middle of the top 10 ATG, he had great offensive skills for about 8 rounds but never stopped anyone after 8 rounds. He seemed to take a good punch but did not recover well once dropped he never succeeded to get up to win. His size and offensive skills would make him defeat many and he had decent boxing ability for a big man with a variety of punches. His best and most impressive win was Razor Rudduck and a older Mike Tyson the Botha and Golota and Grant wins were impressive but the opposition was weak. He did not impress me vs Evander or Mercer.

 

borderline top five ATG.
All the tools, plus nearly all the acheivements, just that loss of top level of concentration and commitment at times in his career that cost him.

 

VVMM.
1.In 1986 Lewis was an amateur preparing to win the next olympics.
2.To criticise his win over Ruddock is madness.
3. To question his power is madder.
4.To mention Valuev in the same sentence even,never mind compare him with Lennox is insanity !

 

3rd greatest heavyweight of all time IMO, behind 1.Ali and 2.Louis

 

A great fighter, i have no problem placing him #2 on my H2H lists.

Thats a fully focused Lewis btw, not the ****y one.

Probably THE smartest heavyweight of them all

 

Automatic top ten and except for Ali probably the most problematical head to head for any of the other champs to face.imo.

 

I think ranking between 4-7 is reasonable. On an average day I have him at #5. He beat the best of a division for most of a decade, chalked up quite a few title wins and had reasonable longevity. He suffered some defeats to lesser men but had the grit to avenge them both. Ad to that his claim of medaling in two olympics and you have a pretty solid resume.

 

I agree.. When the man was well trained and motivated he'd be problematic for anyone. I think the 1996-2000 rendition of Lewis would have positively beaten the **** out of the Klitschko brothers.

 

Very good record. Fought virtually anyone who was anyone during his time. It was n't his fault that Riddick Bowe's people were scared to fight him.


Good boxer/puncher - Borderline top 5,as has been mentioned