Lennox Lewis in the 20's... would he be known as a God today?

LOL Lewis is far from a God! Not even close! There was nothing exceptional about Lewis. His "big" wins came against guys who were well past their primes - Holyfield, Tyson etc.... He was simply a "good" fighter who happened to come along at the right time, and was managed well.

To address the question at hand though, yes, i think prime Lewis probably would've dominated the 1920's for the most part. His only real competition at that time would've been Dempsey in the early 20's, and Tunney in the latter half of the 20's. Lewis would outweigh them both by a good 30-40 lbs, he'd also have a height advantage of roughly 5 inches, and a reach advantage of about 10 inches on both men. And even with all that, i think Dempsey would still have a good chance at a win.

 

Exactly. People make it seem like big guys didn't exist until 1990 or 2000. There were big people hundreds of years ago; they just weren't elite-level athletes.

 

If he was periodically shuttled back to the present to keep him honest then I can't see anyone beating him from the 20s or 30s. If he was just dumped in that time period, however, and forced to make the most of it for the rest of his life, then I could see him getting complacent, cutting corners, or perhaps fighting down to his opponents' level due to there being no-one around who could remotely match him.

He might also be exasperated/disillusioned/frustrated by the state of the heavyweight division at that time regarding black fighters, which might affect his general personality and hence fighting style. Smaller gloves and no neutral corner rules might take some adapting as well, though both those things should theoretically help him.

Would he be regarded as a god today? Probably, though his lack of competition would make it hard to really rate him.

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He'd never get a title shot, but otherwise clean up. Old white men today would viciously argue that he wasn't better than Dempsey and that Dempsey wanted to fight him.

 

dempsey would ko him, sharkey, wills, and tunney by decision, godfrey by ko otherwise he would do ok

 

He'd probably have to cut off his dreads to avoid accusations of pansiness from the gutter press, with who knows what sort of catastrophic effect?

 

:good
Even a modern Lewis somehow fighting in the twenties isn't completely unbeatable, as Lewis could sometimes be either a bit overconfident, or could sometimes be tenative/undecisive in his plans and take a while to really commit to a particular approach. I'm not saying a '20's Dempsey would be favored over a '90's Lewis, but an early Dempsey stoppage would atleast not be a great suprise.
Dempsey/Lewis both coming along in the same era, I like Dempsey just a little.

 

Lennox had a lot of power but I really don't know how his big hands would hope up fighting with the 4oz and 5oz gloves.
Also, it doesn't matter how good you were, in those days you had to start at the bottom, fighting often for small purses.
Not 1980s-style amateur fights, and then a bank-rolled professional career.
He'd probably have to start out as a starving carnival fighter, or on 'battle royale' side-shows, and then moving through tanks towns or unlicensed smokers in the city.
Who knows how he'd cope ?
He would probably have to change his style drastically.

 

Assuming it's the exact same Lennox Lewis, complete with modern steroids, do we give him the big 10oz gloves ?

 

No one powerful enough to KO him, he'd been an undefeated legend by now. His KO percentage would be much higher also against those 190 pound heavyweights.


Instead of 41-2-1 with 32 KO's taht Lewis ended his career with, I see a 44-0 44 KO's as a 1920's retired champ.

 

If you want to discuss modern era fighters who would've dominated the 20's, there are better examples to use than Lewis.

 

John Ruiz?

 

Truthfully?

He would have picked up a string of losses before he got to world level, just like everybody else did back then.

 

@ Absolutely - Seriously? No, not John Ruiz. But any number of Champs or top contenders after 1960. Some that come to mind are Cassius Clay, George Foreman, Joe Frazier, Larry Holmes, Tony Tucker, Mike Tyson, Michael Spinks, Evander Holyfield, Riddick Bowe, etc.... If we're not limiting ourselves to just HWs, Roy Jones Jr, Tommy Hearns, Bernard Hopkins, Shane Mosely, Floyd Mayweather Jr, Manny Pacquiao, Oscar DeLaHoya, Marvin Hagler, Sugar Ray Leonard....to name a few, are/were all better fighters than Lewis, and are better examples to use.

 

I honestly think that Mickey Walker would p[robably have beaten him!