Lennox Lewis is overrated

Popular or not he was king during his reign. And by popular, I presume you mean well liked in the US?

 

This post is too far off the wall to merit retort.

Valuev's skills compared to Lewis'...
http://www.eastsideboxing.com/forum/images/smilies/ummm.gif

 

Zakman, one of your key arguments is that when Lewis and Holyfield fought, Holyfield was not prime, and this deflates the significance of those wins (draw/win/disputed win/whatever). You don't seem to put as much weight into this, but a lot of people who rate Holyfield highly mention early on at least the first Tyson victory.

What I'm wondering is how comparable to their primes would you say they were: the Holyfield that Lewis fought compared to the Tyson that Holyfield fought. Also I guess it's necessary to compare how close to prime 1999 Lewis was compared to 1996 Holyfield. Holyfield's prime has always been tough for me because he seemed to have a resurgence around 1996-1998. It'd seem to me that when we're at least referring to the value of wins in terms of the opponent being close to their prime, Lewis's "wins" over Holyfield are pretty similar to Holyfield's wins over Tyson (the way they won notwithstanding).

 

With Tyson, I don't think we can look at age for prime. Some would say he was never the same after the Spinks fight. Others would say after Douglas. Others would say up to prison. Holyfield may have only been a year or two out of his prime, while Tyson may have been far more than that.

The power argument is legitimate when considering primes, particularly with heavyweights. I think the size thing falls into a different arena, though.

 

Oh sure. No doubt that Holyfield's win over Tyson means much more than Lewis's over Tyson. I'm just looking at Lewis's fights with Holyfield compared to Holyfield's fights with Tyson relative to everyone's primes.

 

I try to be objective and your first point was true. I note that you label me as a Lewis fan but I'd rather simply be called a boxing fan. If you have read my earlier posts you will know that I was probably a bigger Holyfield fan back in the 1990's. As far as speculation goes it's really quite simple.

1. Tyson paid $4 million step-aside money to Lewis
2. Bowe refused to fight Lewis when he had signed to do so

Now you can speculate that there were other reasons why these above events took place but the most obvious reasons (and likely correct ones) are that both Bowe and Tyson took what they percieved to be easier fights rather than face Lewis. Bowe especially has NO hiding place here.

Correct. So all we can really do under the circumstances is to look at what happened in actuality. That is, Lewis beat Tyson and Holyfield in the pros and beat Bowe in the amateurs. As you said, to look at anything else is "irrelevant speculation". :yep

 

Watch the Briggs fight, the one where Lewis faces a 228 pound peak physical Briggs, and tell me that wasn't a thing of beauty.

 

True, but for whatever reason Bowe still ducked Lewis. This IS fact.

Lewis 'beat' Holyfield in the first match in a manner that suggested that it was relatively easy for him to do so. Style-wise I think Lewis is always a tough match for Holyfield. I don't really see what a younger version of Holyfield would do differently or better to suggest he could beat Lewis. In reality, fights between both these fighters would be relatively close and always highly competitive but with Lewis IMO always having the edge.

I don't ignore it but honestly, are you dissing Lewis for accepting $4 million to do nothing?! :roll:

True. But I think it is unfair to mention these points without also mentioning the fact that a) this wasn't really his fault and b) he avenged both losses with the Rahman loss being avenged in particularly convincing fashion.

 

Probably, but not nearly as overrated as Holyfield......

 

Packman, sorry Pacmac, who you picking between Castillo and Hatton?