Lennox Lewis lost to 2 journeyman. Should he be stripped of his ATG status

No

 

Yeah and Louis lost to a cruiserweight and Holmes to a blown up light heavy....

 

And Ali arguably lost all of his three matches against Norton, and prime Tyson was battered and knocked out by Buster Douglas etc. The HW folklore is full of stuff like that.

So what’s up with these anti-Lewis bollocks that keep popping up these days? I know that the OP is a massive Fury nuthugger. Is there some beef going on between Lewis and the ogre?

 

Funny thing is Markus actually joined this board as a huge Lewis fan before he descended in to a troll

He had him as his avatar and everything

 

I am of the opinion that even ATGs slip mentally sometimes, Lewis just happened to have a couple of lapses. I still think the first fight with McCall was stopped too soon, even though Lennox was swaying, he should've been given the chance to show he could/couldn't defend himself to a satisfactory degree. His eyes looked clear to me, but of course I'm not as close to the action as the referee. Just calling it as I remember seeing it. Lewis was most definitely out against Rahman as I recall.

LL was basically just unlucky in my book, and of course avenged his losses like the special fighter that he was. I'm not of the opinion that these guys beat LL because they were better than him, even 'on the night'. He just got caught with shots he didn't see coming, in addition they were damned hard shots!

If I've ever seen clearer mistakes (on Lewis' part), crossed with extremely, well, let's call them "fortunately" timed huge punches (I don't believe in 'lucky punches') landing dead on their targets (on McCall & Rahman's part), against such a high-quality guy, I can't remember them. I think Lennox gets treated so harshly for these losses because there are in fact two of them, whereas it happening once would've been forgiven much easier.

 

Lewis got up and was falling into the ref. Hardly the look of a fighter showing he should be allowed to continue. As for the McCall rematch. He got the victory over a man just released from drug rehab and having a nervous breakdown in the ring.

 

True, Lewis was falling into the referee, of course I wouldn't want to see him get seriously hurt. But to me, he looked clear but needed to get his legs back under him.

As far as the McCall rematch, LL did what he had to do. I felt very bad for Oliver and what he was going through in that ring.

 

"Lennox Lewis lost to 2 journeyman. Should he be stripped of his ATG status"

Go ahead brother. Strip the dude. How will you accomplish this? Will you write a formal letter, sign it and mail it to LL? Post an online statement?

 

Let's just have a poll

 

A sternly worded letter ought to do it!

 

It does nothing to his ATG position as this is only a fantasy list and any fighter rated on it can be picked and pulled apart by anybody wanting to do so .

 

It happens.

Tyson lost to Douglas as aforementioned.

Foreman lost to Jimmy Young and dont say it wasnt prime Foreman, he came back ten years later and look at how much he still had in the tank.

Jose Napoles lost to Billy Backus

Alexis Arguello lost to Vilomar Fernandez who while by no means a bum, was nowhere near Alexis in class and Alexis was on his second title and on his way to a third.

Lupe Pintor got knocked out by Manuel Vazquez three fights after he won the WBC world Bantamweight title from Carlos Zarate before he began his history making defenses run.

So no, it doesnt mean Lennox should be stripped of his status as an all time great. It means he is human.

 

I wouldn't call McCall or Rahman journeymen, maybe gate keepers at worst, lower level contenders at best.

Sometimes great fighters lose to people they shouldn't. Morales lost to Raheem, Baer lost to a supposedly washed up Braddock, Tyson lost to Douglas, Lomachenko lost to Salido, even Duran lost to an unheralded Kirkland Laing. Even now Fury should probably have a loss to McDermott if it were not for some dubious officiating.

You have to assess a fighter not just based on their losses but also their wins. If you judge Lewis or anyone solely by who they lost to then you are not doing justice to those fighters accomplishments.

 

It's definitely hard to see Fury, Usyk, Wilder or Joshua losing to those characters Lewis got KO'd by.

To be fair to Lewis, he wouldn't lose to Ruiz Jr.
Lewis versus the Joshua that fought Wlad is probably a fairly even fight until Joshua lands properly.