Lennox Lewis recalls fighting Michael Grant

With all due respect to Lennox, I just can't stand when fighters are expressively proud of themselves.

Anyways...I'm guessing this was similar to the Duvas cashing out their pupils and serving them to the sharks (Tyrell Biggs anyone?). Didn't Grant wipe out his entire team after the Lewis defeat? The Duvas did this to Holyfield after his first defeat to Bowe.

The Golota fight showed Grant wasn't ready for the best. It's like America needed a coming attraction, an undefeated young prospect or rising star, and would push that attraction into the spotlight ready or not.

 

another HBO hype job. Everyone they had under contract then was the greatest thing. And Lampley was a cheerleader of the highest caliber.

But like so many other people that follow boxing, they only look at a guy's offense. never his defense. And Grant had a sloppy defense and worse--was a big big target in there. Giving a big target to Lewis is not going to end well.

And the Don Turner admiration society. Everyone loved the guy for his work with Holyfield for the Tyson win. But not very many of his other guys did a whole lot.

 

The momentum behind this fight happening, was external in nature. HBO really wanted this fight and, quite probably, wanted Grant to win.

Grant was receiving a lot of publicity. Don Turner had been publicly taunting Lewis with claims about his boy Grant being too big, strong and youthful for Lewis and questioned that latter's heart.

I think everything combined was enough for Lewis to get up for this fight. In all honestly, I think Lewis saw Grant as an opportunity to end a bit of a KO drought; shatter Grant's mystique while, at the same time, make a few dollars.

 

Grant was seen as the heir apparent. At least he was being hyped as such

I still can't believe Grant got up from the last KD of round 1. Commentator 'he's broken his leg'

 

Brilliant stuff. One of the reasons Lewis is up there as an ATG.

 

It's not the first time Lennox has done this a few months back on Twitter he was bragging about beating Tyson who was a sad shell of his former self.

 

Nobody wanted to believe Lennox was for real.

All this came after the Tyson era which had raised the profile of TV boxing. To maintain the level of interest after Tyson era had ended Tv needed sports fans to believe at anyone time an all time great heavyweight was walking the earth.

Evander never really caught on. He struggled with old Holmes and Foreman before losing to Bose and Moorer. He was later revised after beating Tyson. Until then Evander was regarded as nothing more than a caretaker champion. Keeping it warm until something better came along. Bowe was a flash in the pan. And all along, while The industry wanted to promote a superstar Lewis was there and nobody really wanted him.

Lewis wasn’t supposed to beat Ruddock or Tucker but he did. He wasn’t even supposed to beat Bruno. But he did. And none of these were seen as signature wins. but they were. Lewis was not American.

The one time he was expected to win Lewis lost to Oliver McCall. And no matter how many extra signature wins he added to the resume like mercer, Briggs, Golota and Morrison and the revenge over McCall it didn’t matter. He wasn’t American. And he wasn’t Mike Tyson.

along came Grant. American. Big muscles. Taller than Bowe or Lewis. TV was all over him. The industry decided on him. It was the natural order of things. And that’s how they sold Grant.

 

Yeah Lewis was and has always been a bit of a narcissist. Always referring to himself in the 3rd person, cringe.... He doesn’t bother me at all now but when he was active I rooted against him damn near everytime out. Unlucky for me he served me quite a few **** sandwiches.

 

Grant has nothing to do with Lewis's
greatness. Grant was a hype job, anyone
with two eyes and knowledge of the game
Knew that Grant wasn't ready( and would
never be) ready for a fighter like Lewis.
Lewis earned his ATG status against much
better fighters than M Grant.

 

The reason people get tired of Lennox's ego is because he got ktfo twice. And everyone knows he was behind and getting beat by Vitali. Yet, he acts like he was untouchable.

 

Those who were around at the time, know that there were people hyping Grant to the rafters.

What Lewis is saying here seems obvious in hindsight, but a lot of people didn't see it at the time.

Obviously Lewis saw it!

 

I was at that fight at the garden; great atmosphere. I was with my (now) ex-wife who started yelling "Kill him! Kill him!" at the top of her voice when Lewis got him on the run, her being a Williams and Harvard educated Daughter of the American Revolution who had never seen a live fight before. I spoke quite strongly to her about that; anyone who has watched boxing long enough has seen someone killed and it isn't pleasant.

 

I believe that Michael Katz started an article..."A new Colossus bestrides the ring..." announcing Grant's take-over of the division.