Lennox Lewis v Muhammad Ali

I agree, at least Cooper was a reknown puncher and a champion at that! Rahman wasn't even considered a threat and McCall was only known as a Tyson sparring partner. Their reputations as punchers are direct results of their wins over Lewis.

I disagree on the earlier statement though. To Lewis's credit, Holyfield was much much more formidable than when he faced Toney. And Tyson was in much better shape mentally as well as physically when he fought Lewis.

 

Apart from his KO losses, Lewis had an excellent chin. I can mind Holyfield, who we all know could pop pretty well as a heavyweight, smacked Lewis with a monster left hook inside during the 7th round, and Lewis never looked like going down.

He hardly looked like going down in his 10 war with Mercer either.

 

What about Briggs? The guy could not hurt Foreman but had Lewis badly hurt

a few minutes into the fight

 

Give me a break.


That wasn't the tune Tyson fans were whistling before this fight happened. Lewis put the nail in Tyson's coffin.. Williams and McBride just put him in the ground.

 

Desperately try to knock him out? He had at least 3 full minutes to do that, and Liston couldn't land a single good clean punch on blind Clay? This is a lot more absurd (for anyone who knows what a wonderful fighter Liston was) than trying to persuade that that imitation of offense was real thing.

Why don't you tell about "that other crap" to Thomas Hearns and Gerald McClellan, neither of whom were originally known as big punchers? Even Earnie Shavers once said, that as he got older, it became more difficult to knock people out and so he actually was developing his punching skills, timing and accuracy, to keep his fearsome power.

Ruddock. Golota. Briggs. Grant. Botha. Rahman II.

Foreman was too uneducated and too overconfident in his power to even think about exploiting these flaws.

Ali took the punches to the body exceptionally well, there's no doubt about it. But to the head, he took very few clean punches, where other guys showed much better accuracy than Foreman. Yet even those not very clean punches were enough to get Ali senseless two times with only the ropes saving him from being flattened.

I must have forgot how Jimmy Young applied constant pressure on Ali.

These claims are so silly, I don't even know what to tell you. You gotta get more Lewis fights and watch them carefully, before ever claiming words like "never was". I'll spare you of public embarasment this time, but try to avoid making such mistakes in the future.

This thing is evident to anyone who has actually watched both fighters. It doesn't need sound arguments, it's common knowledge.

If so, then stop claiming Ali's power would be a factor here. In which fight did a slapper wear Lennox Lewis down and eventually stopped him?

Most of these KO's were against bums, plus several stoppages on cuts, where his slaps couldn't really hurt his opponents even once.

Lamar Clark has one of the most impressive KO records in history at some point. But anyone who thinks he could knock out ranked fighters just as easily, eventually found out it was a false assumption.

Who was more fatigued at that point, Mercer (who has a better chin than Foreman) or Lewis?

Glass-chinned Foster? That's a good one. Do you mind describing the other examples so we know they fit the conditions that were in my question? You may even name 1-3 punch KO wins against bums if that helps you.

Being able to wear an opponent down with tons of punches and then being able to finish them off, doesn't represent a hard hitter. Real hard hitters don't need many punches to knock the opponent down or out. Frazier's punching power was just average. Henry Armstrong and Harry Greb stopped many opponents also, with they constant pressure, but nobody calls them big punchers for some reason. Joe Frazier was no different than them.

Ruddock, Golota, Grant are obvious examples. I could list several fights before he won the world title (against European level of opposition). That wouldn't help you, as Frazier doesn't have anything even against below World-level opposition.

Foreman-Frazier 1? What are you talking about?

Mercer. Bruno. Briggs. Klitschko. Holyfield.

He didn't make up for it to stop a glass-chinned Cooper or glass-chinned old injured Floyd Patterson. He couldn't even land any clean punches on 15-11-1 big and slow Duke Sabedong. He only narrowly outpointed Alonzo Johnson. He was lucky that Alex Miteff wasn't a big puncher, when he caught Clay with a right cross in the 2nd round. Sonny Banks punished him for overconfidence, dropping him with a long left hook. Billy Daniels had been ahead on points when the fight was stopped on cuts and Clay refused to give him a rematch, same as to Doug Jones a little later. Lavorante knocked the wind out of Clay with a couple of body shots, Clay grimaccing in pain and getting on a bicycle to avoid the troubles. He asked for a new Caddilac to get himself in the right mood for Doug Jones, and was doing silly predictions, but instead he blew it and got a boxing lesson (that right hand in the 1st round ought to teach him a lesson, but as it turned out in the next fight, it didn't) and barely escaped defeat (the referee in that bout was obviously a blind man though). They chose Henry Cooper next, who Clay called 'a tramp, a bum and a cripple'. Well that crippled bum put him on his own bum, so that he wasn't fully aware where he was and when the next round was going to be. Against, he was lucky that the fight was stopped on cuts, but not before Cooper got the first blood from Cassius' nostrils in the 1st round, so much for Clay's speed and agility.

 

The boards of ESB cannot handle such ownage.

 

I think Briggs' succes was more limited than you suggest it was.

Briggs landed a great left hook when Lewis was throwing a double jab, which shook him and made him stagger into the ropes, but his mind and legs were back right when hit the ropes. Briggs was going all out and all Lewis did was defend (who wouldn't?) and made it out of the round fresh.
In the second round he landed another left hook and that's all he did in the entire fight, from there on it was basically a heavy bag session for Lewis.

The difference between a punch from Briggs that landed is that the crowd went nuts whereas a flush right hand from Lewis on Briggs was met with silence. Add to that that Briggs goes all out without any regard for stamina after he lands one punch whereas Lewis clinically goes on with his job. That pretty much leads to Briggs' succes looking a lot larger than it actually was.


Those comparisons don't say much anyway. If Foreman did so much better against Briggs, then surely he wouldn't have lost one sided fights to Morisson and Holyfield who both were easily defeated by Lewis.

 

Party Boy I am not saying a 45 year old Foreman was better then Lewis

but his chin certainly was. I am also saying Lewis had the worst chin of

any Linear Heavyweight champion with the exception of Patterson and Moore

Ali could knock out Lewis. He knocked out Foreman who Briggs could not

hurt but Briggs had Lewis hurt badly in the first round Bottom line

Prime Ali versus Prime Lewis is a cakewalk for Ali.

Lewis came around at the perfect time. He beat two Hall of Famers both well past

their Prime. Ali beat 7 Hall of Famers four of them in their Prime.

 

I think this would be a tough fight for Ali, especially if Lewis comes in good shape and in the right frame of mind. Lewis would be the best technician Ali ever faced and his size and punch would be something Ali would have to be wary of as well. Lennox had a very good jab. Good enough to perhaps break Ali's rythym and make him suceptible to a big right hand. These would'nt be the wide looping shots that Foreman threw either. Lennox punched straight. Ali looked his best making guys like Frazier and Foreman swing wildly at him and then use his speed to get away and fire back. Against fighters like Young and Bugner and Norton, Ali did'nt look as spectacular. One of the reasons for this is each of these men used an effective JAB against Ali and fighters like Ali as well as holmes et al don't like to be jabbed back at. Look at Holmes/Williams-Holmes/Witherspoon and Ali/Norton-Ali/Bugner as examples of this. Also Lewis would'nt rush at Ali and swing blindly at him. Lewis was a very intelligent man inside and outside the ring which is why I see this fight shaping up like a chess match, a potentially boring one at that. Ali's speed would probably be the deciding factor and he would most likely take it by decision but he would have to be careful. Lewis could punch, and his shots came in straight behind a very good jab. Not wide and wild which always played into Ali's hands ala Foreman and if Ali could be decked by the likes of Cooper and Frazier and be given headaches by the likes of Norton and Young then it's not too crazy to suggest that a much bigger but equally skilled Lewis could spell trouble for the "Greatest" as well.

 

Lewis never fought anyone who had the speed of Ali

Who did Lewis ever beat that had any speed?

It wasn't Grant,Golota,Bruno,Ruddock,Briggs,Morrision, or the older verisons of Tyson or Holy

He would never catch the 67 version of Ali

 

This is a bit off topic, but I think it is worth repeating. When exactly was Lewis's prime?

I have noticed in many human athletic performance sports there is a 3 year peak when the athlete is at the top of their game. An ATG during this time exhibits an aura of invinciblity. Some examples:

Seb Coe 1979-1981. Half a dozen world records over 4 events, two of which have only been beaten by 1 man in the following third of a century, plus a stunning Olympic Gold medal.

Muhammad Ali 1964-1967. Balletic grace, elusiveness, cat-like reflexes, speed, stamina, toughness, resourcefullness and will-to-win. The ultimate fighting package.

Mike Tyson 1986-1989. Speed, explosive power, blistering 1 punch and combo KOs, incredible aura and fear factor.

I attach a lot of status to this phase when assessing ATGs.

So, when is Lewis peak? Is it the young, beautifully built athletic boxer than blew his opportunities in the early to mid 90s, or the immense, immovable sluggish later version with the tighter defence?

 

Foreman does have a better chin indeed.

But does that mean Ali can knock Lewis out?
Lewis' chin has only failed him against huge punches (and even at that, only in 2 cases in his entire career). Accumulative punishement was no problem.

Your logic here is that Ali could knock Lewis out because he knocked Foreman out (who had a better chin) or because he knocked out someone (Foreman) who wasn't KO'd by someone else (Briggs) who in turn hurt Lewis?
In both cases the reasoning is invalid.

Frazier's chin couldn't take Foreman's bombs, and Ali knocked Foreman out, so Ali should have no trouble with Frazier or Fraziers chin....while in fact he lost the fight with Frazier when both were closest to their primes and never knocked him down in 44 hard rounds.

If your reasoning is the former: Archie Moore hurt Marciano, while Moore himself was knocked out by Charles. By your reasoning, Charles should in that case have no problem hurting Marciano, but in reality, Charles never hurt Marciano in 23 rounds, with the exception of an elbow (foul).

There is a big difference between taking accumulative punishement from a heavyweight with good power and bombs from a big puncher. Joe Frazier could seemingly take an endless amount of Ali's (accumulative) punches without going down, but when he was hit by a huge puncher in Foreman, it was a different story. Stewart went 12 rounds with Holyfield but was knocked out in one round by Mike Tyson. There are plenty of examples.



By the way, a prime, focused Lewis is no cakewalk for anyone. While Lewis never faced anyone as fast, durable and resortful as Ali, Ali never faced someone who had Lewis' combination of precision punching, intelligence, size and power.
I think Lewis would take 1 out of 3 matches.

 

I would say from the moment he knocked Ruddock out untill he knocked Tyson out, in other words, from 1992 to 2002.
While he had quite some fundamental flaws pre-Steward and was somewhat slowed down against Tyson, i still count them as prime years.

I think he was at his peak during the second McCall fight.