Lennox Lewis vs. Chris Byrd.

and people say the General forum is a crazy place.

i'm laughing really hard at most of these posts. especially at Mongoose.

Chris Byrd??? against Lennox Lewis??? you'd have to be knee deep in crack to even remotely come close to picking Chris Byrd to last more than 3-4 rounds.

shut this place down. it's full of ****ing idiots.

 

Words cannot express how deeply hurt I am that you disagree with my take on a fantasy fight.


Thank you for your contribution. So for the record, its safe to say thus far that most of the people picking Lewis to destroy Byrd easily are butt hurt 12 year olds? or grown ass men that act like butt hurt 12 year olds?

 

If you ask me Lennox handles Byrd no problem. Byrd doesn't have a good enough offense to beat Lennox. i'm sure Byrd would use his defensive skills and try to peck away at Lennox. But Lennox was a good accurate puncher and when he hit you, he'd hurt you. I see Lennox landing the much more effective shot mostly behind the jab which I could see pushing Byrd back leading to him winning most(or all) of the rounds. Eventually this would take its toll on Byrd and it wouldn't surprise me to see him get dropped a number of times on route to a mid to late round stoppage win for Lewis.

 

No it's not semantics you were lying, there was no offer of 10 million for Lennox to fight Byrd, the whole situation was reliant on Lennox's management brokering any deal and King and Byrd were more than happy to make money off the IBF with their fixed fights.

Again WHERE IS THIS 10 MILLION POUND OFFER?? It doesn't exist. The paper you provided speculated how much a fight maybe worth.

There's no evidence HBO would pay more for Lennox to face Byrd than Johnson. Maybe Johnson took less than Byrd or maybe King wanted Byrd not to fight Lennox.

Selling ice in the winter shows they were happy to be paid by Byrd's manager not to fight Byrd. WHY DID KING PAY LENNOX 1 MILLION NOT TO FIGHT BYRD? Byrd could have waited for Lennox to be stripped so why pay a cool million instead? Maybe Lennox was open to taking the fight but King saw more money in milking the IBF belt because as soon as Byrd taking the small money against Lennox loses, that's the end of him headlining any fights.

 

You'd have a case but Byrd couldn't legitimately beat an older Golota and hence I don't see how he had a chance against a much quicker Lewis better in every facet

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WL6WeGJqcxk

 

PowerPuncher, of course Lennox would have beaten Byrd, but you can't say Byrd was less deserving title shot than some others. He was top-contender, he clearly beat Tua, who came at 233 lbs (that's 12 lbs lighter than vs Lewis), he got a W over 27-0 (27 KO) Vitali Klitschko. He also beat some good fighters Mo Harris, Castillo, Jimmy Thunder, Bert Cooper, Ross Puritty. He was former WBO champion.

Byrd was much more deserving title shot than Botha or Rahman for sure. Grant was also exposed and dominated by Golota. Mavrovic was a joke (best win - Julius Francis:yep). Briggs before Lewis had 1 quality win - highly controversial decision over 49-y.o. George Foreman.

 

-Ok, what Byrd fights were fixed? Should I call you a liar if you can't provide evidence?

-The Telegraph reported an excess of 5 million pounds. 5 milliion pounds is almost 9 million in US dollars, give or take. The 10 million dollar figure was being reported and also thrown around by Byrd and his camp, as I've posted.

-Here's a source that uses an 8 million figure. So lets say Lewis opted out of an 8 million dollar fight with Byrd. My intention was not to claim Byrd literally offered Lewis that amount of money, the fight didn't make it that far and was supposedly heading into purse bid. My intention was to say that Lewis walked away from a fight with Byrd that was potentionally worth that much to him. There didn't have to be an offer to make that statement, he was legally obligated to make the fight, he choice not to.

The ultra likeable Chris Byrd, even holding aloft his IBF belt, remains the most undesirable night of work for any of the top heavyweights. Lewis opted out of an eight million dollar night with Byrd.

http://www.secondsout.com/archive/patrick-kehoe/heavyweight-boxing-or-total-chaos2

Now lets let this semantic argument go to bed, or you can continue screaming liar like lunatic when it was obvious what I saying, Your choice.


-10 million pounds would be like 20 million US dollars. We know Lewis didn't get paid that much against Johnson. Lewis purse split with Johnson was not publically released. Chances are it was not a huge figure and the fight was not selling well as I've posted. When questioned Lewis said he didn't care what he was paid.

Promoters have not disclosed the size of the purse for the fight and Lewis showed little interest when questioned about his potential earnings.
"I don't really think about money anymore," Lewis said.

http://www.rediff.com/sports/report/lewis/20030425.htm


-That's your spin. As the article explained, its was because Lewis never had any intentions of defending the belt, they were selling something they were going to throw away anyway. As the other articles explained, If Lewis wasn't going to fight Byrd, there was a need to get Byrd/Holyfield rolling to meet the court ordered timeline. I don't tihnk Lewis was obligated to be stripped of his belt until October, which would have made the staging of a December fight difficult. I can dig up the article on the October deadline if you want to call me a liar again.

 

Byrd was 33 when he faced Golota. He was a reflex and speed depended fighter that was slowing down and supposedly took Golota lightly. This was two years after the proposed Lewis meeting of the thread's subject.

 

-Byrd would have demolished the Golota that Lewis faced as well. It was well documented the idiot had took an illegal pain injection to fight with an injured knee only to have a reaction that nearly killed him.

Golota was injected with lidocaine, a powerful painkiller, before the bout in an attempt to stave off knee pain.
After the bout, Golota had a seizure and required resuscitation on the way to the hospital.
Golota was fined $5,000 for allowing the lidocaine injection.
Golota filed a $21 million lawsuit against the doctor who administered the shot. The case was settled out of court for around $1 million

http://boxrec.com/media/index.php/Lennox_Lewis_vs._Andrew_Golota

-You are just parroting Power Puncher's claims here. Ok.

-Vitali was hurt. His shoulder required surgery, as did Holyfield when he tore up his shoulder trying to jab Byrd. If you mean, punches? Yes. Byrd's straight left got Vitali's attention a few times. Byrd won the 8th round and had Vitali backpadling from straight left shots. Byrd hurt Tua as well. He wasn't going to knock anybody out but he wasn't incapable of hurting fighters either.

-That's your speculation. But the last round, Vitali was not doing well. Byrd was pressuring him and scoring with left hands to the face. I suggest you watch the actoin instead of listening to the commentary. Vitali was ahead on points because he was volume punching but he was not landing much clean, the entire fight, and spent the last few rounds on his bicycle while Byrd pressed.

-Again, the personal insults becaues you can't handle an argument. I must ask why is Power Puncher the only guy here that isn't acting like a butt hurt 12 year old? He is actually pushing me on my claims and sources, and I appreciate that. But the dismissive and immature name calling is not doing your side of the argument any favors.

 

:good

 

1. Judges wined and dined for the Golota and Oquendo fights for sure.

2. It's speculation of what he could earn but not something he's been offered. And the exchange rate at the time I seem to remember was 1.6, 5 would be around 7.5m.
Again there's no money offered to Lennox, no evidence Don King or HBO offered more money for a Byrd fight than a Johnson fight.

I'LL ASK AGAIN, WHY DID DON KING PAY LEWIS 1 MILLION AND AN SUV IF LEWIS WOULD HAVE TO VACATE ANYWAY? DOES DON LIKE GIVING AWAY MONEY NOW?

3. That's more like a valid source, but who says Lewis turned down any money to fight Byrd? Don King perhaps? How much do you trust Uncle Don? It still doesn't say where the 8 million is coming from. It isn't coming from a PPV, unless you can find evidence HBO offered more for a Byrd fight your contention is flawed.

I read all these articles your posting after doing a few google searches to make sure I wasn't wrong. 1 thing I did find regarding 10 million is Lewis seemed to be asking for a minimum 10 million per fight and you're right I don't think he earned close to that against Johnson but I do think that was a tune for a Tyson rematch or Wlad Klitschko bout. But it was all about another Tyson PPV and another 20m for Lewis at this stage.

4. I'm offering other possibilities to what may have happened in negotiations that neither of us actually witnessed. Why did Don King pay Lewis 1 million if he wanted him to fight Byrd? Why not force the stripping of the IBF belt? Let's remember Lewis didn't walk away from this fight until Don paid him the 1 million.

And if Don King wanted Byrd to fight the best, why no fight with either Klitschko until he was past it and cashing out in a big money mandatory?

 

1. The Champion getting the benefit of the doubt in close decisions is not evidence of a fix.

2. I will take back "Lewis fought Johnson less" It is speculation on my part but logical given the information we do have.

3. There seems to be lots of sources throwing around the same accusation and rough estimate figure.

4. I've covered this.

5. The fights were never on the table. Vitali spent 2003-2005 chasing Lewis rematch and than his vacated title, than chasing Tyson, and getting Williams, before retiring with injuries.

Wlad rebult on fringe fighters and chased the Sanders rematch but got the WBO mandatory Brewster instead, losing and looking to be done for some time.

Byrd tried to replace Johnson but Lewis picked Vitali, Roy Jones woudln't make a decision and he got stuck with Oquendo mandatory.I'm sure Byrd/Oquendo was a gold mine for King, right?

Golota was a decent fight from the limited options but Byrd ended up suing King in the summer of 04, not long after the fight. Byrd's legal trouble kept him out of the ring for a good chunk of 04-06, only managing two spacious fights with old buddies, McCline and Williamson. Both good opponents really given Byrd was now blacklisted by King and the K Bros weren't available, McCline was top 10 and Williamson was coming off a good showing against Wlad.

Wlad became Byrd's #1 contender after beating Peter and that's that. So when did you think a fight with the Klitschko Bros was possible? Or did you just throw their names out there without any actual forethought?

 

Interesting