Lennox Lewis vs. Corrie Sanders and Lamon Brewster

Rahman could take The Sanders punch , but Sanders could not take Rahman's. Thats all you need to know about who was the better puncher.

Rahman was a far more reputable puncher in the 90's than Sanders was.

 

Then Vitali gets no credit either , who beat an older , fatter , under trained , gassed out Sanders

 

Sanders actually suffered an injury in training for the Rahman fight which inhibited him from running, jumping rope or doing very much sparring. As a result, He was nowhere near in ideal shape and his stamina was compromised for that match. He still gave hasim a good effort and hammered at him in the early rounds before gassing midway though. That said, you're right however. Vitali shouldn't get too much credit for beating a 38 year old sanders who had been off for 13 months and showed up a portly 235 lbs...

 

Did Lewis ever face a southpaw? Can't remember one.

 

I'm not sure. But he beat plenty of guys who threw a good left hook from the orthodox stance. Not the same thing of course. I've sparred with southpaws and it's weird as hell having a guy jabbing at you with his right. Very awkward and often results in a rough session.

 

Corrie gassed so quickly in the Vitali fight, and it was clear he was conserving his energy and being very selective with his punches because of it. This was frustrating because when he did let his hands go, there were some good exchanges.

I'm wondering if Sanders was injured also in the training for the Vitali fight, just lazy, or just had terrible stamina at that stage in his career. I mean it was the HW championship of the world, so you'd think he'd want to train hard for a once-in-a-lifetime chance. But he was gassed so quickly.

 

I think indecisiveness regarding his career led to bad preparation for the Vitali fight. For thirteen months prior to that point he had been juggling potential fight negotiations while conducting his golfing career. At one point he was supposed to fight Roy jones and that fell through. I believe there was talk of other possible opponents and at another point even the prospect of retirement. By the time he signed to fight Vitali it was almost as if it were an after thought rather than a serious career move.. Shame he didn't come to that bout in better shape.. As it was, he gave Vitali problems early and had some meaningful exchanges with him showing that he could take kilts best shots while landing plenty of his own. In the first round it really looked as though he handed Vitali the first knockdown of his career which I reviewed several times, but it was ultimately ruled a slip by the ref.. Had he treated this affair like it was the fight of his life, trained hard and maybe even fought a tuneup prior, his chances of winning would have increased exponentially.

 

Outside of when he was young, Sanders was never in shape. He set traps and looked for early blitzes until he gassed after a few rounds. He was just fast, strong, smart, and put together his punches well.

Rahman to his credit just seems like a hard guy to take out early. He looked dead after that uppercut, hung over the ropes but got up. Rahman took hard punches from Tua and Sanders, and even Oleg, Lewis, and Wlad had to wail on him for a few rounds to stop him.

 

what you cant remember, is corrie didn't get near a title shot.

never good enough, except for when he was a retired fattie failure, then he was good enough for a K bro defence,, not once, but twice!

 

Mr Magoo tells it like it is in this thread! :thumbsup I don't have anything to add to his barrage of reality-based facts.

 

Despite having Lewis in his top 5 I am more than happy to admit Sanders is likely to succumb to a mid to late round knockout, but would cause a lot of problems, especially early on. If the very best Sanders showed up I'd give him more than a punchers chance and wouldn't be surprised if he could pull off the upset

 

he gassed quickly becos he was poor stamina to staert with, but also the major point being at 38 he had no business fighting for a world title.

 

Spot on. :good

I think Corrie might just be all wrong for Lennox.

 

There certainly seems to be a certain grouping that try their best argue Lewis could only be upset by Rahman and McCall.

And apparently Wlad was the only fighter bad enough to lose to Sanders.