Lennox Lewis vs Jack Sharkey

Are you referring to Primo Carnera?

Holyfield was bigger than Sharkey and had abilities light-years ahead of Sharkey plus those steroids helped too.

 

I'm not biased towards modern HWs but Lewis is 3rd on my ATG HW list and makes short work of Sharkey. He has a punchers chance but not much else.

 

Carnera was obviously huge,and he also beat the hard punching George Godfrey.

Put it all together.

Big guys were nothing unknown to him, and hard punchers were nothing unknown to him.

He is not exactly going to be little boy lost, when he comes face to face with Lewis!

Holyfield was bigger than Sharkey, because he was using steroids.

Holyfield was fighting as a light heavyweight amateur at the age of 23.

Sharkey was weighing in at 195lbs at that age.

This is simply not a much bigger man!

 

Godfrey was hardly the size of the modern super-heavyweights though. Carnera was the only genuine super-heavyweight that Sharkey fought and he was pretty useless and yet still knocked Sharkey out albeit with a little help from his meaty forearm.

 

His best fighting weight seems to have been about 230lbs, and he looks ripped at that weight.

No roids, no weights, except perhaps dum bell exercise!

 

Sharke y by decision no doubt

 

Sharkey defeated:

Wills 6’2
Godfrey 6’2
Carnera 6’5
Arthur de Kuh 6’3
Phill Scott 6’3.5

He dominated, Scott, Wills, De Kuh and Carnera the first time.

Sharkey also has one of the deepest resumes in the history of the division.
The man faced Dempsey and Wills.
The two best fighters of the 20s.
He faced Louis and Schmeling the two best fighters of the 30s.

Plus Godfrey, Loughran, McTigue, Delaney, and a host of others, had he not been held to a draw with Heeney - he likely fights Tunney to boot. Think about that

Louis
Dempsey
Wills
Schmeling

And he was competitive with all of them. Besides Louis.

If Lewis ices him early it’s simply a size and weight matter, not skill. I could of course see that happening 6’5 245 pretty skilled big puncher is tall order for a guy at 200lbs. But to say Sharkey wasn’t good or gets blown out is to deny his skill and his track record against big fighters.

 

Lennox in 1

 

A prime Jack Sharkey at his best was a hell of a fighter. Smart, fast , tough, terrific chin, great all around game. The man could fight. However Lewis is more than much bigger. Lewis was he best super heavyweight of all time and there is a reason there are weight divisions .. to gibe up five inches in height, forty in in muscle and about a foot in reach is a lot. Fighting Lennox is different than fighting Carnera. In addition to pure size it's really hard to factor these generational gaps once you get into the 90's because of all the heavy duty drugs .. a 1928 Sharkey may have been able to decision a 190 Holyfield but how dos he do against the Holyfield that fought Tyson ? Anyway I say Lewis stops him as soon as he starts landing seriously ..

 

If you want to go pound-for-pound and physical dimenson-for-physical dimension, I give Sharkey a fighting chance, otherwise no. That's gonna be my answer for a lot of these posts. It's unfair to compare one era against another.

 

This. Also, Holyfield's height isn't accurate on boxrec. Holyfield is 6'0.5" while according to an old coach of mine Jack Sharkey was 5'11", so they are very close in height. Weight wise Sharkey was most effective between 188-202 while Holyfield was most effective between 188-208. When Holyfield went over 208 his handspeed, timing, work rate, and stamina suffered.