Lennox Lewis vs. Ray Mercer. 95-95, 96-95, 96-94. Classic fight.

Lennox Lewis SD Ray Mercer

This is a really weird good fight with Lennox Lewis in the pocket swapping uppercuts (maybe in wee dress rehersal for Klitschko) but sometimes being outjabbed by a relative dwarf. Mercer's jab was a threat throughout, as was his bungling lunging style and his swarming attacks. On occasion these swarming attacks had Lewis in a spot of bother and he looks dog tired after just such a spell in the sixth, but Mercer perhaps saves him some serious bother by gassing all the more dramatically.

Round 4 is one of my favourite HW rounds with Lewis showing what he was so capable of but in a future echo of his immediate lineage, reluctunce to do it, devastating and elastic combinations and some really genuinely nice bodywork, which he had to can due to an aggressive and ill-judged warning from the awful Mercante Jnr about low blows.

For all the bluster and hubub surrounding this fight, I didn't have it that close with round 4 as the real turning point, Mercer is willing but his mind just refuses to sign off on the cheque his body needs to write to take the win. The desperate air surrounding the fight is perhaps more about the circumstances the two men find themselves in - Mercer one poor effort away from being put out to pasture, Lewis one loss away from a return to the UK - that lends it that feeling, that and the contradictory but exhorting rambles Steward offers up in the Lewis corner.

Lewis understandably bemoanded the size of the ring, and it's fair to say that a bigger ring brings a cleaner result, but he would later admit this fight did him a "world of good". Must be nice to find out you have heart, and even if the test has subsequently been overstated, Lennox certainly passed.

LEWIS: 3,4,6,7,8,9,10

MERCER 1,2,5.

I thought 3 and 5 were the only really arguable rounds, and they got one each.

 

Evander Holyfield UD10 Ray Mercer
Freaky Mercer somehow finds himself in another crossroads fight with another of boxing's legends. Both were on the comeback trail, Holyfield from heart troubles, Mercer from nowhere, and once again with his back to the wall and a (possibly still) terrifying propostition stood in front of him turns in another great perfromance.

And it's another twilight-zone occasion as Mercer out-jabs Holyfield for stretches, even in rounds he loses, tipping out thudding no nonsense shots at an opponent who looks the part but probably hasn't found his complete rthym yet. When he doubled it up, he looked genuinely dangerous at times, as in the second and third both of which he won on my card.

Holyfield was pretty smart about it though, not jabbing to much with his opponent, mixing up his offense in headhunting pretty convincingly, although he doesn't go to the body as much as Lewis did, which is dissappointing. His left hook was especially impressive, and he actually drops Mercer for eight in the 8th, which is one of those pivotal rounds in so many different ways. First of all, Mercer was hammering Holyfield in that round, it was the clearest cut round of the fight, he was convincingly ahead. Behind on the cards but having won round seven it was starting to look like something of a comeback. Unfortunately for him, he had cut Evander in the previous round and the referee unneccessarily decided the doctor needed to have a look at it. After the doctor looked at the cut, Mercer tried to coast, moving, throwing very tentative punches and Holyfield seized his moment like the great champion he is and two picture perfect clipping left hooks to the jaw forced Mercer back where he either took a voluntary knee to avoid the brutal bowling ball scything right for his 1 pin, or involunatry took a knee because Holyfield had landed two really crisp hurtful punches. Opinions vary, and it was likey a mixture of both anyway.

Regardless, Ray gave up at that point, and what would have been a tied fight at 4-4 took a three point swing in Evander's favour. Mercer surrendered the last two rounds pitifully, allowing Holyfield to streat off. Would Mercer have closed it out had he won the 8th? Impossible to be sure, but for a winner to be named on my card, one or the other would have had to have won both remaining rounds. I'd bet on Holyfield but all the momentum would have been with Ray. An interesting one to ponder.

Not as good as the Lewis fight, but an interesting little duel.


MERCER: 2,3,7
HOLYFIELD 1,4,5,6,8,9,10.