Lennox Lewis - Was He Really The Most Skilled...

Peak for peak I think Bowe is nearly 50/50 with Lewis. He out jabbed several big men, Gonzalez being one and he was twice the inside fighter Lewis was.

 

Bowe is a better infighter thats it .Jab righ hand defense physical strength Lewis far outstrips Bowe in thoose.

A guy getting outjabbed by everybody willing to throw a jab at him is not 50/50 with Lewis

 

I think a fair case can be made for it. If a superheavyweight is defined as someone who excedes a height of 6'5" and a weight of 230 Lbs, then my pick would be Lewis. There certainly weren't any men before his time who boxed better at those perameters and while Wladimir Klitschko has developed into a fine technician, I still don't think that he quite fits the bill.

 

I disagree. The one thing Lewis could do better than damn near any fighter I've ever seen is dictate the distance a fight is going to occur. If he wanted to blast out a fighter, I've never seen him fail trying. If he wanted to make it an outside fight and use his reach and size he was capable of that too. No guarantees of course, but based on the fight they had at the Olympics (I'm in the camp that thinks it was a quick stop btw) I think he would go straight after Bowe and overwhelm him, similar to Golota, Grant, Ruddock. In my opinion, Bowe has neither the defensive skills nor the power to stop this type of assault. So it won't be a boxing match, it would be a blitz attack.

In terms of their actual skill set, I would again pick Lewis.

 

Funny thing about Wlad is he likely does in terms of skills, it's the intangibles that you can't really teach that he lacks. Agressiveness, when to attack when not to, punch selection and infighting skills (which isn't an intangible), willingness to go for broke, (thinking about his fight against VK with this comment, couldn't imagine Wlad doing the same thing) those type of intangible qualities, is what seperates them.

 

True Wlad for all his considerable skill is is not the fighter at heart that Lewis or his brother Vitali is.

 

Agreed. Interesting how both of them benefitted from making a change late in their careers under the tutilage of the same man....

 

I agree, they're on the same level when it comes to technique, handspeed, power and controlling distance. Like you say, i think the difference is that Wlad is a boxer who sees boxing as a game in which the sole objective is to win, whereas Lewis is a fighter who mixed it up at times and often went for the kill. He is also more durable and has a fantastic right uppercut, although Wlad has the better hook.

 

I saw Lewis outjabbed by Bruno ,and his jab was slow as ****.

 

Both are great technicians and both have the ability to put other big men to sleep, but both have also gotten themselves into trouble when getting careless in physical battles.

 

Gonzales couldn't make the transition from amateur to pro. A good win considering the man was undefeated, but in hindsight, Gonzales pretty much was a non-factor in the 90's. He didn't just out-jab him, he outfought him.

And while Bowe was a great infighter, Lewis had a great right uppercut as well, that tore Tyson, Klitschko, Grant, Mavrovic, Morrison and others apart.

 

Bruno was doing pretty good in that fight until he got careless and started dropping his hands. If I remember, Bruno was winning the majority of the rounds before he was stopped.

 

Uh Bowe's defense was bad but he could definitely outjab fighter's. I think your basing this off the Golota fight.

 

Golota absolutely defused and abused Bowe. Other than that, he did little to mention outside of getting robbed against Ruiz.