Lennox Lewis's career defining fight?

Exactly a good post as usual from you.

Holyfield 1 was the career defining because this fight was to become undisputed heavweight champion. The greatest achievement of Lewis career was being the undisputed champion. The fact that he was robbed by corrupt judges did not matter, because everyone knew he won it and he got the official win in the rematch.

Other than that avenging both his defeats meant alot.

 

Both the Holyfiled fights define him imo. Sure Evander has slow down, BUT the first fight was so big at the time, Yeah I rooted for Evander, but Lewis prove to me on that night, that he was a great, and not a good fighter. The rematch things were fix.

 

Lewis won both fights. The first fight I remember having it for lewis by 8 points, and the rematch for Lewis by 2 points.

It was really embarassing just how corrupt that the sport is, for the judges to conspire to give Holyfield a draw in a fight in which he barely landed a single punch on lewis all night.

 

9-3 first fight. 8-4 second fight.

 

Lewis won both fights on my card also, Though Holyfiled did a little bit better. He didnt take the beating as he did in fight 1. Both were still pretty one sided though. I relly have a hard time understanded people that claim Holyfiled won the rematch. It was not that close.

The first fight was the pits, I was kinda of shock that it was a draw. There was a major outrage. I blame Don King for that. Holyfiled was his money maker, after the Tyson fights, and he didnt want to risk loseing that.

 

The performence that most impresed me personaly was the Tua fight. That was when I started to really see him as a serious threat to other all time greats.

 

I agree his career defining win was Holyfield I, a dominant performance against possibly the best opponewnt he ever faced.

However it's not his best performance, which you could pick from a number of fights; Ruddock, Rahman II, Golota et al.

 

Yes, but Lewis never has shown himself and all time great, because he is not one.

One of the finest post WWII British fighters, but not a worldwide all-time great, indeed not even close.

 

Surely any fighter who unifies the titles must be regarded as an all time great.

 

:good Atleast we agree on something...

 

No, it demeans the word. For Great to mean something you can IMO have no more than 40 or so fighters in the entire history of Queensberry Rules who have the right to use the word against their name.

I would say Lewis was an excellent fighter, but is not in that top 40.

 

One fight not getting much attention here is the Mercer fight. In its own way, it was VERY important. It showed Lewis was more than just a guy who could only win by staying at length and potshotting you to death with his jab and straight right. It showed he was tough, and could gut it out in the trenches if he had to. Argue as you might that he may or may not have deserved the decision, but that's almost not the point. He showed another level that night we didn't know he had.

 

I'm surprised it hasnt been mentioned as well.

To me the Mercer fight carries the same significance that Ali Norton II had. Had Ali lost to Norton again he would have effectively fell off the HW Scene. Lewis losing to Mercer would have killed his credibility as being the divisions best.

But he was able to gut it out and pull the win. I scored it 6-4 Lewis.

 

My scores exactly. Lewis would have probably won the second fight 10-2 or 11-1 if he fought more cautiously, but obviously he had to make up for Holyfield being such a sacred cow of American sport. As it turned out, Lewis risked the horns and butchered the cow.

 

the fights that defined lewis and showed him to be the real thing, for me, were his destruction jobs on ruddock, golotta and morrison....and his gut check against mercer....(a fight i still think he lost...)....but it showed he could dig deep when he had too....