Lennox never seemed to be rated so highly in real time DURING his career.

You're mixing 2 instances here. First, Tyson paid step aside money to Lewis to fight Bruce Seldon to unify the WBC and WBA titles first. Lewis took the money, as he was sure he will be fighting for 2 instead of 1 belt. But then, after Tyson beat Seldon, he vacated the WBC belt, choosing to fight what was perceived back then washed up Holyfield instead of Lewis.

 

You're still on that BS even tho you were schooled many times about the circumstances of these events? Your Lewis hate is blinding you dog, lol.

 

This dynamic is commonly refered to.

Tyson and after beating him Holyfield gained a main character status in the sport of boxing that was not a reflection of their actual position in the HW division.

Earlier on Lewis was an alphabelt champ and had to affirmatively prove he was something more than that. A process which took time.

 

No I like him, trust me, a classy guy. I evaluate it sportingly, I present arguments and you only make epithets from behind the screen, keyboard warrior You lack a substantive answer, don't you?

 

Well, if you can't read what is being written to you and after 5 people presented the case based on sources, that Lewis and Ruiz agreed to fight after his Grant bout, and you still are saying that he somehow avoided Ruiz, you must be slow or blinded by hate. Either or.

 

I don't have a big problem with him avoiding Ruiz and I accept that argument. The fact is that he gave up the belt and did not fight the best contenders. He didn't clean up the division which was weak. for some reason he didn't fight Ruiz, Byrd, Mercer II, Klitschko II, Moorer, Holmes, Foreman, Ike. Not his fault. In the biggest fights, against the best rivals, he performed poorly - Holy, Mercer and Klitschko. These are facts, my friend, and there's nothing I can do about it. You don't even know how much I would like to agree with you. But the more I know about boxing, the more I know that Lewis is a fake as ATG. I used to think like you, but the more you know about boxing, the sooner you will agree with me. And for now you have to be angry even though you really have no reason to

 

When you're a Brit raised in Canada who fought for Canada in the Olympics, then promptly leave Canada because there's more money fighting out of the UK and make a career of beating up Americans, all while coming across as a bit of an arrogant blowhard in interviews, where does your fanbase come from? All he ever really had to build respect and fans were his own in-ring performances. None of the "hell yeah that's our guy!!"

 

He literally fought the best contender when he gave up the WBA belt, lol. Michael Grant was universally recognized number 1 contender in the world, while Ruiz wasn't even considered a Top 10 heavyweight at the time. So you should applaud Lewis, instead of brining up this false talking point again, about him avoiding Ruiz. Especially since, he was about to fight him instead of Botha but Don King's shenanigans led to WBA stripping him after initially agreeing for him to face Grant. The Ring Magazine Top 10 closing the year 1999 was: Lennox, Evander, Grant, Ibeabuchi, Tua, Tyson, Vitali, Golota, Jefferson and Maskaev. Lewis faced and beat 6 of those guys prior or after that. Ibeabuchi retired and nobody cared about Jefferson and Maskaev.

Also, if you're so for boxers facing top contenders, you should let off with praising Mike Tyson's run in the late 80's as he didn't face his best contender, Evander Holyfield, for 2 years fighting an unranked guy instead. Be consistent.

Saying he performed poorly with Holyfield when he beat him clear twice should ban you from talking boxing ever again, lol. Mercer one of his biggest fights? How was it bigger than his fights with Ruddock, Grant, Tua or rematch with Rahman? You're cherry picking and grasping for straws again.

You're not basing your opinion on facts as you still think Lewis avoided Ruiz, lol. You don't want to know more, that's why you are coming up with the points like "he didn't fight Holmes" LOL. Like 92-96 Holmes was some kind of a monster or something. You're clearly biased and looking for reasons to believe in your narrative, but, well, you don't know that much turns out.

 

Lewis was often publicly dismissed and frozen out of fights, mainly in the first half of the 90s, but 'they' all knew Lewis was a bona fide beast.

And, so did the The Ring. Lewis was rated annually by the publication for 13 consecutive years, from '91 to '03, and he only appeared outside of the Top-3 for just two of those years - '91 (the beginning) and '95 (post-McCall I - but still Top-5).

The last 5 years of his career were spent at #1 and Ring Champion.

So, there was a lot of PR guff and spin to detract from Lewis as a serious player, even though, in reality, he was viewed as a genuine threat and all the other 'top' guys were really quite reticent about facing him.

One of the sport's worst kept secrets, I would say.

 

This is accurate because for the majority of his career in the US, a lot of people weren't fans of him (used to make fun of him calling him a tea drinker etc). I literally was one of probably only 2 people in my friend group that liked Lennox. They said I was betraying the US

After he retired and people looked back, they realized the type of talent Lennox was. Most didn't realize they were in the presence of very likely the best HW ever. Which is crazy.

 

Not mixing those up. I said Tyson binned his belt rather than fight Lennox, which is what happened.

 

When he was KO'd by McCall he got much of the same backlash Joshua did when he was stopped by Ruiz. The Rahman loss didn't help matters of course.

The fights with Holyfield mostly got attention for the bad decision in the first, his real breakthrough came when he stopped Tyson.

That seems odd today, but such was the aura that Tyson still had and of course also how one-sided it was. The Vitaly win finally answered questions about his heart. And also of course aged like fine wine.

But it was really his last two fights that changed perceptions about him. At least in the US

 

Hadn't the Mercer bout already answered those questions?

 

It makes sense, really it’s only in retrospect that we can evaluate careers.
Fighters while active are usually compared against the body of work of their predecessors (unfair to the fighter), or benefit from recency biased evaluation (unfair to predecessors).
When they have completed their careers and emotions are cooled they can be more impartially assessed.
If I recall correctly LL was considered excellent but not great at the time. In hindsight he can be fairly assessed as a top 5 heavyweight both h2h and all time. That’s something pretty special but it would have been premature at the time.