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

first of all, my English is actually poor and some people might find it funny or irritating. You're probably one of the latter people, but if I have to repeat something, I'll try. If someone doesn't understand, I'm sorry.
And now to answer:
In the 1980s, Tyson had a record of 37-0 and won 10 belt fights. In the 1990s he had a record of 8-3 and won only 2 title fights. Of course, he didn't dominate the 1990s era. He was the most overrated character there, a grotesque, a complete dud. Everyone thought that the champion from the 80s was back and what they got was an overworked celebrity with the conditioning for a maximum of 5 rounds who bit Holyfield and broke Botha's arm
Foreman, Mercer and anyone else you mentioned were irrelevant in the 1980s. How can you not know that lol
Holyfield had been a contender since 1988 and all he had to do was submit a request to fight Tyson. Just like Lewis 10 years later! Then Evander could get money for resigning like Lewis or a belt like Lewis. Remind me what he did, what he got? this is really important because it really debunks your myth about Tyson avoiding him. Holyfield DID NOT EXERCISE CHALLENGE RIGHTS!! Should I draw it for you in English?? you didn't address the issue at all that Evander took the WBC to court in 1991 not to fight Tyson. Legal hearing... Do you have anything to say on this matter or is my English incomprehensible?
Lewis didn't want to fight Byrd, he didn't want to fight Ruiz, he didn't want to fight Vitali II and he preferred to give up the belts. Before the fight with Vitali, he talked about subsequent defenses, after the fight with Vitali, he talked about a dream vacation, although there was no more controversial fight or more money to earn in his career. It's as if after Lewis - Hoky I Evander decided to retire and today he found out that in the last fight of his career he drew with Lennox and is ending his career after dominating his era

 

I know that. But you're taking almost a whole Lewis' career from 1990 to 2004 listing the boxers he didn't fight, but taking not even 4 years out of Tyson's career in comparison. Don't you see how ridiculous it is? So Tyson's era is only 1986 until 1990, even tho he fought until 2005, but Lewis' era is 1990 to 2004? So Lewis is responsible for all of the boxers he didn't fight in that 14 year span but Tyson isn't responsible for boxers he didn't fight for 15 years? No wonder you have so **** opinion if you can't even make a fair comparison, lol.

Well, he was the number 1 contender, seen as the only threat to Mike for 2 years. There was a pressure on Mike to fight him from the boxing public, but he always brushed the that off. Evander tried to get himself into the mandatory position, but alphabet bodies were tight with Don King and were ignoring these requests. Mike ultimately didn't fight him, so didn't act like a champion in your book.

I did, you just can't read:

Evander not wanting to fight Mike straight off while he was the champion has nothing to do with how Mike avoided Evander. We're not evaluating Evander's reign in here, which I personally think wasn't that great.

You're little slow, ain't you? You've been told many times that he indeed wanted to fight Ruiz, but you just can't grasp it, can you?

Even before he was supposed to fight Kirk Johnson he said it could be his last fight. He fought Vitali in the worst shape of his life, beaten him to a pulp, had nothing left to prove and retired. Simple as that.

 

Not exactly. Tyson defeated all the strong rivals of his era. It is not true that Holyfield was considered the best Challenger. It may have gained this name in 1989. in 1987, after the unification, it was said that only Tyrell Biggs or Michael Spinks could defeat Tyson. And Tyson went into the ring with them. I agree that the Holyfield fight should happen again, but I have no idea where in your body came from that statement that public opinion put pressure on Tyson regarding Holyfield or that Don King had so much power that he decided for the federation who should be their first priority. letter. If Holyfield was there, why didn't he officially challenge Tyson? If you have already answered before, please copy the answer because I don't see it and I would like to find out. Same as why Holy legally blocked the fight with Tyson in early 1991?? You claim that Tyson avoided him, official documents prove otherwise... I want to know your logic.
In my opinion, Tyson cleared the heavyweight division for a short time. it was 2, maybe 3 years of complete domination and about 5 years of being in the top 1-2, which is confirmed by a very impressive list of valuable victories. During this time, he won about 15 very valuable victories, unification of three belts, outclassing the linear champion, outclassing the legendary Holmes, outclassing 3 Olympic champions, knocking out several former champions. Meanwhile, Lewis entered the game with a good fight with Ruddock and later - Tucker coming back from rehab - a bad fight, Bruno coming back after 3rd place, also bad, Billups, Phil Jackson, Justin Fortune, a mess with McCall, a good victory with Morrison, controversial with the loser which moments Mercer, strange fights with McCall in rehab, with Akunwande, good fight with Golota, again bad with Briggs and Mavrowic... finally Holy (in a moment beaten by Ruiz) after two boring fights, good 3 victories in 2000 but again against no one a really big one (overweight Tua infighter after another yawn festival), a blamaz and a 1:1 victory over Rahman, finally a marketing fight with Tyson's wreck and one of the most controversial and lucky ones against Klitschko. Since 1992 he has passed Holnes, Bowe, Foreman, Ike, Moorer. he fought against Holy and Tyson too late. He may have wanted to fight Ruiz, but he didn't. He also didn't fight Byrd, whose three best victories are the same as Lenox's three. there is an interview with him and Steward in which they talk about the fights after Kirk with Klitschko, Roy Jones and the rematch with Tyson.

 

As I pointed out before, he didn't beat Buster Douglas, Evander Holyfield and Lennox Lewis and never fought Tim Whiterspoon, George Foreman, Michael Moorer and Ray Mercer. So nope. False. Mike fought throughout the 90's just like Lewis did. You can't ignore that and only count Mike's 80's run. If you only count Mike's 80's run, we need to do the same for Lewis and chose his 4 year peak.

As you can see, there is a lot of things you don't know. Just to show you how powerful Don King was - 2 out of 3 alphabet bodies didn't want to crown Buster Douglas their champion, just because Don King said Mike actually won that fight, lol.

He called him out many times and attended his fights.

It's not my logic, it's yours. I actually don't care Tyson didn't fight Evander or Tim Whiterspoon. There were good reasons for him not to do so and it's not a stain on his run in my opinion. Just like not fighting Ruiz and Byrd isn't a stain on Lewis' reign. It's your logic and double standards we are highlighting here.

And still Lennox Lewis defeated more Top 10 guys than Mike over the course of his career and had more title defences. Lost only twice comparing to Tyson's 6 losses and avenged both of them, while Tyson didn't avenge none of them. Again, funny that your evaluation of Tyson's career end in the 80's, like the 90's didn't exist at all, lol. shows how biased you actually are. It's showing more and more.

 

Yes, but the problem with Vitali is that Lewis didn't want any part of the rematch while just year before he was chasing a rematch with beyond shot version of Tyson like crazy. He actually sued him to make Mike fight him again. I mean, wanting to fight a shot to sh1t guy whom you have battered badly and saying "Thanks but no" to rematch with a guy who gave him great, competitive fight. That doesn't look great for Lennox

 

Lennox pursuing a rematch with Mike as a victor was a baaad look. I think even worse than his losses and not taking a rematch with Vitali. Losses, he avenged and he had a right to retire whenever he wanted. But looking for a big payday in a second fight against a boxer he beat up so bad was just plain ugly. Reminds me a bit of a post-Cooney Holmes, who of course fought some top contenders but he much rather look for easy pay days fighting Marvis Frazier and Michael Spinks. The latter backfired on his ass.

 

The faces of that generation were Bowe, Holyfield and Tyson. Until 99 Lewis hadnt faced not one of them. His big fight with Bruno was in England, in a era of no internet. Hardly had a impact outside of home. If you wanted to be big, you had to go to USA (even now this is true imagine back then).

He is a little overrated today because he only faced the main guys (Holyfield and Tyson) when both were done. I personally think he would lose to both of them and to Bowe if they had fight in the early 90s.
Sure, it was not his fault.... so we can´t blame him. But those are facts of his career.

 

The world view, that was influenced by whatever happened in USA, sure. I don´t know the details about why his fights with Bowe and Holyfield didn´t happen, but he was far from a star and things need to make sense finantially for the stars, in order to happen. He was nowhere near Holyfield status as a star in 96, 97... he had to know that.

I just wanna say that LEwis had 4 years as the best Hw in the world (99-03). Michael Spinks had 3. He has no business being top 3 of all time, in my view, but that is only mine...

 

This is a great point. You are right. Lewis destruction of Tyson was more than what people expected, so it has more value than given today I guess.

 

Please, are you serious - Holyfield wanted a fight? is that your argument on this forum? were you born yesterday? At that time, about 30 boxers wanted to fight Tyson, every important boxer wanted to fight the champion. typical marketing, advertising. Tyson also wanted to fight Holy - after all, he said in an interview after the fight with Williams that he wanted Holy even today You better explain to me why Evander didn't use his rights as a challenger instead of shouting about the fight. Then he would be much more credible. And once again, I'm asking you to explain to me why Holy took legal action not to defend the WBC against Tyson if he wanted this fight so much. Do you have any idea?
Douglas broke Tyson's dominance, I have no problem with that. It happened in the 11th title fight. Lewis' "dominance" was interrupted in the 4th defense but before that he won against Phil Jackson - wow, impressive. And you have a problem that Tyson fought against Holmes, Bruno, Tubbs... damn, Lewis also fought against Bruno. Older than Tyson and beaten three times, and he didn't win as easily as Mike, even though it was Tyson's weakest fight for the belt in the 1980s.

 

Lennox would have gotten his credit much earlier if Bowe or Tyson would have stepped up and fought him earlier. Bowe wanted none of that smoke and apparently neither did Tyson.

Lewis got my attention when he DESTROYED Ruddock, who was a year removed from giving "Prime" Tyson all he wanted.

But to the OP's point, in hindsight, his resume looks much better than it did at the time. I respected him but didn't appreciate him till he just seemed to get better as his career went on. He was the same age as Tyson when they met, but Tyson was "over the hill" while Lennox was still a dominant heavyweight. I wish he would have come back for a Vitali rematch.

 

Lewis ain't as appreciated as he should be cause of how many times he was robbed out of fights he likely would've won, or because of specific hard fought fights that he still rallied back to win (Bruno, Vitali), or losses that he revenged (McCall... kinda, Rahman). Add onto that that he didn't get the chance to fight nobody in the 80s due to him wanting to win gold, and he's somehow regarded worse than Tyson despite having a better resume.
Bowe didn't want to fight him, Tyson had him get paid so he could step aside, and both him and Holyfield had to run down their own comeback trails before they could match up (after each of their losses to McCall and Moorer, respectively).
He fought everyone he could, and did his absolute best every time he could.
Long live the Lion.

 

As I recollect, he was seen as a bit soft after the McCall and Rahman losses and the Vitaly win was where he showed everyone in a title fight that he could come back from being worked over by big, strong opponent.

Technically he might have shown that against Mercer too, but as I remember it didn't really take root in public perception until Vitaly. That win, which was a title fight and classic slugfest with a stoppage, did the trick. But just going by memory.

 

Why are all the crap posters here Tyson fans? Almost to a man.

 

The idea that Lewis pursued Tyson for a rematch is a bit of a mischaracterization of the actual events.

It should be remembered that it was Tyson who activated the rematch clause within days of their fight in June 2002.

Lewis, at that point, wasn't even sure if he wanted to fight again but he was contractually obligated to do so, as a result of Tyson's demand.

Plans were made, King interfered, Tyson reneged.

The June 21st 2003 bill was originally a Lewis/Tyson Double-Header - but Tyson pulled out.

Lewis taking Tyson and King to court was pure business and he was well within his rights to sue for damages.