Lennox's chin - for once and for all

It was neither granite, nor china. In fact pretty solid truth be told.

The Rahman right hand in the first fight was a peach- right on the money. He caught Lewis underprepared, overconfident and on the ropes guard down, though that doesn't take anything away from his victory. Other great HW's would have perhaps struggled to recover from that shot. Lewis was a tad hard done by not being allowed to continue in the first McCall fight.

Two knockout defeats from 40-odd fights, many vs Heavy enough hitters isn't that disasterous. Lewis also took big shots from Tyson, Tua, Briggs and Bruno etc , etc and didn't go down.

 

Lewis fought more big punchers than any other heavyweight in history except for Ali and Louis. He was knocked out twice, once before refining his style and once at the age of 35, when 90% of the other heavyweights are washed up.

He took flush shots from Briggs, Tua, Bruno, Tyson (still powerful), Grant, Morrison, Holyfield and Mason. Ruddock is the only big puncher who didn't manage to land.

Only Tunney (And Vitali Klitschko if you count the ring magazine champion) of the linear champions can claim to have been knocked down fewer times, and Tunney did not exactly have a long career at heavyweight against big punchers.

He didn't have an iron chin but his chin held up 95% of the time nethertheless. And when it didn't, unfocusedness also played a role.

 

:good

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=u4SQmxIP5Bk

 

Well, let's see:

• Tyson hit Lewis with what looked like a full blooded left hook in round 1
• Briggs hit Lewis a few times and staggered him with the left hook
• Tua hit Lewis with what looked like a full blooded left hook in round 6

So the answer aside from Ruddock is yes. The only reason Ruddock didn't hit Lewis with his 'smash' is because he never got a chance to.

Moreover Lewis was only knocked out cold once and IMO the effects of altitude had some bearing on that. He got up against McCall if you recall but was unfairly not allowed to see if he could continue.

Lewis's chin was a solid B IMO. It wasn't rock solid but it was reliable enough for him to go 14 years, fighting a succession of big punchers and only be knocked down twice. If we reduce this argument to a set of statistics then in 44 fights Lewis was only knocked down twice. So, he had a less than 5% chance of being knocked down. I don't want to even calculate how many power shots Lewis took in his career but it is certainly much more than 44, which would make the above percentage a lot smaller, likely less than 0.5% IMO. The bottom line is, if Lewis really did have a glass jaw surely those percentages would have been a lot higher. That's logic and common sense to me and I can't see how anyone else can argue otherwise.

 

And his best shot of the night with a short left hook in the 3rd.

Two in a row, as it happens. The impact was enough to knock Lewis back, but not down (or even looking dazed, actually).

I can say, off the top of my head because I know anal trivia stats like this, that in Lewis's 18 title fights combined he's take in the region of about 1,350 punches or so. I have the exact number in a file at home. And he had 26 other non-title efforts, including the 223 he took from Mercer and so on...

I would have to rate it as decent. Not great, not iron or anything, but decent.
He simply couldn't go in there with so many opponents, many of them noted punches, and do so well for so long without having a decent beard unless he was the greatest defensive master that HW boxing has ever seen.

And while I think Lewis's defence is indeed notably good, that one I can't buy.

 

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Lewis can be compared to Vlad Klitschko in the respect that if not warmed, Like he was not vs McCall any fighter could be KO'd, and if not in tip top shape like with Rahman any fighter can be KO;d, in Lewis's case he did not get up and if he did he was done anyway, In Klitschko's case, he got off the floor but was done, in 2 fights he was spent and in 1 fight(Sanders) he did not warm up. Manny Stewart and both fighter learned something from all this, these BIG men should fight behind there size and Jab and wait for the opportunity( Lewis wacked Tua enough to keep him at bay) and out boxed Tua, Vlad did it to Peter and gave him the Bowllegged dance in the 12th. I think a warmed up version of Lewis took a good punch(Vitali,Evander,Mercer,Tyson)((same with Vlad and these men along with Vitali were head and shoulders over the other BIG men in history

 

I rate his chin about 6/10, and would say it's "good"

I've seen him take some big hits, although he was indeed hit with two exceptional shots from McCall and Rahman.

But yeh, you can't really say anyone who's been put down with a single punch has a "granite" chin.

I don't think Tysons punching was even half as effective as it was around '88, even in terms of raw power. He was too muscular for his stature, and couldn't get the same sort of force behind his punches.

 

Yes

 

I rate it pretty highly. More than say, Joe Louis or Jack Dempsey.

As bad as the knockout losses were, they can be put down to him being unaware of the punches coming, as opposed to him just not being able to take the punches. If you look at his fight with Klitschko, who was a much harder hitter than McCall or Rahman, he takes a fantastic right, straight on the jaw, but doesn't go down. he was hurt, sure, but he knew it was coming.

Some of the punches he took were bigger than the ones he was KOed by. As bzaree as it sounds, when it comes to judging his chin, maybe the losses shouild be completely ignored? I don't think they were a reflection of how strong a punch he could take, but more about his overconifence and lackadaisical attitude against inferior fighters.

Looking at the punches he took from very hard htiters such as Tua, Klitschko or Tyson is fairer I think.

If McCall or Chuvalo are 10/10, Ali is 9/10, I'd say Lewis was a 7 or maybe an 8. Nowhere near as bad as it is made out to be, but as Klitschko showed, it was possible to hurt him badly.

 

Moorer got knocked out cold by every decent heavyweight puncher he faced.


And that's doing him a favor in calling the old Foreman a puncher because other than Moorer, he didn't knock anyone of note out in his comeback.
Holyfield dropped him in the first match and knocked him out in the rematch.

Lewis, on the other had, faced 12+ hard punchers, lost twice but avenged both of them by returning the favor.


There's no comparison really, they're not even close. One of them lost to 80% of the punchers he faced, the other lost to 8% of the punchers he faced.