lets talk about chris "rapid fire" byrd

Byrd was a good fighter and a boxing southpaw, it was when he wanted to slug that he got beat ( I thought he lost to Oquendo and the Golota fight was tight) but Byrd would have been a pretty big heavy in the 70's and even the 80's.....but even though he performed for a longer time than Young at top level, he was not at the level of Young at Jimmy's best and neither of those men had the slickness, power of JJWalcott or Charles....still they beat many a Big man with there grit and slickness....a classic was Byrd/Tua

 

Had all the speed & talent to be a major success. The only drawback is he couldn't dent an egg! No power whatsoever for the heavyweight division.

 

There are only two ways a Lewis fight ends for Byrd.

1 A dull 12 round decision loss for Byrd with Byrd catching a beating

2 A Lewis looking to end it fast destroys Byrd in the first 5 rounds.


Byrd got his ass kicked by a lesser version of Lewis with half the killer instinct

 

Boxing has some suprising endings at times, just ask Lennox Lewis himself. Byrd was slick, Lewis was slowing, things could have been vastly different. Personally I would have loved to see him face Byrd or Ruiz, just to see how he dealt with those ugly styles.

 

Does anyone else find Byrd annoying as hell?Ike nearly took his head off with a left hand that made Byrd fall on his face and drool on himself and he gets up and starts bitching at the ref that it was a slip. He then falls over again after that because he's so out of it but complains again and when the fight got stopped had a temper tantrum
Hard to fault him too much for acting like that in that situation but he was pretty much always like that. His loud obnoxious wife is even worse.

It's amazing what he could do in the era of giants as a blown up LHW/CW though. Tough fighter too.

 

It was one of those situation where you totally understand Lewis for not wanting to fight Byrd.
To no fault to Byrd, It was just too little reward and too much downside. And by downside I don't mean a potential loss (I don't think anyone thought Lewis would lose to Byrd) - I mean time wasted, and even legacy tarnished. Nobody was taking Byrd as a legitmate threat to Lewis ... and it would be a hard fight to sell to the general public.
You can't compare Bowe and Lewis in this regard. Take away the belts, and Bowe and Lewis should still have fought. The belt is the only reason you can name for a Byrd and Lewis fight. Big difference.

I don't want to even discuss Ruiz. I am surprised that people do. He is one of those fighters whose record will grow in stature over time - and it is a shame, as it was a god-awful thing to live through as a fan.

 

Actually, the one time when Lewis seemed comfortable on the inside was when it came to grappling (and holding and hitting). Ruiz would basically be trying to create the same situation that Lewis tried to create on the inside. Ruiz did indeed take some decent boxers out of their game, but Lewis was much more than a decent boxer and his game (on the inside) wasn't too different from Ruiz's. As Lewis showed against Akinwande, he was quite comfortable letting his opponent grab on while he took round after round with his superior strength and activity.

That's still nothing new for Lewis, who was himself a very accurate puncher. Even when Lewis's accuracy dropped, his size tended to limit his opponent's workrate and his own workrate was such that he could be relatively inaccurate and still widely outland his opponent.

Lewis wasn't THAT slow by that point, and at any rate he wasn't slow enough to warrant being worried by Byrd's speed.

Ugly grappling was something Lewis was quite comfortable with, and if that's where Ruiz would try to win rounds (and it wound be the only place he could) he would just get locked up before he could do anything. You can't beat Lewis purely on the basis of infighting, because he was strong and big enough to dictate the nature of the action in close.

It's odd that you talk about Ruiz trying to jab and get in close with Lewis and such a fight not being on Lewis's terms, then say that the Vitali fight WAS on Lewis's terms. Look at the pattern of the Vitali fight again: they throw at most three or four punches, then get tied up. Lewis has his most success when either uppercutting in close or hitting and holding. The thing that gave Lewis so many problems in the Vitali fight- Vitali's height advantage- isn't at all present in the case of Ruiz.

It is illogical to say that Lewis had his kind of fight against Vitali, but would be facing an entirely different and more difficult kind of fight against Ruiz.

 

Are you serious here? You seriously were more interested in seeing Lewis take on Byrd or Ruiz, both (especially Johnny boy) of whom were pretty unproven back then ?

 

Are you serious here? You seriously were more interested in seeing Lewis take on Byrd or Ruiz ( both, especially Johnny boy of whom were pretty unproven back then, rather than see Lewis fight Tyson and Klitschko ?

 

Byrd had almost no chance with someone who has serious height/reach advantage and just uses it (like Klitschko's or even Golota). He looked good against big guys who were stupid enough to chase him around the ring, and I doubt Lewis would do it.

I am not sure Ruiz hugging and holding would be very effective against LL either. LL was quite good in this himself, so I guess Ruiz could be the one who gets tired first when LL leans on him every time they clinch (like he did against Tyson or Holy II). The only good thing here is that probably we would get rid of Ruiz for some time, possibly in brutal fashion.

 

So a Byrd thread has turned now into a Lemmie nut hugging extravaganza............one thing for sure, Byrd certainly accomplished more than those two hopeless ham and eggers Rahman and McCall.....................whose only claim to fortune is .....well, we all know the answer. Byrd deserved a shot, IMO he would have lost in a competitve fight .

The most amusing part is that the huggers are talking up Tyson like he was worth a **** when he fought Lewis, lol, he entered training at 280 + pounds , hell ,even with his stunt at the press conference he could not buy himself enough time to get into fighting shape because in boxing terms he was gone beyond gone.

Byrd would have put up a FAR better performance than the shell of a shell Tyson.

 

Yeah I wanted to see how he dealt with Ruiz the most. If I had my choice, I would have wanted to see Lewis face Ruiz before he retired. I didnt care for Ruiz much, but he gave a lot of guys problems, and I just wanted to see how Lewis would deal with it. Sorry for disappointing everyone, but I knew Vitali was going to get beat down, even though he put up a better fight than I expected.

 

It was his solemn duty as guardian of the integrity of the heavyweight division to do so.

No excuses for this wretched man please!

 

Styles makes fights. Technically Byrd deserved a shot, but IMHO he would've lost badly in a boring fight. Tyson, shot as he was, at least had remote puncher chance, while you can see Byrd was going nowhere against big, skilled guys. Even past prime Golota with one hand should've decisioned him (OK, it wasn't prime Byrd either, but anyway I hope you see my point).

Klitschko's were just using jab and ocassional hook to keep him at the proper distance where he couldn't reach them. Those fights were pretty one-sided, even if Byrd won one. I think LL would fight him in similar fashion.

 

Thats right especially when it happened to him twice! Hyprocrite! :hey