LEWIS /FOREMAN, Different perceptions of 2 defeats whilst at their peak.

I'm pretty much aligned with this^.

As I've mentioned in previous threads when this matter has turned up, the stoppage wasn't necessarily wrong - it's more that Lewis should have been afforded the opportunity to fight on.

Yeah - I heard a rumor that King and Sulaiman were seen dining out with the referee days before the fight. Not that there's anything wrong with being on friendly, first-name terms with the referee of a World Title fight, involving a fighter one promotes and for a commission of which one is the President... .... ....

 

@bolo specialist has saved me a response.

All I'll add is that, IMO, a pre-Zaire/Zaire Foreman would have annihilated Young.

 

What could possibly go wrong? Holmes spoke of some of the shenanigans in his book....you'd be slipping a cut of the money to this one and that one "just in case".

 

Because Lennox has beaten him to a pulp.

 

But a lot of people do say that, don't they?

The original point was that, Steward-trained or not, Lewis was in his ascendancy and lost to guys who were not in his class. The questionable stoppage, in the eyes of some, and the subsequent rectification of those anomalies goes a long way to softening the impact of the losses on his ledger.

It's a view, but there's not a particularly strong argument there. As it stands, the best performance of Young's career was fated to match the worst version of Foreman. And it's not as though that version of Foreman was utterly routed in the process.

Credit should be given to Young for the win, but it does tend to get a lot more than it really deserves, I think.

 

I think we both know that’s an exaggeration. Vitali had a bad cut but there is no doubt that he was winning the fight until the doctor stepped in.

 

He was winning the fight 58-56 on the scorecards. Lewis won the last 2 rounds. Some people, f.e. Harold Lederman, had the fight even at 57-57. After 6 rounds, Vitali looked like he was ran over by a truck. Ultimately, he got worse of the exchangesand lost on cuts, which is pretty common. See Dubois vs Hrgović fight.

 

1) Yes, if Foreman managed to beat Young and/or decided to continue his career, a showdown with Holmes for the title in 78 or 79 would've been an AMAZING matchup. I think the most ideal situation would be to make sure Foreman stays busy and either rematches Young, then fights mid level opposition like Bugner, Weaver, or Mercado and then finally meets Holmes for a major PPV clash in the fall of 78 or replaces Ocasio in March of 79.

2) He didn't blame Young for his mental health crisis and decision to walk away from boxing. He had a heat stroke and some sort of spiritual moment that led to him becoming Christian and not wanting to be a mean, surly, aggressive individual anymore. He had enough money to retire and just didn't have the heart for the grueling training camps and fights.

3) He claims Don King encouraged him to take it easy the first few rounds so the sponsors and ads could run and people could get their money's worth. This is mentioned in his biography "By George". Only Don King knows for sure if this is true, but it's a pretty poor excuse as Foreman had no issue with going for the kill immediately in so many other fights. However, what is true is that Foreman did not want to repeat the mistake he made in Zaire blowing through his gas tank against a slippery boxer so maybe he had PTSD and saw Young as a Dollar General Ali who might be able to outbox and beat him if he was too aggressive. He had also switched trainers to Gil Clancey who had been encouraging Foreman to be more of a boxer-puncher who jabs and takes his time, which was good advice on paper but had mixed results.

 

Now as for the actual thread topic, Foreman is an incredibly polarizing boxer on so many forums. People often either underrate or overrate him. The loss to Ali didn't age poorly because, well, it's Ali. He is a consensus top 1-2 HW on most lists and he fought a very smart fight befuddling the younger, less experienced bull who was certain he'd get the KO "any moment now" and had received horrible advice from his corner. The Young loss is a little less forgivable, but to be fair it was an odd clash of styles and Young had looked good facing other sluggers such as Lyle. Foreman's mental confidence had waned and he once again underestimated the muggy outdoor heat against a cagey defensive fighter.

Lewis on the other hand shouldn't have lost to either guy, but then again Foreman was initially expected to win both those fights. The ref gave Lewis zero benefit of the doubt against McCall and ended things fairly quick. What makes the McCall loss worse is that outside of beating Lewis himself and a few somewhat decent wins against Damiani, Seldon, etc, McCall has the resume of a journeyman or a very inconsistent contender. I think Young was a little better than McCall and had some questionable decisions that should've or could've gone his way. Now as for Rahman, that's simply impossible to defend as there was no quick stoppage here, Rahman simply took him out with 1 huge punch and had Lewis badly hurt. Lewis was overconfident and simply got caught, and Rahman was simply not that great to begin with (a lower B level fighter at best).

 

I don't see the problem with Lewis being stopped against McCall. He was badly dazed and still staggering when the referee waived the fight off. If he had let him continue he would have been KOed very very badly.

 

That's just it. No one can possibly know whether or not Lewis would have made it through the round, let alone know for sure it would have resulted in Lewis being "Koed very, very badly."

 

Sure, it's a matter of opinion. But the fact that he was still shaky indicates for me that a bad KO was waiting him.

 

perhaps if the referee had not stopped it, Lewis's career would have ended there and we would remember him the same way we remember Tony Tucker, John Tate, Jimmy Ellis, Ruslan Chagaev, etc.