Lewis v Klitschko: the Cut

He did? What fights were you watching? What does banging mean anyway if you suck? Grant punched his way right into the garbage can and Byrd and Ruiz actually won titles, in fact I would say Ruiz beat Holyfield up better than your hero Lewis did.

 

This is how I see it as well. Lewis himself said the Byrd fight would be ugly.

 

The general boxing fans were sold a bill of goods by HBO on Grant. People who knew what they were looking at knew Grant would get slaughtered by Lewis. Byrd and Ruiz presented two ugly fights for Lewis and he knew it, but from a stylistic standpoint they were interesting as Lewis hadnt faced anything like it.

 

Amen to this one. Grant was an HBO hype job. Grant was big and had some athletic ability, but he was an in-experienced somewhat light hearted big man who really did not like Boxing.

Lewis did face one style guy in Ossie Ossicao. If memory serves the blown up cruiser gave an on his way up Lewis some fits. Clearly Ruiz and Byrd were several levels above Ossicao at heavyweight.

 

It's laughable how some people clutch at straws to criticise somebody. Lewis didn't fight Ruiz or Byrd because nobody wanted to him in the ring with either of them. In fact very few people have ever wanted to see either of them in the ring at all. It's hardly a knock on a fighters resume if he doesn't fight a couple of also rans who're a notch below his better wins.

Lewis fought Grant because that's the fight hbo wanted.

 

getting back to topic Lewis was dominating from round three and hit VK with a great uppercut in round six. But what was VK's corner doing blind freddy could see the fight being stopped on cuts why weren't they telling VK to go out there and blast Lewis not to try and survive remember what Marciano did to Charles this what VK needed to do.

 

Corner's make a difference. Steward was in Lewis corner, and he had a nervous look about him, but he kept telling Lewis he was the champion and he had the experience. It should be noted that Steward was in McCall's corner for the upset of Lewis.

Vitali's cut man did a good job slowing down the blood. There was not huge free flow of blood when the fight was stopped. There was some swelling, but Vitali could see. Lewis may have had more swelling, and also had a cut on his nose too.

As far as advice goes, Sudnek has never impressed me with anything, but perhaps the english interpretor for TV looses something in the translation.

 

You're right. It was the fight that would sell and what the general public perceived as the most competitive, but Lewis shouldnt be granted a pass for not fighting them after he bitched the entire early part of his career for guys not wanting to fight him for monetary reasons.

 

Lewis was clearly no1 in the division when Bowe/Holy/Tyson were avoiding him. Ruiz/Byrd were never close to no1 in the division, they were average contenders nothing more.

Ruiz's promoter paid Lewis money not to fight Ruiz, not only that Ruiz had been starched in 1 by Tua, Ruiz clearly was zero threat. Grant was rightfully ranked above Ruiz by everyone at the time. Grant isn't a great HW, he'd beat Ruiz though

Lewis fought an ATG TYson instead of an all time stinker in Byrd, pretty obvious

LEwis fought Vitali who was clearly the better fighter of the 00s than Byrd/Ruiz

To claim Lewis not fighting Byrd/Ruiz is remotely close to him being blatantly ducked by Bowe/Holy/Tyson is the biggest load of bull**** I've heard this week, neither men were any kind of threat, but then again most of your posts about Lewis reek of the same smell

 

The Bryd fight was clearly a robbery, nearly everyone said so, the Ruiz fight was closer but most had him winning and he floored Ruiz twice

 

I had Ruiz winning easy, but your right the Byrd fight was tight, certainly not beating the **** out of both like you originally posted.

 

Ruiz and Byrd were his mandatories thats what Im saying, not comparing the fighters just the fact they were his mandatories. They were also not average contenders by the fact of what they went on to accomplish. They were two of the better contenders of the crappy late 90's really. If anything Grant WAS the average contender and more than proved that.
Lewis was "starched" by Mcall in 2 and Rahman in 5 as a champion. I dont recall Ruiz ever being "starched" again, yet you seem to think that was some big factor to downgrade him as an opponent???
Also your assessment of how it went down is not correct. He dumped his IBF belt to fight Kirk Johnson not Vitali Klitschko.

 

Frankly, I'm really struggling to see what Chris Byrd and John Ruiz had done circa 2000 to be more deserving of a title shot than Michael Grant. Ruiz had been KO'd within 20 seconds by David tua and had beaten an ancient Tony Tucker. Chris Byrd was stopped early by Ike Ibeabuchi, and was mainly feasting on guys like Ross Purity and Bert Cooper, who was shot by that point. Grant puts together a string of 31 wins with scalps over Golata, Gonzalez and Savarese, yet somehow he was nothing more than a hype job next to those other guys? I'll also point out that I saw his fight with Golata and it was definitely an exciting war of attrition. Can anyone name a single match that Byrd or Ruiz had that had the word " exciting " attached to it?

 

Again its about who his mandatory was and thats the only beef I have with Lewis after he was critical of everyone else, not the general publics perception of who was more qualified. Whatever you think, or thought of Grant at the time is entirely up to you, but Ruiz and Byrd both proved themselves as more competent professional boxers and although providing ugly fights for Lewis, they presented something interesting in a stylistic matchup "in my opinion".
Im confident if Grant faced someone like Ibeabuchi or Tua before fighting Lewis he would have disappeared a lot quicker. Using Golota the perennial loser, cheater or Jorge Gonzalez as a barometer for anything is no comparison to a young Tua or an undefeated Ibeabuchi.
Again Ruiz was a relatively green fighter when he lost to Tua, not an established champion who was also knocked out quickly twice, by lessor opponents.

 

That was only Lewis's 10th fight, or thereabouts atsch

Also take a look at that guys record, he was hardly a bum, he fought a lot of good fighters - and beat some of them. That fight still has absolutely no bearing on what Lewis would have done to Byrd or Ruiz 10 years later though nut:nut