What if Lennox never smoked razor early and it went into the later rounds. How do yers see it goin? I think theres a good chance that the still Raw Lewis would be in trouble
Lewis was certainly vulnerable at that time as was Ruddock. I don't think Lewis was a better fighter than Ruddock but Ruddock wasn't as durable after the Tyson wars and Lewis basically "landed" first.
Ruddock seemed tentative & scared of Lennox's size & power, so i'm not sure him surviving is a realistic senario. Besides, Lewis is a bully against fellow Superheavyweights, & loves to destroy them early with big bombs.
Ruddock isn't winning on points, he ceased to be a boxer a long time ago. His whole thing at this point, was walking around with his hands down, looking for uppercuts, and doing half assed clinching to get out of sticky spots. You could get away with that against early 90s Tyson but no wander Lewis blasted him out. If it goes late, he's still vulernable to being stopped as soon as he's rocked, he had no answer for Lennox's pressure.
As a Ruddock fan I remember watching that fight Live on that Halloween night, I remember it started at like 6 or 7 here since it was in London.. I knew from the time that Ruddock entered the ring and got in Lennox's face and pointed at him when walking away he was nervous, all of his mannerisms were off in that fight.. The look in his eyes was fear, I knew he was in trouble.. Though I think as another poster stated scared or not the two Tyson fights had already really done him in and he was pretty much finished when he entered the ring..
-He got some injures, but I don't think Tyson ruined him. -Again, my observatoin of those fights was that Tyson at that stage was just too easy to tie up. Everytime Mike put something together and hurt Ruddock, he could just grab him and lay on him untli he found his feet. Lennox was too big and strong, and just pushed Ruddock off everytime he tried to lay on him in the second round.
I think Lennox beats Ruddock pretty much all the time, unless Razor got there with the Hook and scored the KO, which is always a possibility when you can punch like Ruddock.. The way Ruddock just fell to pieces against Lewis always made me think that he was a shot fighter.. I thought if he could take the best Tyson had to offer then why was he unable to take what Lewis was dealing..?? Its a good point about the ease at which Ruddock was able to tie Mike up, but I just feel that Ruddock would have been able to last a little longer had he been at his peak.. Though that right hand on knock down number one was a monster shot... Its really hard to say since Ruddock never had a meaningful fight again until many years later against Morrison.. Had he fought a Holyfield or Bowe or Moorer or hell even a Bert Cooper, Alex Stewart, Ray Mercer or anyone of note I think we would have a better read on where he actually still was as a fighter at that point...
I think Lewis is all wrong for Rudduck, a level above for1 thing. Better outboxer, better footwork and athleticism and his fast straight right down the pipe was always going to land before Rudduck got any left hooks/smashes off, hell Lewis was even beating him to the left hook, stronger inside. The first KD didn't have anything to do with luck, he worked the angles and timed a perfect straight right to the temple, which Rudduck didn't have the defense to prevent. Then in the second round he just couldn't get out of the way of the right hand, maybe the best right hand in HW history
Mostly this. Lewis dissected Ruddock. It was far from a shootout, where one guy got to target first by chance. Lewis landed a picture perfect 1-2, and Ruddock couldn't handle it. Lewis was ALWAYS gonna end that fight. Ruddock didn't have the tools to outbox him, nor the attitude to go after a knockout. Lewis owned his soul that night.
Ruddock was an 8 to 5 favorite that nite/ i lost $150 to a buddy that nite................i thought ruddock was gonna smoke lewis inside 5 rds/ but in hindsight...no ruddock even if he didnt get nailed on the temple at the end of the first rd.....he still woulda lost/ 19 rds with tyson took the edge off razor.......broken rib with tyson and a broken jaw also....ruddock was done on june 28 1991/
Agree Mongoose, nice. Like I've said before when discussing Ruddock, he left his jab and boxing skills in the dressing room for his fights. Ruddock looked like he was waiting for an opening to land the smash and didn't set up any punches with his lost trademark jab. Had Ruddock boxed more and used his jab, it might have been a different outcome. Just my opinion.
This was a big win for Lewis at the time, he became the first fighter since the awsome dave jaco to KO ruddock...
Ruddock was finsihed after his wars with tyson. You cant expect someone to go 19 rounds getting the **** beat out of you by mike tyson and expect to be the same after. Plus Lewis is a hard puncher in his own right which makes things worse
On a related note, here's the full HBO intro to Lewis-Ruddock: [yt]pePqYOcR6Rk[/yt] [yt]sNNM6K5EBps[/yt]
