"Of course it is flowery. It contradicts what you have stated. " And contradcits Sports Illustrated and every other credible publication from the time. "VITLAY? Why bring him up? Did I even mention him?" I did in my initial post. The original comparision was between Viitali and Maravoic, maybe you walked in the middle of this? "Going by just punch stats alone is not an accurate measure of how aggresive a fighter was. " It's obvious when watching the entire fights too. Maravoic has several rounds where he was barely getting off 10 punches. Even if he was coming at Lewis like Tyson, that is simply not aggressive by any measure. Yeah, Round 7 was fun and not surprisingly fools people into thinking it was some kind of war...rest of the fight not so much. Thompson was fairly aggressive, colored Wlad's ribs red with body work in the early rounds. "Why would Holyfield, who rarely fights in a safety first manner all of a sudden do it against Lewis?" He didn't all of a sudden do it against Lewis. Wow, if you feel Holyfield was being an aggressive warrior in those fights, feel free. Really nothing to say about that.
Really? :blood You questioned whether I thought VITALY wasn't as aggressive as Mavrovic. I had never even mentiond or insinuated that. No, it's not. Mavrovic was agressive and was getting off where he could. Note: where he could. :deal Do you think that perhaps he couldn't get off? This is where you are missing the point with all the fighters mentioned. Just because he couldn't employ his usual rock em sock em approach, doesn't mean that he is "safety first". I guess he was safety first against Byrd then as well. Now why would that be? Incase he got knocked out?
Yes,the fight was terrible press for Lewis in almost all the major boxing publications and newspapers. This is fact. I question the journalism of your article due to its romantic hyperbole that made the fight out to be Chuvalo/Ali. "You questioned whether I thought VITALY wasn't as aggressive as Mavrovic. I had never even mentiond or insinuated that. " This was my original post that you responded to: Mavrovic fought a conservative negative fight not unlike some of Wlad's recent batch of opponents, and Lewis just did enough to get by against an opponent that was rarely throwing. Vitali put tremendous early pressure on Lewis and forced him to step up and fight or risk getting stopped -My point was that the major difference between Vitali and Mavrovic was that one lasted the distance by being much more conservative and less effective in his attack; throwing considerable fewer punches and applying less pressure. Vitali's overwhelming offense dragged Lewis into a rough brawl, Mavrovic had a moment or two but he mostly allowed Lennox wait and pick his shots to an easy and mostly uneventful decision. -You are aware that Holyfield picked huge catching gloves against Lewis because he wanted to focus on defense for the fight, he had no intention of brawling with him like he did Bowe. And yes, he developed a "saftey first" approach after his comeback because he couldn't get off punches and take heavy punishment like he used to. Would the Evander of 91 cruise on his skills against the outclassed Bean? I think your confusing "saftey first" with a negative coward label, I mean Evander was "safety first" against Tyson too, but he had way more openings than he did against Lewis. There's a difference between being "conservative" and "safey first" and being a pure "survivalist with no intention of winning." And my point that you missed was that this version of Holyfield was probably the best smaller defensive counter puncher Lewis faced during his reign or even his entire career that could even be stretched into a comparision with Chambers. Which really doesn't leave me with the convincing impression that he would walk down Fast Eddy any easier than Wlad did. Lewis really only blasted out big stationary fighters that were dumb enough to stand in front of him, like Wlad he was content with outpointing smaller opponents that couldn't solve his reach or push him into a fight.
You do remember that Holyfield predicted and went for a 3rd round KO don't you. :blood Also it is well established that the version of Holyfield who fought Lewis couldn't fight for 3 minutes of a round any more as he could with Bowe, who he fought 6 years earlier. :deal