Lewis vs Mercer

Tyson wasn`t in his prime in the 90`s and with Rooney in his corner was far more skilled than Mercer.

 

If only Ray would have been better shape, he would have pulled it off

 

Interesting post with a thoughtful breakdown.Your point that a fight that close can't be a robbery is well taken .
I haven't watched it for years ,think I'll do so tonight.
Good Stuff!

 

A few other points to consider. Lewis took a non title bout against a top notch opponent. This was just not happening in the sport much back then. Moreso with heavies. Let alone a guy with a known set of whiskers. What we usually got in non title bouts was a made to order type opponent---so Lewis could have fought an Alex Stewart type guy.

Lewis could have forced Mercer to be the road warrior. Have the bout in the UK and a normal sized ring and seeing if the american heavyweight fighter would be willing to go into the lions den.

Instead what we the boxing fans got was a bout where a heavyweight was taking big risks.

 

I do agree that its one of Lewis's 5 best wins.

I do wonder why Holmes beat Mercer easier than Lewis did.

I haven't watched this fight in a loooong time but I will watch it soon and post my scorecards. Thanks for posting your scorecards, I imagine mine will be similar to yours.

 

Good take on the fight which I enjoyed reading, @Big Ukrainian.

Been a good while since I scored it and I don't have my card to hand right now for a round-by-round, but I do remember that the last time I watched it I had it 96-95 Mercer. But it was so close that I have no qualms with the result itself. One of those fights where anyone who scored it to either man by a maximum of two points, or a draw, was 'right' so to speak. Ultimately those are the kind of scores which the judges delivered, so I agree that while Mercer has a claim, calling it a robbery is a bit daft.

But I think it's a tricky win to rate for Lewis in retrospect which leaves us with some answers, but also a couple of questions. Obviously the fact that it was so close and the decision quite contested in the first place is one reason for that, but like you I don't necessarily deduct too many points from Lewis for this. It's a highly competitive sport after all and as you say, it's always admirable when a guy can pull himself through a real gut check, especially when there has been a slight suspicion (as there still was at the time with Lewis) that they're a bit of a flat track bully.

Rather, I think it's the difficulty in rating Mercer (both over his whole career and at the time Lewis fought him) which makes this a hard win to accurately gauge, and hard to define exactly how much credit Lewis gets for the win. Mercer always blew hot and cold at the best of times: Damiani made him look pretty poor and one-dimensional until he got himself out of jail with that uppercut, and Holmes on his last legs outfoxed him, too.

Therefore it's safe to say that even a peak (at least athletically speaking) Mercer had holes in his game and was pretty beatable - but Lewis wasn't even facing a peak version. Mercer lost his way badly after that humbling against Holmes, visibly lacking in confidence and also struggling to keep his weight down. He'd looked poor and failed to win in two or three fights in the interim. As you've mentioned, he was clearly carrying some excess weight against Lewis, and was pretty inactive beforehand as well: he'd not fought in a year, and had only one fight in the 18 months before that.

When you combine all that you'd expect a fighter of Lewis' calibre, closer to their peak and with some considerable physical advantages, to have won with a bit more to spare, small ring or no. Everyone has slight off-nights so I'd agree that him only just scraping home instead is no cause for shame, but I don't necessarily think we need to go too far in the other direction either. Given Mercer's faults and his condition / career status by 1996, I think Lewis gets quite enough credit already and I don't think it's one of his best or most significant wins / performances, although like you say it's definitely one of the most entertaining.

Very good fight to watch. Bit of a role reversal as the crisper, more accurate work (and he out-jabbed the jab master in Lewis) was done by the 'slugger' Mercer (painting with broad strokes, but you catch my drift), whereas the 'boxer' had to rely on digging in, his punch output and exchanging at close quarters.

 

I agree with you, good analysis. Will have to rewatch this fight soon.

 

Good scorecard bro - I also had it a draw iirc. This fight is why I pick Liston over Lewis.

 

Liston didn't have the chin of Ray Merker.

Ray had the prime leathered out of him in that fight. He made it close by giving Lewis everything he had , but came away with bad injuries to his neck.

 

I've seen the fight 3 times, and always had it a draw. However, if Mercer was as marketable as Tyson and Holyfield, he'd get the victory.

 

I havent watched it since the night it aired and back then I had Mercer. Thought he got robbed as did a couple friends at work when Monday rolled around. May check it out again.

 

Just a close fight but no robbery in my opinion