"Look at the state of his face! Look at the state of his face! Look...at the...

And if you don't believe it, just look at the state of his face!

 

Give it a rest, boxers have to retire sometime, Lennox had achieved everything he wanted, and there is always one more fight...

 

Many will say I'm foolish for believing this, BUT - as silly as Lennox sounded after that fight I believe he WOULD have won if the fight had continued.

My reasons:
1) Older fighters, like Lennox, tend to come on later in fights. Look at guys like Bernard Hopkins. It takes him longer to get things started and begin to land accurately.

2) The momentum in the fight was turning in Lennox's favor - which supports my first point.

3) Lennox is a great finisher. I'm not saying he would have been able to knock out Klitschko, but he was landing such clean hard shots towards the end of the fight, that if he hurt him - he would have finished him.

4) Despite what some people are saying.. why would Lennox run out of gas to the point that he would start doing WORSE? Lennox has gone 12 rounds plenty of times before. Sure he was a bit old, and the fight was at a hard pace, but Lennox was a great champion and he knew how to keep fighting using his experience to guide him even after he got tired.

5) Klitschko was tired too! He looked very tired, and while Lennox was coming on, he was getting weaker.

And lastly - it WAS a legit stoppage. Why does Lennox take so much **** for not wanting to fight again? The find didn't end on a great note for him, but he was still won legitimately. The combination that opened that cut, Lennox's left hook - straight right hand, has knocked out tons of guys. Personally I would have rather it landed cleanly, and then we'd see how the fight would have turned out without Vitali's face starting to fall off. But it didn't. Lennox was 38 when that fight happened, nearly 39 by the time he retired the next May... it wasn't the BEST time for him to retire because he had unfinished business - but he'd been cleaning out the division for years. He didn't really owe the sport to find the NEXT generation of talent, after he'd already cleaned out all the real heavyweights from really two generations of heavyweight fighters already. The man could only do so much.

I see his mistake not in retiring without fighting Vitali, but in the manner he did it. If he said "Listen, I'm just getting too old to fight a whole other generation of young fighters. I want to leave it to the new guys to have their champion.", would anyone complain?

And as for the outcome of a rematch, its important to look at how Lewis fought in the fight regardless of what Klitschko was doing. He looked bad. He was in as bad shape as he'd ever been in recent years (including the first Rahman fight!). He didn't appear to have a gameplan, and was trying to win based solely upon his skill and power. Being in shape, and following an Emanuel Steward game plan is what gave Lewis his best victories. I believe that regardless of what happened in the first fight, if their had been a rematch, Lewis would have won.

 

It was only a matter of time before this topic came up again. If you want the real truth just look at how casual Lennox fought. Veterans who never feel that the fight is out of their reach fight this way. Lennox was tired but he was still fighting on cruise control cuz that's what experienced fighters do. When Vitali rocked him in the second Lewis was smiling. Is that a sign of a fighter who's in big trouble? Give me a break. Lewis was just out of shape and sloppy. Understandably so too. It's not easy to fight a 6'8'' guy when you're 6'5'' yourself. It makes for a sloppy fight and when the 6'8'' guy can dodge punches it makes it even more difficult. I agree with the people who say that Lewis is a professional and needs to come into the fight in good shape but he didn't and still managed to win. Vitali had barely ever been hit cleanly prior to that fight and Lewis tore his face up. If you think the fight shouldn't have been stopped we probably wouldn't be talking about Vitali's fight next month cuz those cuts were severe and Lewis was teeing off on them whenever he got the chance. Vitali fought a courageous fight. He hit Lewis with alot of good, hard shots and erased the stigma of the Byrd fight but in the end, the correct decision was made. Rather than speculate on what would have happened, we might as well focus on what did happen. In the ring you do whatever you can to win and Lewis did that on a night when he could have easily lost his title to a younger, determined fighter.

 

"Lennox won the fight, Klitschko won the event.." :yep

 

dr anal fist got face raped

 

:good Great post!

 

Lennox would have won that night but a rematch was fair game. Lewis ended the fight on a good note while Klit was getting got clean. I forgot he called out Wlad but ended on a great note. He would have lost to one of the brothers at the time.

 

The Sam Peter clip at the end was awesome

 

To be fair I remember this fight, and there was a lot of support for Vit at the time. Shame a rematch never happened. Understandable though as Lennox was cracking on.