Most overrated HW of all time.

I have also always assumed this to be the case.

Is there anyone on the forum who believes LL would have turned things round against McCall had he been allowed to continue? He would go up in my estimation if a strong case could be made for this.

On another matter, I have heard it argued that the losses to mediocre McCall and Rahman means LL was susceptible, but only to mediocre fighters!!

This is a fascinating conclusion and frankly one I hadnt even considered. If I see a sportsmen lose to mediocrity I think the simplest and safest conclusion is they are also mediocre...

 

Muhammad Ali.
GOAT doesn't get starched by Sonny Banks and Henry Cooper, and doesn't get a boxing lesson from Doug Jones, Ron Lyle, Jimmy Young, Ken Norton three times in a row, and by 7-0-1 Leon Spinks.

 

Well, it's telling that that didn't happen to Ali, then, isn't it?

 

Then again, Lewis hit the deck only twice in his career.

Name me champions who have been down fewer times:

Ali: 3 knockdowns (if we omit the Wepner one)
Holyfield: 6 knockdowns
Liston: 3 knockdowns
Foreman: 3 knockdowns
Frazier: 11 knockdowns (inflated because he kept getting up)
Marciano: 2 knockdowns
Dempsey: 13 knockdowns (4 if we omit knockdowns from his early fights, that was basically amatuer career)
Louis: 10 knockdowns
Jeffries: 3 knockdowns
Tyson: 5 knockdowns
Bowe: 3 knockdowns (not counting the nutcrushers)
Walcott: 5+ knockdowns
Charles: 10+ knockdowns (inflated because he kept getting up and kept fighting far past his prime)
Patterson: 21 knockdowns
Johansson: 5 knockdowns
Max Baer: 5 knockdowns
Johnson: 4+ knockdowns
Holmes: 5 knockdowns
Schmeling: 7+ knockdowns
Willard: 8+ knockdowns (inflated because he kept getting up)
Sharkey: 5+ knockdowns



... so there you have it. The only one to tie Lewis in number of career knockdowns is Rocky Marciano. Every other single heavyweight champion in history has been on the canvas more often than Lewis, and what's more, Lewis faced more punchers than every one of them with the exception of Ali and maybe Walcott.

 

It's still nothing to be proud about. McCall and Rahman were much better than Banks or Cooper. A two difficult fights with Mercer and Holyfield are not as bad as struggling with those five. Not to mention several title fights that were a disgrace to the sport, so weak were Ali's opponents.

 

If we take all of his career, Charles was down at least two dozen times, probably more.

 

Good heavens, who's making a case for Lennox being the GOAT? Bowe was far more impressive in his trilogy against a near prime Holyfield than Lennox was in two matches against a shot version of Evander, of which the rematch was a far more competitive showing by Holy, not Lennox. Bowe, on the other hand, dropped Evander en route to winning their inaugural encounter, lost the rematch decision in Holyfield's performance of a career, then came off the deck to become the first man to stop Holyfield in their rubber match.

Buster Douglas was far more impresssive against a near prime pre-prison Tyson, as was Holyfield in stopping Mike twice, whereas it took Lennox eight rounds to take out Tyson, five years after Holyfield dispatched Tyson for the second time, a rather pathetic legacy win for Lewis, if it was indeed that.

Looking at Lewis's record, it would appear that his 12 round decision win over Tua is his most impressive victory. A decision win of less than 15 rounds duration, over a previously defeated opponent, isn't much of a coathook to hang a career reputation on.

Granted, it may not be Lewis's fault that he never defeated Ibeabuchi or Bowe in a professional match, or kayo Tua in a return bout, or ever take on Chris Byrd, or kayo Wladimir Klitschko, or rematch Vitali Klitschko to secure a decisive kayo win, or contend with Mercer in a rematch, but the fact remains that Lennox Lewis may have only been in the top five among active heavyweights during the course of his career. To suggest that he might be the GOAT is patently absurd.

 

Once again duo, your words are music to my ears!! Everything you have said in this thread resonates totally with my own viewpoint.

ChrisPontius stats about LLs career knockdowns is very interesting though, and not something I had considered before.

Being down only twice in a career is certainly impressive, but I guess I never thought about it because I was so disappointed by his reaction to those punches. Man, I would have loved him to bounce up at 2 or 3 and win the remainder of those rounds...

 

You're a good poster, but you can't know much about Lewis's career if you think that his win over Tua was his most impressive victory. What about his 2 round blow-out of Razor Ruddock in 1992, when Ruddock was probably the most feared HW on the planet at the time, as a prime example. As for calling him only amongst the top 5 of active HWs during the course of his career, it's a huge disservice and an insult. He beat every fighter he faced over a period of 14 years. The only major fighter he didn't fight was Bowe, who clearly ducked him. Despite the constant sniping about his glass jaw he only ever hit the deck twice. He has 2 big black marks on his record of course but fair play Lewis he avenged them both, with the Rahman rematch so dominant as to make any 3rd match meaningless.

Anyone who calls Lewis the GOAT is an idiot and/or an out and out fanboy. You can quote me on that. He clearly was not. But he was the best HW of his era because he beat a variety of different styles, he could win on points or knock them out in 2 rounds, he beat every man he faced and held the HW title for long periods of time. In essence he dominated his era and surely that is one of the major considerations when ranking a fighter.

 

Lewis should have rematched Tua? On what grounds, because it wasn't quite a shut out. :huh

 

Tua was ko'ed every second fight too wasn't he

 

Chris, don't forget that Larry was also floored early in his career by Kevin Isaac, so to clarify, his true official total is 6 knockdowns. I tend to throw out Jeff's knockdowns against Jack Johnson, but then again, I consider Aaron Pryor's career to have ended with the Arguello rematch.

Having viewed the stoppage of Lennox's match against McCall, I do agree that Lewis was entitled to the benefit of a doubt, being the defending champion. Given the fact that he was counted out against Rahman, I'm convinced that Lennox didn't have the recuperative powers necessary to recover against McCall, but he deserved a chance to disprove that. Premature stoppages are one of the things killing boxing, and if performers possess first rate conditioning, they should have the ability to rebound quickly from having their bell rung like that.

 

I think my posts generally suck, personally, but I'm using this forum to try improving on that. I do appreciate any compliments I can get however, so thanks for the kind words.

I have to admit, Doppleganger, that I most definitely do not know much about boxing in the post 15 round era, and that's why this is the only forum on ESB I hang out on. (In fact, the first and only internet forum I've ever posted to.) The posters here are generally a highly intelligent, knowledgable and articulate bunch of fans, and I enjoy the more civilized and thoughtful discourse here, to the mindless prattle and personal, albeit amusing, insults between argumentative posters elsewhere on-line.

There's no bones to make about it. I am a die-hard, 15 round, anti- steroid snob, who feels modern boxing has deteriorated dreadfully as a result of the mandated shorter distance, and will always hold the view that never having gone 15 rounds irrevocably diminishes the boxers who have competed during this era of a dying sport.

What turned me off to modern boxing? The 15th round of the final WBC Championship contest scheduled for that distance was pivotal to the outcome of that match. (Bobby Chacon's title winning knockdown of Bazooka Limon.) Then, Edwin Rosario wins the WBC Lightweight Title over Jose Luis Ramirez, exclusively because that match is scheduled for 12 rounds, instead of 15. Hagler decisions Duran by sweeping the final three rounds of a 15 round contest, then loses to SRL, again, exclusively because that match is scheduled for only 12 rounds.

The final great day in boxing history for me was August 4, 1988, when Jorge Paez dropped Calvin Grove three times in the 15th and final round of the last match scheduled for the true championship distance. Paez's knockdowns were the difference which proved his superiority over Grove.

The 12 round limit guarantees the triumph of clearly inferior and more poorly conditioned boxers over superior opposition with better endurance. Matches longer than 15 rounds reward endurance over superior boxing ability. Matches shorter than 15 rounds reward inferior conditioning, steroid use, and much smaller heart. Going 15 hard rounds requires conditioning, rewards patience, and demands guts. If Lennox Lewis had trained himself to go 15 hard rounds, he would have withstood the bombs of Rachman and McCall, then might actually merit consideration as an ATG.

No, I don't know much about the careers of boxers during the 12 round era, because it was instantly apparent that it rewarded mediocrity and inferiority, and therefore, not worth following. Yes, it's my attitude that simply being a champion during the 12 round era automatically disqualifies a boxer from consideration in my eyes as a contender for ATG status. Of course I realize it's not the fault of the competitors that they box in a system that creates champions out of inferior athletes, but that doesn't change the fact that modern boxing is no longer worth following, and hasn't been for over a couple of decades now.