Most overrated HW of all time.

You are right Dueodenum.

I've never seen that fight with Isaac by the way, was it a flash knockdown or was he genuinly hurt?

 

That call can have only been made by an insomniac.


Good performance by Lewis, excellent in fact.... but a what a bore that fight was.

 

I agree with these sentiments without reservation.

 

Ahhh, yes. I just knew there were others on this board who agreed with me that my posts suck!

That's a good question Chris. I've never seen it either, but have always assumed it was just a flash knockdown, though that may not be the case. I understand that it was a right hand which Isaac dropped Larry with. (Holmes certainly seems to have been a sucker for those.)

 

As do I. :good

 

Guy, I admire your statistical work there, in fact I'm gonna save it for my records. Problem is though, you ignore the QUALITY of opposition and concentrate solely on QUANTITY. Of course, that benefits your side of the argument.

But however you QUANTIFY it, Lewis is the only top level ATG to get laid out early twice by guys of the low QUALITY of McCall and Rahman when he was champ. The ONLY one. And that means he just can't be as highly rated as some of you guys think. It's too big a deficiency, however many excuses or marginally relevant stats you conjure up.

 

A boxing lesson from Lyle?. Ali was fooling around with Lyle for for the first 5 rounds of the fight. He came out early behind a peeek a booo high guard coming forward throwing nothing. Once Ali got on his toes and circled, it was Lyle recieving a boxing lesson. Ali treated a top heavyweight like a sparring partner. Watch the 11th round and you will see Lyle getting spanked.

The GOAT was starched from Banks and Cooper. It doesn't harm his legacy in the slightest because he hit the canvas against them both. It actually helps his legacy more than anything, as he got up to win, and inside the distance for that matter.

 

If you can name champions outside of Ali and Walcott who faced a larger amount of quality punchers then i will conceed my point.

One thing you must not forget is that punchers always look bad in defeat.
Foreman looked like **** against Ali, Liston looked like **** against Ali, Tyson looked like **** against anyone who beat him, Peter looked like **** against Wlad, etc etc.
But the thing is that they have the unique property that they can turn looking **** for an entire fight around with a single punch. Brewster looked like **** untill he landed a few punches and knocked Krasiniq out. But when they don't land that punch, it's easy to dismiss them as limited fighters or whatever. But that doesn't make them any less dangerous. Julian Jackson looked like an amatuer and if you didn't know him, you'd wonder why he even was in the same ring with Terry Norris. Norris easily outlanded him untill Jackson landed that one shot and it was all over.
Don't underestimate punchers.


By the way, i knew a chin-freak like you would appreciate that knockdown list.

True, but you can make a distinction like that for every fighter. Ali was nearly knocked out by an unranked cruiserweight and maybe saved by the bell. Holmes ducked every rematch and a lot of dangerous fights. Tyson lacked the true heart in some fights. Holyfield losts to fighters whose only reason they are good is because Holyfield lost to them. Etc, etc.

How you weigh these arguments differs per person of course, but Lewis has shown to be able to take a punch tons of times and against more punchers than almost anyone else too. Furthermore, one of his knockoutlosses came at the age of 35 and the other was a rather quick stoppage. So i can forgive him for those two nights.

 

That fact that this often repeated mantra of yours is the only thing you can really come up with to detract from Lewis says a great deal IMO. Yes, it's a black mark on Lewis that he allowed himself to be taken out in such a manner. Make no mistake though it was more Lewis losing than McCall or Rahman winning. Isn't that a mark of a truly great fighter that controls the outcome of a fight even in defeat? And he didn't get a fair chance to see if he could continue against McCall. If Lewis had never rematched both fighters, or had lost again or even looked shaky in winning, I'd concede to your point entirely. But he didn't. He dominated both rematches, especially in the case of Rahman. Isn't a fighter allowed to have a couple of off-nights in a 14 year career? Obviously not according to you.

 

Sports Illustrated gave the title"Most Overrated" to Ali a few years back...they also called Marciano the "Most Underated" heavy of all time!

 

Overrated as most talked about?. or overrated as everything...

either way, it's ALI.

 

Both were top contenders of their era--hardly a qualitative leap from the guys who knocked down/out other ATG fighters. Where are you getting the impression that McCall and Rahman were substandard, inferior fighters?

 

Oh believe me, I don't underestimate punchers - they are my favorite type of fighter. The problem here, however, is that NEITHER McCall or Rahman has reps as particularly big punchers UNTIL they starched Lewis. What were McCall's best pre- Lewis KOs - laying out glass jawed guys like Bruce Seldon or Oleg Maskaev? Rahman?? Jeez, his biggest KO was probably Corrie Sanders, who was starched in a couple of rounds by Tony Tubbs brother, who was no more of a hitter than Tony!!

Bottom line is that NOONE would even consider McCall or Rahman "big punchers" if they hadn't starched Lewis. Because they're not. And Rahman has probably the worst chin of a rated HW this side of Herbie Hide. Without the Lewis KO, he's be known as just another contender with a shitty chin. McCall would have his well deserved Chuvalo like rep, but that's about it. These guys just ain't that good.

 

"Lewis controlled the outcome of Rahman I and McCall I even in defeat. The mark of a great fighter."

Cripes, this sounds like a lot of philosophical mumbo jumbo to me.

Ive heard on this forum recently that 2000-2002 was Lewis's golden 3 year spell. So you can make that ione off-night in a 3 year period. And no, that is not allowed for ATG status, unless there are a different set of rules for Lennox than the other 9 warriors that make it in the HW TOP10.

 

Mumbo jumbo, excuses and spin are the stock in trade of the Lewis overrating brigade. And to think the Lewis Camp started all this crap themselves with their silly and disingenous "Chicken Bowe" campaign. And then they tried the same **** on Holyfield and Tyson. Gee, those guys all managed to fight each other, except for the external circumstances that prevented Tyson-Bowe. Hell, Holyfiled fought ALL of them, and he's the only one to do it. One of the MANY reasons why he's the best HW since Holmes.