My top 10 Heavyweight list

Great post.

:good

Some fighters DO tend to get those alibis though.
Tyson's "helter-skelter turmoil" post-Spinks is often cited as the reason he lost to Douglas.

But he won plenty of fights while under the same media microscope or while allegedly behaving anti-socially outside the ring.
He'd always been seen late at night in New York night-spots, since '86 or '87. Getting into trouble back then too, but Cayton and Jacobs actually cared about covering it up, and the media were more forgiving until the evidence began to mount.But negative publicity, alleged late-night partying or bad behaviour never seemed to effect him against Frank Bruno, Carl Williams, Alex Stewart, or Razor Ruddock - by which time he was almost loathed.

Only when he lost, it becomes an alibi.

The underdog who scores an upset never gets full credit.

McCall has no "outside of the ring" alibis against Lewis, (but it must be said his capitulation was kind of weird), nor has Tyson against Douglas, IMO.

You probably agree.

 

I have to agree with this post.

I have never seen a fighter break down and cry in the middle of a fight. That tells me something was drastically wrong with McCall that evening. I also find it laughable that some posters claim that it was due to shear frustration that he couldn't compete with Lewis. McCall was a very tough fighter who had banged toe to toe with some of the divisions best fighters. Although I think Lewis was a vastly improved fighter by 1997, and that he likely would have beaten a motivated McCall anyway, we shouldn't dismiss the fact, that one of them was in no condition to be in a championship fight that night.

 

My actual position on the matter is that he wasn't much good to start with.
While there was clearly "something wrong with" McCall in the ring that night, that's not really an alibi for McCall. He usually found a way to lose against anyone half-decent, because he was simply not a particularly good fighter.
His way to lose on that night was peculiar and probably related to his lifestyle, but that's no alibi.

The only reason Lewis gets any credit for beating the bum is because he got TKO'd by him in a previous fight.
McCall should barely have been ranked in Feb. '97. Bruno exposed him for what he was, if anyone was in doubt. A glorified sparring partner, with a puncher's chance - that's McCall.

But of course McCall would be afforded the alibi if he was a "great" fighter.
That's the hypocrisy.

 

True. I can't disagree

 

I think Dempsey compares favourably to Duran, similar mixture of skill and aggression. Slick, fast, and ferocious.

I think Ray Arcel even called Duran, "a lightweight Dempsey" - which is high praise indeed, it's a compliment in case anyone's wondering.

 

I certainly think that McCall has a stronger case for an alibi in his loss to Lewis than Lewis does in his loss to McCall.

 

What is Lewis' claimed alibi then? He got careless and got hit with the perfect right hand counter, went down and the fight was stopped, end of story.

 

Yeah, he got iced by a B-Level fighter, as Zakman puts it.

But the referee should have let it continue. Perhaps - but I doubt it - Lewis survives the round and McCall starts crying and quits.

 

Exactly. The idea that despite all the evidence - the crack use, rehab, the Christmas tree incident - some deny that McCall was not OBVIOUSLY mentally unstable PRIOR to that fight is astounding, frankly. It is CLEAR that he was a mental breakdown waiting to happen. Lewis took advantage of that, fine - but that does NOT equate to "brutally" beating an opponent - particularly since he didn't even knock him down in that debilitated state!

 

Correct, disputing what is a 'plain fact' to a 'reasonable man' smacks of some form of manipulation.

Motive? To defend a strongly held conviction at all costs.

Another example of this sort of stretching is that Lewis would have beaten McCall had he been allowed to continue in their first match, and that the reason he didn't complain about premature stoppage and the unjust collapse of his entire boxing reputation was.... sheer good sportsmanship.

Tally ho!:hey

 

Yes. That (sometimes along with a claim that the stoppage was premature) is often taken as an alibi for Lewis in this fight.

 

Though you may be sarcastic here, I'll point out that the stoppage really was not inappropriate. View the film here:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=462182885585820392&q=lewis+mccall&total=13&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=5
Watch Lewis' movement as he's getting up and well after he's back on his feet. He's completely unsteady, his equilibrium is gone, and so is his hand-eye coordination. After he's gotten up, he can't take two even steps. He lurches from side to side, he wobbles forward. It's all he can do to keep standing up and walking while holding his arms near his face. As the referee stops the fight, you can see Lewis lurching unsteadily to his left. He's completely out of it. The referee could have allowed it to go on, but if he had, I wouldn't be surprised if he was criticized afterwards for letting Lewis get his brains splattered all over the canvas within the next 10 seconds.

 

I've always thought the stoppage was good too.

But there are plenty of people here who say it was a Don King conspiracy.