Resumes: Lennox Lewis vs. George Foreman

i rate Foreman higher because head to head i pick him to beat Lewis and i think his superior chin would fare him better vs AGTG'S. Lewis is still top 10 though

Foreman beat Frazier who is better then anyone Lewis beat though Lewis has a deeper resume with a much better title reign

 

Foremans record is just a bit better than 50/50 against ranked contenders whereas Lewis' is something like 18-2. While Foreman faced great fighters in Frazier and Ali, i think Lewis' depth makes up for it.

 

i believe stylewise this is foremans biggest nightmare.against a come forward and smaller frazier foreman was able to bully joe and push him back plus hit sraight down the middle.against big guys like ali and lyle who were not bullied he struggled.lewis would be a mixture of ali and lyle.the jab and all, round talent of ali and the power,strength and size of lyle.
lewis by ud or stoppage between 8 and 12.

 

I consider Lewis to have the better legacy based on greater depth.

However Foreman tended to make up for his lack of quantity with quality of wins.

 

Foreman, because he was a champion in two eras, actually beat some ATG fighters when they were near the top of their game, and wasn't taken out early by second-raters when he held the title.

 

This is really easy. George Foreman had the better legacy - without a doubt. His win over Joe Frazier on two occasions (and in the fashion too) is far superior to anything Lewis did - including his decision over Holyfield.

Contenders are contenders. 70s or 90s. The Lyle fight was memorable as his fights against Chuvalo, Norton, Peralta, etc. (Lennox would have beat these guys too though) as Lewis' fights against Mercer, Morrison, Tua, and Klitschko were memorable. Both beat plenty of contenders but beating Joe Frazier takes the cake. George's loss to Jimmy Young was one where you clearly see that Foreman was out of it. For good reason too as this was the product of one of Ali's greatest mind game campaigns and uncanny ability to take punches and really make it seem like Foreman hit anything less than a Mack Truck as he kept talking during the fight. But hey, a loss is a loss. Still losing to Jimmy Young in a competitive fight and then losing to the greatest fighter ever is much better than getting KO'd by two journeyman (again, this is a big deal IN COMPARSISON to another ATG Foreman - this does not in any mean that ANYONE can KO Lennox or that Lennox will never be an ATG because of these two).

 

atsch

His work in the 90s has no reflection in the prime version. At his best, he'd have never lost to Tommy Morrison etc.

 

Lewis was very technically sound (not to say Foreman wasn't) and other than his two losses by KO losses (both of which were impressively avenged) he beat anyone and everyone that he could. It isn't his fault that he was avoided by Bowe and Holyfield in their primes and Foreman and Tyson in the mid nineties, he was just too much risk. I also don't think that LL would have lost to Jimmy Young in his prime, but the 1974 version of Ali...that would have been a fight.

To have fought so many tough fighters and come away with only 2 losses...that's pretty impressive. I mean c'mon, in the HW division ANY one punch can end a fight, and he still only lost 2 of them. And he was NEVER outboxed in his entire carreer. The same cannot be said for Foreman.

He was KO'd by Ali, and decisioned by Jimmy Young. Even if you look at his comeback fights, he was soundly outboxed by Tommy Morrison and Evander Holyfield. He avenged ZERO of his losses. I know Tommy fought a great fight that night, but this guy could KO almost anything and he could KO Tommy Morrison! LL brutalized Morrison a few years later without breaking a sweat.

 

Is it fair to expect 40s Foreman to fight Lewis? I don't take his comeback seriously when thinking of the real Foreman. To even consider this is very unfair.

Not in comparison to Foreman. When Foreman retired in 1977, he also had only two losses. You talk about avenging defeats. I still think Foreman's losses to Ali & Young unavendge > Lewis' loss to journeymen + avenged.

That is stylistic bias. You can also say that Foreman was never starched by a single punch. Doesn't mean a whole lot to me.

Means little...70s Foreman would show Lewis how it is done - he'd destroy Morrison under 2 rounds.

 

I actually rank them neck and neck all time. I have Lewis right behind Foreman. I think you can argue Lennox accomplished as much as George, I just feel George would take him head to head.

I believe that if they could've faced each other in their primes, Lewis would be in the ring with someone who could bully him for the first time. You might argue that George was only dangerous for 5-7 rounds, but I think that gives him enough time. I don't see Lennox dancing around George, and jabbing. Lewis isn't exactly a dancing machine. I think Foreman will eat his share of punches from Lennox, but I really think he'll push Lewis to the ropes and unload on him. I don't see Lewis making it past 6.

 

I hate those LL is overrated threads but I must say the poll clearly justifies them.

 

Good Foreman wins: Boone Kirkman, Gregorio Peralta, Joe Frazier, Ken Norton, Ron Lyle, John Denis, Adilson Rodriguez, Pierre Coetzer, Michael Moorer, Lou Savarese, and you could argue Shannon Briggs.

Good Lewis wins: Razor Ruddock, Tony Tucker, Frank Bruno, Lionel Butler, Shannon Briggs, Tommy Morrison, Ray Mercer, David Tua, Evander Holyfield, Mike Tyson, Vitali Klitscko.

I think Lewis gives Foreman a run for his money. I voted for George, but a 60/40(at time of this post) split in Lewis' favor isn't really a call for overating.

 

Alright, but in that case you also have to forget about his victory over Moorer. It works both ways.

And in that case he's only faced:
Peralta
Frazier (he wasn't ranked the second time as far as i know)
Norton
Lyle
Chuvalo
Ali (loss)
Young (loss)

That's 5-2 against Lewis' 18-2.

 

I was actually surprised that Foreman stated he didn't want to take on Lennox. George didn't take a backwards step against Holyfield, who was able to bull Lewis around a bit. Foreman also stood up to Cooney's best hook, whereas I don't think Cooney and Lewis could have withstood one another's hardest shot. Lewis would have had to beat George by giving ground.

Foreman came off the deck to win against Lyle, and returned after an eternity to come all the way back. Over a quarter century elapsed between George's winning of Olympic Gold in Mexico City, to his recapturing of the HW Title against Moorer. He lost the title against a 1960 Gold Medalist, and regained it when a 1988 Gold Medalist held an alternate version of the championship. This is mind numbing longevity, possibly surpassing that in all other sports for level of world class competitiveness.