Revisionist history regarding Lennox Lewis

stil sticking to the age 32 thing is a some kind of boxing prospect, whilst claiming you know something about boxing.

11/10 for effort anyway.

age 32!!

Let alone titlists, cant think of ANY successful boxer who was prospecting at that age. keep ice skating up dat hill.

 

Good thread that can lead to endless debate.

 

No question Lewis is overrated. As the OP has pointed out, he didn't face Holyfield or Tyson until they were past it, and he didn't face Bowe at all. And he is the only top level HW champ taken out early by guys like McCall and Rahman when he held the title.

The idea that some would rank him as the GOAT is ludicrous. He isn't even the best HW since Holmes - that's Holyfield.

 

Nonsense. How can the man Lewis beat twice, and who held the title much longer, be better than him?

 

Lewis is one of my favourite fighters and my all time favourite heavyweight but like with any fighter peoples opinion of him vary. You have guys who overrate him and think he was this unbeatable H2H monster or you have guys like Zakman who underrate him and struggle to place him in the top 10, the truth I believe is somewhere between both extremes, though of course that's just my opinion, not fact.

I think Lewis benefited a lot from the era that followed. He beat one of the dominant guys to follow him in his last fight and the era that followed made his accomplishments even more impressive. Lewis was often seen as boring but he's exciting compared to Wlad, Lewis didn't fight everyone he could when he could of possibly have but his opposition still makes Vitali's and Wlad's reign look pitiful when you look at the opposition they faced.

 

Come on Zakman you know the circumstances as to why those fights didn't happen at the time.

Bowe ducked him, biggest most blatant duck I can recall.

Holyfield fight didn't happen in the 90's but they were set to fight in Nov 94 but then Holyfield lost to Moorer and Moorer made it clear he didn't want Lewis. So it's not like Lewis didn't try and make the fight happen sooner and when Lewis and Holyfield did plan to fight it was Holyfield to set the fight back a year as he held out for more money despite his original purse demand being met. Holyfield has even said that he benefited from people avoiding Lewis to face him believing he was an easier fight.

The Tyson fight was down to TV network issues, HBO and Showtime then would not allow the fighters to fight which is why King paid him step aside money, which is why they dumped the belt to face Holyfield.

Sure Lewis still didn't have those fights when it mattered but not because he didn't want them. As for Holyfield ranking above Lewis, there was a time I could see that, no denying his heavyweight resume is impressive but that was before I knew about the whole "Evan Fields" debacle, there is a big question mark over his heavyweight accomplishments.

 

It's not revisionist at all

Some of us like Zakman remember LL correctly and some of us don't

 

What boxing fans today like to call "ducking" is simply the business of boxing. As the OP made clear, Bowe and Newman choose to sidestep Lewis for the oldest reason in the book - "if it don't make dollars, it don't make sense." Lewis couldn't draw flies to a carnival in the States in 1992, which is why they opted to take a gimme defense against Dokes, and then scheduled a bout with Olympic rival Ray Mercer (Mercer blew his tuneup against Jesse Ferguson, so Ferguson got the shot instead). All of this was designed to build to the big payday - a rematch with Holyfield. Meanwhile, Lewis could build recognition, so their fight would generate more money when it did happen. Bowe and Newman didn't bank on losing to Holyfield in the second fight

Furthermore, a match between Bowe and Lewis was in fact ready to go for early 1995. All Lewis had to do was get through his "gimme" defense against Oliver McCall. Unfortunately, his questionable whiskers let him down in that one, as they would later.

After Holyfield beat Tyson and had his "bite fight" rematch, a Lewis fight was periodically talked about, but the parties could never come to terms until 1999 when the first fight happened. Not really the "fault" of either guy, but the bottom line is that fight didn't happen when it would have mattered.

And as far as not facing Tyson - the bottom line there is that Lewis took the step aside money. He could have forced the issue with King, but he and his people took the payoff instead. Their choice on this one.

Show me a positive test and I would count that against Holyfield. Without that, it's pure speculation. Bottom line is that, when you look at the record, Holyfield fought better competition, beat both Bowe and Tyson when it mattered, and was never starched early by second-rate fighters like McCall and Rahman. To me, that makes him clearly greater than Lewis.

 

holyfiends drug record stops him getting into the top ten ATG list in my view. Hes just outside it because of it.

nevertheless, an awesome combination of acheviement and h2h ability in one man.

 

It's the same complaint I have about Floyd, actually.