Ruddock vs Lewis - 24yrs ago tonight, what are your thoughts on it?

The first overhand right was pitch perfect and caught Ruddock around the ear. Hard to recover from a punch like that no matter how durable your "chin" is.

 

Came in cold and went out cold.

 

A surprising result at the time, and Lennox Lewis deserves full credit for it. One of his best career performances.
Razor Ruddock was immensely overrated, yes, of course. But Lewis had rarely looked impressive up to that point, he'd laboured against lesser fighters than Ruddock and his punching power was probably overlooked and underrated at the time, so very few people would have expected him to win in such as manner.

 

It was the first clue that we were dealing with something truly exceptional.

It almost simplified the heavyweight picture in that era, by bringing Lewis straight to Holyfield!

 

I remember when it happened like it was yesterday. And I remember the flood of articles that followed in the magazines. Really got me excited for a Bowe-Lewis matchup.

Well, you all know the story from there...

 

Superb win by Lewis and it really put him on the map.

 

i watched it that evening at a sports bar .........i thought lewis was gonna get knocked the fargggg out / but asa soon i saw ruddock walking into the ring all hyper bouncing up and down like a mad man trying to intimidate lennox who was a s cool as ice i knew the bout was over before it began ....i think those two bouts with tyson really took the steam off donovan ...but that right hand lewis landed with 12 seconds in rd1 landed flush on the temple and ruddock crumbled got up and had 1 minute to recover but never did ...ruddock fought on /but was never the same after those 2 bouts with tyson and the lennox bout finished him off / tommy morrison is lucky he did not fight ruddock in 91

 

**** iam getting old. I watched the fight in a pub in weston super mare .I thought Lewis would win but not like that. The experts seemed to think that ruddock would destroy Lewis early one of the few who didn't was foreman he called the fight dead right Lewis early.Lewis looked ice cold in the stare down I think ruddock bottled it at that point.

 

It appeared Ruddock was open for a right hand.

 

I watched it with my old man has a child and can remember how devastating Lewis was. Tyson hit like a mule so for Lewis to destroy a Ruddock that Tyson struggled with just goes to show how much of a force Lewis was when he was in that mood.

 

ruddocks punch resistence went completely after the two tyson fights . every time greg page hit him he wobbled in the warm up fight before lewis .

 

His punch resistance was far from stellar before he faced Tyson...

 

Lewis won in impressive fashion. Interesting that its credited as a great win.

You don't hear much praise given to a fading Tyson who beat the jibs out of a fresher Ruddock twice.

 

At the time it was an extremely impressive win by Lennox Lewis, and the first over a really big name in impressive fashion.

He absolutely blitzed Ruddock out of there unexpectedly.

In hindsight though Ruddock was not all he was cracked up to be at the time