Sugar says Lewis is alltime great yet only top 12

Fair enough.

I have read two articles on it if i remember correct , one stated that he was booed, the other said he gave boxing a black eye. I would like to read more articles on this of course, but my sources are limited. However, if the crowd booes, then we're looking at 1000+ people with that opinion.

First of all, i did admit that this is a black mark on Lewis' reign. However, Klitschko was #1 for three years, Wills for 6. Dempsey was in his prime when it happened, Lewis was entering the final stage of his career and wanted to make a few more legacy fights. As i've said earlier, i don't really blame Holmes for not rematching Williams because he was looking for a last few fights. Similar situation here. Lewis was 36 years old. Dempsey was retired for 4 years by that stage.

Outside of Liston and Ali (whom he was not even competitive with, which should tell you something), his competition was not ahead of Lewis' at all. How many skilled 210+lbs'er did he fight and beat? Compare those few with Lewis. Lewis would annihilate Patterson in one round too.

Even journeymen like McNeely had him down. Guys like Tua, Klitschko, Holyfield, Ruddock and Briggs would bounce the tiny Patterson off the canvas like a basketball.

I dismissed Butler because i agree(d) he's not worthy, however, he WAS ranked and therefore he should be in. Dito with Mason. This goes both ways. I have no idea how a journeyman like Bethea or how Williams was ranked in his second fight with Liston, but they were, so they should be included.

I am no more biased than you are.
According to a poll just made here, 78% had Lewis in their top10, 51% in the top5. If i am that biased, then why does the majority agree with me ?

What you've just done is questioning Tyson's legitimicy to be ranked. How is that not biased? I could go on lengths on how Williams, Bethea et al did not deserve to be ranked by the ring magazine. But they were so i accept it. And you should too.

Why do you question Tyson's ring ranking when he was at least undefeated and had wins over (fringe) contenders, while you have no doubt passing a guy like Smith for a good, contender-like win for Dempsey who was coming off a shitload of losses?


By the way, i think Liston's behaviour was more disgraceful. Not in terms of giving boxing a bad name, Tyson definitely takes that one, but Tyson at least fought Holyfield until he was knocked out during their first fight whereas Liston quit in the first and didn't fight in the second either.

 

What makes you think Wills has a weak jaw? He had two knockout losses to experienced versions of Langford and Jeannette when he was green. The same guys Dempsey avoided. By comparison, Dempsey had a first round knockout loss to Flynn and was knocked down 9 times by a mediocre middleweight in a similar stage of his career.
Wills was never knocked out over a nearly ten-year stretch of fighting all the best fighters over and over.

He was fighting Rahman because Rahman was the mandatory and highly ranked, whether you think he is deserving or not (we've gone over this).
If you look up Lewis's fights during that period, you will find: Grant, #1 contender, Tua, top3 contender, Rahman, top contender and mandatory, Rahman (rematch), Tyson, top3 contender for two years, Klitschko, top contender for years and goes on to be champion.

These are all top opponents. What you are doing is like blaming Marciano for fighting Charles when Valdes was ranked highly. We know that doesn't work. You can only fight one top contender at a time.

Going in, none of them had dismal records like 3-2-2 with two losses against lightheavyweights. I also don't understand why you're talking about activity. Dempsey took a full three year lay off and defended his title 6 times in 7 years and didn't have Lewis' longetivity!

I concede that W. Klitschko should've gotten a shot but other than that, his reign during that period is near-flawless. He never took on a dud like a Rodriguez, a Dunn, a Wepner, a shot Williams', an Evangelista, a Roper... you get my point. He consistently fought top contenders and i don't understand why you try to critice that.

 

Hey Chris, do you ever go to the red light district in Amsterdam? Do they still have legalized Marijuana use and prostitiution? I was in Holland when I was maybe 12 or 13 years old back in the 1980's. I was too young to enjoy myself though.

 

Yes i've been there, but i was pretty much disgusted with how ugly most of them were. As a 16 year old you tend to imagine things are more pretty than they really are.

It is legal to have marijuana but no more than 5 gram, by law. However, we have a thing called "gedoogbeleid" which basically means that while no more than 5 gram is allowed by law, no one will really arrest you for having more or trading it, even outside of coffee shops. Prostitution is legal too, in fact it's an official profession that you have to pay tax over.


Too bad you were only 12 year old, but we have plenty of Holy priests who will have sex with you after preaching, although at 12 you were a bit on the old side for that.

 

Sugar very rarely EVER rates anyone that has fought after the mid 60's , think he does it firstely because he is just a genuine idiot and secondly because if he always points back to earlier fighters there are less and less peope now who remeber them in there prime and tehrefore it makes him lok more knowledgable.

 

He's one shady lookin' mother****er anyway. That ridiculous hat that he wears and contstantly smoking a cigar. About the only thing I give Randolph Sugar credit for is that he actually wrote some pretty good books on boxing history. I agree though that his revisionists views on great fighters are pretty much crap.

 

Since I'm a pedantic *******, I'm just gonna clarify the opponents for this period in time :

Grant ~ WBC #1 mandatory (after all the Ruiz-WBA shennanigans)
Botha ~ WBA #9
Tua ~ IBF #1 mandatory
Rahman ~ IBF #4
Rahman ~ WBC & IBF Champion
Tyson ~ WBC #1 mandatory
Vitali ~ WBC #1 mandatory

Botha you could argue against being top 10, although laudable efforts in his only two losses to Moorer and Tyson and knocking the hell out of Briggs by the end of their drawn fight is worthy of note.

Apart from him, all top-rated guys including 4 mandatory defences.

Rahman wasn't the mandatory, but was highly ranked and seen as a good opponent before fighting Tyson. Plus Lewis really wanted to do the whole South Africa thing. Course, we all know how that ended up...

Rahman earned that rating after stopping Corrie Sanders in 7, as it happens.

 

patterson would eat guys like a old holyfield, ruined razor ruddock, and shannon briggs alive.

 

One could argue that the Holyfield losses are not as significant for Tyson's legacy as the losses of some other fighters because of the issue of consistency. As far as I can tell, virtually all of Tyson's wins against highly ranked opponnents occurred before he fought Holyfield and none of his subsequent fights added to his legacy. Frans Botha might have been ranked in the top 10 but I'm not even sure of this and I am confident that none of the other guys he beat post-Holyfield were ranked highly.

Had Tyson retired before fighting Holyfield his resume would not suffer unless people are looking at his wins over all heavyweights in the top 30 and not just those ranked in the top 10.

 

Lewis did defeat Holyfield when Holyfield was still highly ranked but I don't think the Tyson fights show how good Holyfield is because Holyfield still has horrible losses to Bowe and Moorer neither of which rank close to Lewis.

 

Why should Holyfield be in the top 12? Holyfield was one of the better heavyweights of his time but assuming all eras are equal than why should he rank over the other guys who were top 3 in their times. People seem to have a bias towards recent eras. In 100 years will anyone be impressed with Holyfield? Or will he be dismissed as one of those primitive fighters from an era when fighters were less athletic and less skilled?

 

My bad, as i remembered it, Rahman was the mandatory but i see Tua was. At any rate, they're all highly ranked contenders and you'd be hard pressed to find a champion who defended against 5 highly ranked opponents in a row. Marciano sure did. Louis probably, Tyson too. Who else?

 

You're starting to sound really interested. Don't tell me you have one of those sick fetishes like sticking a shoe up your ass when she blows you. I don't think they'd mind though, as long as you pay them.

It is a dirty business, many women are forced into it. A lot of them are from Eastern Europe.

 

Wayne Bethea was ranked because he had a talent level ABOVE a journeyman. Bethea was quite possibly the most durable heavyweight contender of that period. He beat some damm good fighters too.