Sugar says Lewis is alltime great yet only top 12

Mercer was not in the top 10 when he fought Lewis and I doubt Gary Mason was deserving of such a ranking either given the opponnents he had beaten.

 

Tyson was less deserving of a title shot than Wladimir Klitschko, Vitali Klitschko, Chris Byrd and John Ruiz.

 

Which would still make him a worthwhile title contender.
I would certainly at that point put Tyson ahead of Ruiz, I don't have a problem with the others being above of him though. But even if he's #4, that's worthy. Plus the eventual PPV figures showed it was by far the fight that was drawing the most interest.

I'd need to check when I get home and look at the footage.
I believe Golota was the WBC #9 at the time, and I think someone else was about #13 or so...either Botha or Savarese. At the moment I can't remember. Almost certain that Norris, Francis and Nielsen were not rated.

I believe Mercer wasn't, yes.
He certainly deserved to, considering his efforts against Holy, Lewis and Witherspoon. But that's more of a retrospective thing, time showed how good Mercer's performances were. If Holy had gotten beaten and retired by Tyson and Lewis iced by McCall or Akinwande, it wouldn't.

Regardless, he was the WBC #5.
35-0, with 32 knockouts and never having been knocked down...you think that wouldn't get some interest and a decent ranking with the boxing orgs? Not a number one but worthy of consideration, and the fact also remains that he was well above Lewis in world rankings at the time, which is perhaps more important.

 

why was there no Mercer rematch?

 

Besides Lewis already beating him he did little to warrant a rematch or a title shot. He certainly did better than 1-2-2 at any stage but still didn't beat the quality of fighter to merit his chance.

 

wasn't the fight quiet close? I have only seen highlights. Did u score it, if so what was ur scorecard?

 

6-4 to Lewis i scored it back then mate. Haven't watched it in ages. There were more deserving fighters than Mercer about.

 

I scored it 6-4, Lewis.

 

You know what they say about great minds

:smoke

 

Why was there no Clay-Jones rematch?

-Mercer was a stay-active fight until a supposed Tyson fight, which King didn't want and made Tyson drop the WBC belt to avoid Lewis (the mandatory).

-Mercer became rather inactive after the fight and while this changes nothing about the warrenty of an immediate rematch, it's not like he kept on winning big fights like Witherspoon after he had a close one with Holmes.

-It was not a title fight like Holmes-Witherspoon.


I scored it 6-4 for Lewis. Close but clear win. That said, i would've been interested in seeing a rematch over 12 rounds.

 

I agree (on both counts). Mercer was big, strong, durable as hell but that aside he was mediocre skill-wise. He was also wildly inconsistant performance wise but ironically produced one of his best for the Lewis fight.

Still, this was a solid enough win for Lewis nonetheless and if anything this fight was proof that he had the chin (contary to what the detractors reckon) and big heart to go toe-toe in an allout trenchfare slugfest, against a heavy enough hitter and emerge with the 'W'. An entertaining fight and it was pretty close but in the end a clearcut win for Lewis (no way the 'robbery' some proclaim). :good

 

Excellent points mate.

 

The judges had it 6-4 Lewis, 5-4-1 Lewis, and 5-5. Hence the Majority Decision.

Me, I had it 6-4 Lewis. I'll throw up a scorecard for what it's worth :

1 Mercer
2 Lewis
3 Mercer
4 Lewis
5 Lewis
6 Mercer
7 Lewis
8 Lewis
9 Lewis
10 Mercer

...but Mercer fought bloody hard. If he'd been like that more often he'd never have drawn with Marion Wilson or lost to Jessie Ferguson, for example, and might've outworked Larry.

As for no Lewis-Mercer rematch, that one's actually quite straightforward.

Mercer fought again that year, fighting the comebacking Tim Witherspoon and getting a UD10 decision. A good solid fight, that some felt should've gone to Witherspoon instead. Mercer was very upset at losing the decision to Holyfield and Lewis and still mentions them, but he did get the rub of the green other times!

With this win he was angling to become the WBC #1 contender, and fight the Lewis/McCall winner. Instead, he was struck down by a very nasty dose of hepetitis (can't remember which type) and fought only twice in the next 4 years. By the time he continued full-time at the start of 2001, he was 40 years old and his best years were gone.

 

I don't want to come off like I'm critizing Lewis here, but I think his fans give him too much of a pass for the Mercer performance. It's been real easy for us to sit here and take Dempsey apart for fighting Billy Miske, something that I'm guilty of as well. The fact is, Mercer was 35 years old in May of 1996 and his last fight was a loss to Holyfield in May of 1995. Shortly before that, he drew with journeyman Marion Wilson. Before that he barely took a split decision over journeyman Ferguson. These fights were preceeded by a one sided loss to 42 year old Larry Holmes. The last rated opponent that Mercer had beaten was Tommy Morrison in 1991 ( 5 years before fighting Lewis ). If Lewis had fought Mercer in 1992 when he was still undefeated and coming off his biggest wins, then I wouldn't hold it against Lewis for winning a close controversial decision. To struggle however, with a declining opponent like Mercer in 1996, is not a fight that we can give Lewis much credit for. That said, I still rate Lewis as one of my top five best heavyweights, but my point is that we can't rip other fighters to shreads for facing inactive stiffs, while ignoring the fact that some of our favorite fighters have done the same thing.

 

Mercer was hardly a 'stiff' though!

And I'd debate declining...although he was older and heavier, his jab in particular was a lot better and he seemed to have gained some tactical nous that he was lacking in the efforts against Holmes (especially) and Ferguson.

I would also point out the smaller ring used in New York. Stick it in a normal sized ring and I don't think the same fight would occur, Lewis would have more space and range, and a lot of the trouble on Lewis's part was due to this. The fact he could basically have to fight the same fight as Mercer a lot of the time, and prevailed, should definitely be to his credit.

Not sticking it in as one of his top 5 performances or anything, it's not world-shattering, but small to no credit seems a little unfair...to both fighters. Lewis was simply not supposed to be able to do what he did in that fight, if you listened to the general media at the time.

Might as well take away all credit from Holyfield for his very good scrap with Mercer in '95, since Mercer was coming off nothing but a dubious draw to Marion Wilson of all people...

Sometimes you've just gotta look at how a guy performed on a given night in there and evaluate him accordingly.