The battle for greatness. Lewis vs Johnson. Comparing H2H and Greatness.

That is hardly a sensible reason for ranking him highly.

 

Really Frazier should've retired after FOTC, it would've deprived us of Manila, but... He'd be retiring as a 27-0 World Champ, with a legendary win over undefeated 31-0 Ali, & also good wins against Quarry, Ellis, Bonavena x2, Mathis, Chuvalo & Machen. Talk about quality over quantity!

 

I hardly think 7-5 is a comfortable win. In fact, in Johnson's day, both fights would have been called No Decisions and Johnson would have been wildly criticised for failing to KO Holyfield and struggling with a great fighter. As he was when he failed to KO all time great and former world alphabet title holder Philadelphia Jack O Brien, despite in reality probably winning every round.

And as for Don King paying the judges, I do think you tend to forget that if anyone was going to struggle with getting a fair go from Judges, you would think it would be Jack Johnson.

Butler and Fortune might have been top 50, they dont count. Tommy Morrison was not really one of the top fighters, but I suppose he was a fringe top 10 fighter and did go on to improve, so i will give credit for a one there (not that it was a title defence).

Ray Mercer, i think is a little overated, but definitely i suppose you would have to say he was probably top 5 of the time (You might have to check dates but was he behind Tyson, Foreman, Holyfield, Bowe, Moorer or even Golota?). Still, i think he can count, although note that he drew on one judges scorecard and it was generally a very, very close fight. Score 2

Oliver McCall, I suppose did beat Lewis the first time around. He was in dreadful shape (some say he should never have been passed fit to fight), and i can imagine 10 others on this day also beating McCall. Still, again give lewis the benefit of the doubt and we have 3.

I do think Henry Akinwande can be a little underated, but it is a stretch to call him a decent contender. His best win to this day is probably the split decision with Timo Hoffman. He had already lost to McCall and even at that stage, he had drawn with Axel Shulz how was to be honest not really in the class of the best fighters of the day. He is lower ranked top 10 fighter at his very best, and is nowhere near proven enough to fight for a world title, in anything other than the modern world of alphabets, although it should be noted that Lennox hadnt really won back an alphabet title yet. He was just simply given one by beating the man who had lost the title (McCall) to Frank Bruno, who in turn had been KOd and outclassed by Mike Tyson. In no way could Lennox yet be said to be the real world champ yet. And Akinwande cannot rank as a top contender. We are stuck on 3

Andrew Golota. Andrew looked good against Bowe, who was one of the top fighters in the world. I dont think he would have been ranked in line with Tyson and Holyfield. And possibly not even Foreman or Moorer, but i do think he had fairly decent claims as a top 3 to 5 contender, despite him later being exposed. This was a good win. Lennox reaches number 4.

Next up is Briggs and arguably the start of Lennox' first reign as champion. the problem is that Briggs only inherited the title after Foreman had openly admitted ducking fighters and only picking young fighters who werent as good as the older proven fighters and who he thought would not run from him. And even then, it seemed like not only had the ancient Foreman aged measurably because of lack of desire, but Briggs only got lucky. No way was Briggs seen as one of the 5 best fighters in the world at this point, But i suppose with benefit of the doubt he can probably count as number 5.

Mavrovic is another who is better than given credit for, but I am not sure who the best fighter he beat was. Maybe it was a points decision over Marion Wilson? He was not a proven top 10 fighter.

Holyfield was what could be deemed a unification bout where holyfield was seen as the champion fighter and Lennox the challenger. Lennox only scored a draw, which when you are not the champion, is as good as a loss. In fact even if it were viewed as a unification bout, it is still about as good as a loss. Which ironically means that Lewis failed to win at his fifth world class fighter.