The case for Lennox Lewis being GOAT

very fishy no where near his prime

Tunney knowd him down for a few seconds. Fripo had no technique but even without that he was ten times harder hitter then Jones, not to mention agressivley persued Dempsey. Jones would be on his bicyle vs Dempsey and woould not even dare be agressive

 

Old school advocates commonly like to point out that Dempsey had 27 first round knockouts, but what few of them ever address is that 14 of those Ko's came against men who had 0's in the win column.

 

His dominated solid contenders, Sanders, Johnson and Williams.
He also dominated Byrd untill the injury and did the same against Lewis.

His resume is rather weak but the way in which he won (he lost 1 round in all of his fights against Sanders, Johnson and Williams), his high KO%, the fact that he was winning the fights he lost untill the stoppages all speak for his ability. Injuries cut (no pun intended) his accomplishments short.

Anyone can be critised that way?

Alright, then find me a lightheavyweight/cruiser like Conn/Cooper/Moore/Tunney that put Lewis on his ass.

This is weird to understand, but going from 175lb fighters up to 190lb fighters seems to be a big step and often leaves durable lightheavyweights as undurable when facing heavyweights (or better put, cruiserweights). Even if there is just a few % of increased power, it happens to be just enough to crack that threshold. Nature works in a funny way.

See above. And i don't know if you box yourself or have, but i can absolutely guarantee you that there is HUGE difference between fighting a natural 190lb'er and a 230lb'er. In terms of punching power, but in everything; it drains your energy because you have to keep moving, you lack power to really keep them off you and planting your feet becomes a dangerous thing knowning that your head will be taken off by a counter if it lands. Etc etc.


I don't know where you got the quote "Dempsey punches aboves his weight" from, but it either alludes to the fact that he was able to knock out the old and skillless fighters from his time who were above his weight, or it means that he has the punch of a bigger man than himself.

Fine, but in that respect, Lewis also punches above his weight, as his power is much better than your average 240lb guy. This is why i would always (barring styles or other exceptions) take a great bigger fighter over a great small fighter: even if the smaller guy punches above his weight, so does the bigger guy (because he's great too) so he will always be left at an advantageous position.

Size helps but obviously does not tell then entire story. Audley has one of the worst chins p4p.
By the way, Audley was not knocked out by a 185lb fighter.
The view is distorted, many people say "well these 200+lb fighters get knocked out just as much". Yes, but they're not fighting 190lb opponents. No wonder. No one claims middleweights are just as durable as welterweights because they get knocked out just as often as welterweights.


I will make one sidenote. It appears so that durability does not improve as much as punching power when you go up beyond 210lb.

Why do i think this?


If you look at the entire weight spectrum, you will find that the smaller the boxer is, the less likely he is to knock his (equally sized) opponent out.
Even the big punchers at flyweight, bantamweight and lightweight rarely have more than 80% Knockouts. Tommy Hearns, one of the if not the best puncher (in both terms of power and ability to land) of all time, still had a fare share of opponents that went the distance. At heavyweight, opponents seem to drop like flies against big puncher. "One punch can change the fight" is usually stated about heavyweights.

This is also one of the reasons that the heavyweight division is traditionally more popular than lower ones.

Small guys simply don't have the punch to hurt their opponents in the way big guys do. Duran was a mean SOB at 135lb but still had to grind most of his opponent down.

Durability does not increase as power or strength does when you go up in size. This is even true in nature. When a normal, healthy human adult falls down while running, he may lose a few teeth or have a slight concussion. When a Tyrannosaurus runs at 35 km/h and falls, it is not likely to survive. By comparison, when you drop an ant off the Eiffel tower, it will survive easily. I may be drifting away a bit here, but you get the point. I think durability does not go up as much as power does.

 

This content is protected

So would I. It would have been nice to see two undefeated heavyweight champions in boxing history. :good

 

undefeated under those conditions? Wow that's an amazing prediction. So a teenage Lewis starts off with no amateur experience, has no proper managemtn behind him, is underfed and has little food with him for days, e\yet he somehow goes undefeated. Wow he must be a god then :good

 

Jeffries retired undefeated before returning to the ring to fight Johnson. The prospect of Lewis having as good or better of a career than Jeffries is not entirely beyond the realm of possibility.

Oh...I almost forgot....:good