Tyson/Tua Who fought the better fight against Lewis?

Tua...he survived and didn't get his ass handed to him..though his performance sucked as well.

 

Tyson was totally shot, it was obvious since his fight against Nielsen. Mike had decent 1st round and that's all.

Lewis gave him brutal beating in the next 7 rounds, while Tua was completely outboxed but never took such a beating.

 

ok

 

Shot-to-**** Tua wouldn't make it the distance with Lewis either (no matter how tentative he was), i think the first Barrett fight shows that.

 

Tua, but i'd say Tyson worried him more early on.

Lewis and Tua were both at they're peak when they fought. Wheras Lewis and especially Tyson, were both past it in they're fight. Just to point out.

 

Oh boy, if Tyson had fought the entire fight at the pace he fought in that first round, he would have increased his chances of winning. You don't trade with Mike Tyson when you're 6'5, and that's what Lewis was doing in that first round. I know Tyson was shot, but it's possible that he could have caught Lewis with a surprise punch if he threw a high volume of punches and kept Lewis on the backfoot.

 

Do you really think Tua was Peak? He was badly overweight & focussed on "one big punch" in every fight from 1999 onwards... except for the Byrd fight where he trained hard in a 8 week fitness bootcamp, but still had a relatively low punch output compared to his Peak. You refer to Lewis as "past it" in 2002? How far past his best do you really think he was? I think Lennox trained supremely hard for the Rahman rematch & Zombie Tyson fight, & looked close to his Peak form in both bouts. I was amazed at the stamina Lewis showed while battering the corpse of Tyson; a level of stamina he only previously demonstrated against Mercer. Anyway, all i'm saying is people like to forget how great & sharp Lewis was in Rahman II, because he looked so lethargic & listless, with very low punch-output in Rahman I. So they say he was very Past-Prime from 2001 onwards. But i swear Lennox was in the worst shape of his career in Rahman I, since he was so sluggishly lethargic as he underestimated Rahman, undertrained (e.g wasted training camp time starring in a Oceans 11 cameo), & only had 2 weeks to get used to the high altitude. So essentially, that Lewis was an extremely poor barometer of how he had aged.

 

@Kalassin
Age-wise Tua was in his prime. If he was approaching fights with the mind set of KOing everyone with one punch, or he came in heavier against Lewis to combat Lennox' size then that was his problem. The man was at his peak, was a supposed banana skin for Lewis but got it all wrong on the night. Plus, at the end of the day Lewis was just too good for him.

As for Lewis, well ironically i think the last fight were he was still in his absolute prime was against Tua. Now with the advantage of hindsight, it is clear to see Lewis was past his peak in 2001. Which as a longtime fan i thought was clear to see at the time anyway.
The Rahman rematch maybe glossed over the fact he was past his best, but he was past his best.
Has for Lewis' stamina versus Tyson, well for me i didn't watch the fight thinking Lewis showed better stamina than he had done before, Lennox boxed comfortably from range at his own pace for every round other than the first. Hardly taxing.
What i did see was a slower looking Lewis than i had seen before, who got the job done in his own time.
The way he looked a year later against Vitali showed that the years rest done him no favours at all at his age, and that he was infact past his best by a couple of years.