Tyson v Lewis, twelve years earlier - Different outcome?

Think about the actual fight. It took Lewis 8 rounds to get Tyson out of there. Tyson was doing absolutely nothing except taking a beating. Lewis also fought cautiously with Holyfield to two decisions. The question is could Lewis keep up the pace with a better Tyson? Even the Tyson that fought Ruddock who was not the same fighter in my opinion, could take big shots, but he also threw a lot of punches, and kept up a pretty solid attack. Lewis never really faced anything like that ever in his career with exception to the Mercer fight, and Tyson punched harder, faster, and was leagues better than Mercer.

 

Yep, the people who say lewis could beat a Prime Mike are seriously on some good stuff, cause this is no contest, the only fighter of Mikes generation that was on the same level when he was at his best was holyfield, he is the only one who had a chance against mike at his best, even then, it would be much harder and difficult then the tyson holyfield fought after prison and just a couple tune up fights against bums.

 

You're cherry picking and showing your obvious dislike of Lewis. Yes it took Lewis 8 rounds to get him out of there, but Lewis said he damaged his right hand to the point that he needed a few round to adjust to the pain of punching at full force. I have no particular reason to think he wasn't telling the truth.

Secondly what about the fighters Lewis did get out of the way quickly, such as Golota, Grant, or Ruddock, guess those are simply inconvenient facts, just like the first Holyfield fight seems to be an event that never even occurred in your mind.

 

LOL, Holyfield fought a version of tyson that was not in his prime, 5 years in prison and only a couple warmup fights against garbage fighters and he is in against a warrier like Holyfield (still lasted 11 rounds, despite needing a lot more fighting to get back to championship form)? There were signs tyson was slipping back as far as the Bruno fight, he stopped setting up fighters, stopped using his great movemement and just started looking for the one big punch, this partly had to do with his slipping desire to even box. Either way, Lewis has zero chance against a prime mike, prime mike 86-89, could beat anyone in any era, not even ALI is a given to beat that mike. Holyfield had a shot against prime mike, but it would be a lot harder then the after prison mike he fought.

When mike was at his best his training was legendary, he was active and fighting a lot, to expect him to have 5 years in prison, only fight 3 no names then holyfield and expect him to win was ******ed. They wanted him out there quickly cause of the money, no one looked after Mikes best interest.

 

You don't know what you're talking about. Foreman has NONE of those attributes and would at the very least, have a good chance of beating Tyson. Liston would have a great chance too, but he did have a great jab.

Did you actually what them fight or Lewis fight in his career. He did have something called an uppercut, you may want to look that up in the dictionary since you don't appear familar with it. He also had one of the best right hands ever, but of course you'd actually have to have watched him fight to have known that.

The same can be said for Tyson never having fought someone the size of Lewis with his skill set. Neither has encountered the type of fighters either Lewis or Tyson are. I also don't recall a fighter manhandling Tyson the way Lewis did.

This is hard to say. Either Tyson will impose his will on Lewis in terms of controlling the distance and may get a few uppercuts for this trouble, or Lewis controls the distance in a similar manner to what he did when they fought, and punishes him repeatedly for trying to get inside. I personally think it's the latter but it's a tough call.

So essentially you're saying most of Tyson's comp was similar to Lewis in skills, size and abilities..yet collectively they achieved next to nothing..that's almost laughable considering one of those fighter Ruddock went the distance with Tyson and was blown out by Lewis. Oh ya, almost forgot he fought Tyson twice and therefore was a shot fighter when he fought Lewis.

 

You cant compare Grant Golota and Ruddock to a closer to prime Mike Tyson. Do you think Lewis would be swinging like he did against Grant and Golota with Tyson? Do you think Lewis realized he could get away with being a little more offensive minded against those guys? They both panicked. I think its pretty clear he would have approached the fight just like the Holyfield fights, cautiously. What makes you think I dont like Lewis?

 

Remember, Lewis was not in his Prime against Tyson, and he was badly injured as well.

 

I admit, i hate lewis, his arrogant smug attitude, and how he acted like beating a washed up one dimensional fragile Tyson @ 35 was some sort of career moment, what does that say about his legacy? BUT, I admit, he was a great boxer, just not up to a prime, hungry tyson good, only Holyfield of that era is at that level.

 

LOL, the difference between the two is monumental, Lewis was still in good form, tyson was a shell mentally and his skills were seriously degraded, just watch some video, Tyson is a one dimensional one punch head hunter at this stage of his career. Gone is the great head movement, good defense, never tries to set up guys, no combos. tyson stands flat footed making him an easy target, lewis does not hit tyson in his primke like that, tyson would be bobbing and weaving and stringing together combos constantly. Night and Day.

 

You have to look at the facts, and what happened after their careers to make a statement like that about Ruddock. I think its clear Ruddock was not the same fighter after the Tyson fights. The balance of his career proved so. Ruddock never beat anyone of note besides maybe Mike Dokes. His entire career was based on a couple good rounds against Tyson, thats it. The second fight was a one sided beat down by Tyson.
As far as Tyson, he faced tall fighters with equal power to Lewis. He also beat Bruno who was basically outboxing Lewis until Lewis landed the haymaker. (this is the Lewis I assume we are discussing) It can also be said Lewis never faced a fighter with the speed and fighting style of Tyson. Its also been proven that when boxing was taken away from Lewis he was more vulnerable to get hit and hurt, ie Mercer, Bruno, Briggs, and Rahman.
Buster Douglas proved it took not only a vast array of punches, but good movement to beat Tyson. Was Lewis an on his toes type of boxer like Douglas or was his style closer to Ruddock who was less dimensional but mostly delivered his punches like Lewis from a flat footed stance?
Taking this all into consideration and the fact that at that time Lewis was not polished off by Steward, its hard to go with Lewis in my opinion.

 

badly injured, you make it sound like he was in a car accident prior to the fight. the only thing injured was lewis's had from punching tyson's skull all night.

 

of course he hurt his had, because of how many time he was hitting tyson. even lewis admitted he was shocked at how many punches tyson was able to take. and you imagaine that was a tyson as as sitting target.

 

:good
I think Lewis had Tyson's number

 

To call him and thank him for a beating maybe. Lewis had no chance against 86-89 tyson.