What will it take to dislodge Ali & Louis from 1&2?

Realizing that Lewis deserves the #2 spot.

 

I'm thinking now of how guys like Foreman and Holmes and Holyfield were all looking pretty good around that age.

I don't know...I guess I still have that old school "a fighter is old at 38" perspective. And to me Fury didn't exactly put on an ATG performance in that fight.

 

Beating Bowe, Moorer, and Tyson didn't do that?

 

I think the perception at the time was that while Holmes was good, he was not really facing the best or brightest of the division.

He was not quite matching Louis or Ali on the stats, and he wasn't matching them on quality relative to the era.

He also was not very dominant against the best that he faced.

When you put it all together, nobody was very likely to rank him above Louis or Ali.

Now if Tyson had managed another four or five title defenses, and his only losses had been to Holyfield and Lewis, people might have started to argue his case.

 

What's his case over Louis or Ali?

 

There's a guy called Lennox Lewis who shared his era who had a resume comprable to Holyfield whom Holyfield failed to beat.

losing the Bowe trilogy certainly doesn't help his case either

 

When it comes to Fury, he was a complete breath of fresh air.
Speaking only for myself, but I had grown mighty tired of watching Wlad. Yeah it was an impressive reign and all, but the party stopped long ago, yet Wlad was still dancing.
A change was needed.
So Fury, with his quirky personality and awkward style made the division fun again.
I liked his bravado, his tough talk and even his singing. And I think he found a pretty good dance partner in Wilder, who could knock you dead with the right.

But now for me, the party is winding down again. Fury's tough talk is sounding more and more like hot air these days.
He says he's a fighting man, but he looks more like an eating man to me. A fighting man fights.
And these two are doing it again. Colour me unimpressed. It's a trilogy that didn't need to happen because there's no point to it.

 

Objectively he doesn't.

You could make a strong argument for #3 perhaps.

 

I have him at no. 6, though I sometimes wonder if my ranking him below Foreman is accurate.

 

The best case for Lewis ahead of Louis is that he beat more and better (head to head), and more dangerous fighters... And he beat every man he faced. It's a case that is beginning to sway to me.

 

Amazing fighter!

 

There is one little word that I have to take exception to here.

More.

Louis and Ali beat approximately twice as many men ranked in the top ten as Lewis, so on depth they have got him beat.

That leaves Lewis completely dependent on consistency, and quality of opposition, to even theoretically salvage the argument.

You are not going to pull it round on consistency, since his losses, are probably worse than their losses.

At the very best they don't look good.

This leaves you with the quality of his opposition.

While I personally think that his opposition is very good, it is possible to pick holes in it.

You could argue that he either missed his most dangerous contemporaries, or fought them when they were past their best.

All in all, close but no cigar!

 

I find it hard to put him above Holmes.

 

I should mention, to actually watch Lewis in action (under Steward) is to really appreciate how good he really was. He was an at times strikingly excellent boxer, a puncher not terribly far from Wilder/Shavers level...at his absolute prime he had a pronounced poise that was in its own way beautiful to behold.

 

Yeah, he was very good, but so was Holmes.

The difference for me is Holmes's stronger resume.