Which Heavyweight Champion benefited most from weak competition?

Yeah, I'm sure Lewis was shitting in his pants about facing the 'mighty' Chris Byrd.

No fighter and I mean NO fighter continually faces the best, not SRR not Ali not Foreman NO-ONE. When people say 'he faced the best' they mean continuasly throughout their career, not just one fighteratsch
The fact Byrd is all you can bring up speaks volumes.

Anyway you said 'He avoided slippery boxers most of his career'.
I want names.:deal

 

Rocky Marciano.....susceptible too cuts, leaky defense, undersized, and all his top rate opponents were old and past prime. Charles was the closest to his prime but had over 80 fights by the time of their first fight and was clearly slowed down and become an easier target to tag. Both Charles and Walcott started at lightheavyweight and lower.

Had he stayed around to face Sonny Liston, Floyd Patterson, or Ingo he may not have retired undefeated. He never beat a prime all time great or near great. Just a bunch of good to very good contenders and washed up past greats.

The most overrated heavyweight champion of all-time

 

-Why the hatred for Byrd, he earned his title shot by beating the "Mighty" Tua, often touted as one of Lewis' strongest defenses. Trying to get his career back on track, Tua was also in much better shape against Byrd. Not sure why you people equate ducking=SHITTING PANTS IN TERROR. Sometimes its about risk/reward and Byrd was actually considered an "avoided" fighter before Lewis because he makes fighters look bad win or lose. Holyfield admitted to ducking him for some time because he didn't want to look foolish. Nothing is certain in boxing anyway, silly to dismiss a number one contender cause "we all know Lewis would crush him in 1.".

-The person who made that post did not mean that. This is a topic of title defenses. He said Lewis actively sought out the best but he ducked a deserving contender for a NAME.

-Yes, throughout his career, Lewis was never matched against fast slippery boxers for whatever reason. I don't know, when he was on the comeback trail guys like Donald and Mathis Jr. would have been interesting I suppose, more interesting than Morrison. Now don't act like a moron and take that as Lewis ducked said fighters, just wasn't matched against them at any point...for his entire career. Now as Champion he ducked Byrd as the fight was on the table several times and he walked away. I for one would like to have seen Lewis prove himself against a faster boxer but it never came to be, I think its an interesting question mark.

 

From the Horses Mouth. This is a year after Lewis already dropped his title to avoid Byrd and face Tyson. Deserving got nothing to do with it, Johnson knocked out Savarese!!!


Question: What has Johnson done to deserve this fight?

Lewis: Johnson has been around a long time. He had a great knockout against Lou Savarese. I think he is well deserving of a shot. I think he is very dangerous, and I think it is about time he gets a chance to box the heavyweight champion of the world.

Question: Is Johnson more deserving than Chris Byrd?

Lewis: I cannot fight everyone at once. I have to take one at a time. I think Kirk Johnson is a more exciting fighter than Chris Byrd. A lot of people agree with me when it comes to that. Johnson throws some heavy punches and is a knockout fighter. This is what people want to see. They want to see a fight, they want to see punches and they want to see action.

 

Anyone who contends that Lewis ducked any fighter, or that he did not have one of, if not the most, brutal reign of defenses is clearly pushing an agenda.

 

I hate black men with British accents...so fruity. :rofl

At any rate if you feel three consecutive defenses against Grant, Botha, and Tua before getting KOed by Rahman is the most brutal reign of defenses in history than so be it.

 

Please to list the heavyweight- champion or not- who fought more, and harder punchers than this list of opponents:

Mason
Weaver
Ruddock
Tucker
Bruno
Morrison
McCall
Golota
Briggs
Holyfield
Grant
Tua
Rahman
Tyson
Klitschko

You're not going to find one. Case closed.

 

:roll:

Sorry, thought the tread was about quality of undisputed Heavyweight title defenses, not namedropping everybody you could find on boxing rec without context.

At any rate Ali:

Cleveland Williams
Sonny Liston
Earnie Shavers
George Foreman
Joe Frazier
Henry Cooper
Ron Lyle
Floyd Patterson
Zora Folley
....etc. yawn

 

Dempsey, Marciano.

 

Sure the thread has been derailed. They always are.

And the list you provide doesn't compare to Lewis'. Lyle, Patterson, Foley and Cooper were not in the class of Bruno, Morrison, Tua and Tyson in terms of power.

And just so you know I'm not boxrec-ing, I was at a decent number of those Lewis defenses.

 

Brutal? Sure he faced a lot of dangerous punchers, but how many A level Ring technicians did lennox face? He certainly proved himself against punchers(while suffering two one punch kayo losses along the way), but he did not beat any great boxer types. Bowe was that man. We all know Bowe ducked Lewis by throwing his belt in the trash, but I was reading my 1994 May issue of KO Magazine and it talked about Rock Newman scheduling a future march date with Lennox Lewis, but how it was ruined by lennox getting knocked out by Oliver McCall.

 

Agreed,

The whole concept of thoroughly " cleaning out " an entire era, has gotten to the point where its taken entirely too literally.. Beating the best should not necessarily mean fighting every guy with a heart beat.

 

Yes, this is probably # 1.

I think Walcott's up there too


Joe Louis 2x
Rocky Marciano 2x
Elmer Ray 3x
Lee Q Murray
Tommy Gomez
Hatchetman Sheppard
Tiger Jack Fox 2x
Lorenzo Pack
Hein Ten Hoff
Rex Layne
Abe Simon

 

Yeah, comparing the percieved bottom four to the the percieved top four will certainly do that. Liston, Foreman, and Shavers are generally regarded as the 3 biggest punchers in history...but **** that, Morrison, Tua, and Bruno were beasts!!!!

-OH MY GOD!!! FOR REALZ! IS HE REALLY DAT TALL, DO YOU THINK HIZ DREADS ARE REAL OR EXTENSIONS?

 

Yeah, but this isn't the case with Lewis trashing his IBF belt and ducking Byrd for over 2 years.