Why didn't Lewis face Ruiz and Byrd?

Lewis didn’t face many lefties and none that were good, Byrd was a tricky customer. Too much risk not enough reward for Lewis. He should have fought him.

Byrd whatever is said about him had tons of heart and skill. It’s quite impressive that someone that campaigned at middleweight would go on to fight Wlad 2x, Vitali, Ibeabuchi, Tua, Holyfield, Mccline, Golota. Says a lot about the spirit of Byrd.

 

Rahman and Ruiz are hardly debatable as both were in their prime and demonstrated they were clearly better than Grant. Rahman beat Lewis, Sanders, and Barrett, should have got the decision vs Toney. Ruiz beat Oquendo, Holyfield, Johnson, Golota. Many had him beating Valuev as well
Both guys have better wins than Grant and their losses are less embarrassing. McCall subsequently kayoed Akinwande which is still a better win than anything Grant has.

At the time it may not have been apparent these guys were better than Grant but clearly with the benefit of hindsight they turned out to be better than him. Clearly people at the time overrated Grant.

 

Byrd is vaguely impressive, only when his limited achievements are viewed in light of his size.

Byrd being a Southpaw is no equalizer in the face of much bigger and skilled Heavyweights. The Lewis jab would have found its target as easily as Wlad's did, with graver consequences.

 

10 pages and counting, yet imo the question posed in the thread title was adequately addressed in this, the second post of the thread.

Jeffries ducked Johnson. Dempsey ducked Wills. Armstrong ducked Burley. Bowe ducked Lewis. A champion failing to defend against the clear #1 contender can be, and often is, justly categorised as a duck.

At the end of his career belts meant little to Lewis, he wanted the highest profile, biggest fights for the most substantial purses. Kirk Johnson didn't represent such a fight, but there were likely multiple reasons Lewis signed to fight him rather than Byrd and various other contenders that didn't capture the publics imagination, ducking and/or fear of losing will not have been amongst them.

 

Because Chris Byrd gave Lennox Lewis, the Bird. Ha Ha.

 

We know for a fact that Grant was overhyped and almost certainly not a top 10 heavyweight and that beating him was no big accomplishment on the part of Lewis.

Clearly this is not a big win if we are being objective. We don't get to pretend that Grant was some major threat when the evidence just isn't there. Ring magazine has screwed up on plenty of rankings and Grant is among many guys who have been overhyped.

If people actually disagree with me they would be trying to make a case for Grant beating Rahman, Tua, Tyson etc but nobody is even attempting to do that which tells me they don't actually believe Grant beats these guys.

 

IMHO - there was no real reason and no challenge.
Lewis defeated Tua, who destroyed Ruiz.
Lewis destroyed Golota, who also defeated Byrd.

 

The simplest of points continually fly clean over your head.

No Neck clearly mentioned "hindsight" to you and here you are still fixating from that angle 100%. Hindsight has nothing to do with what sort of threat Grant was considered at the time Lewis fought him.

At the time, which is what actually matters, Grant was rated the third best heavyweight in the world.

 

Aaaand there it is!!! Exactly Rummy.

 

I simply think that the more spectacular end to Lewis' career is that he: got revenge on Rahman, beat Tyson and beat Vitali.
Than: got revenge on Rahman, beat Byrd and beat Vitali.

 

Speculating on H2H match ups is irrelevant though and has no substance in regards to Michael Grants ranking in 1999.

The fact is Rahman at this time had 2 stoppage losses to Maskaev, Tua.

Ruiz was known as the guy that was stopped in like 10 seconds by Tua.

Michael Grant was 31-0 had beaten a top 10 ranked Heavyweight in Golota, and also had a bunch of convincing wins over known contenders like Izon, Savarese, Butler, Sullivan, Cole, Gonzalez etc. So he was definitely deserving of his top 10 ranking, and was certainly more highly thought of than the other names that you mentioned at that time.

As i said the hindsight argument and speculation on H2H match ups is irrelevant.

 

You can watch the Golota fight and you'll see a top heavyweight beating another top heavyweight.