Why didn't Lewis face Ruiz and Byrd?

both of them turned out to be paper champions by not fighting the best available contenders, no matter what the reasons were.

 

Calling Lewis a paper champion is laughable.

 

the moment he does not defend the title against the main contenders but gives it up, he ceases to be a true champion. He may be considered No. 1, but it is difficult to consider him a true champion. It's as if at the Olympics the semi-finalist didn't fight the guy who won the second semi-final, but fought the second quarter-finalist. Will you give him a gold medal?? The problem with Lewis is that he gave away the championship belts at least three times to people he didn't want to fight while simultaneously telling the story that he won against all of them. Well no, he didn't win, sorry. You have to grow up.

 

He gave up the WBA belt to fight the better opponent in Grant, who was universally recognized number 1 contendere in the world. The decision of the alphabet body to strip him on King's orders doesn't mean anything. That was a move of the true champion.

The situation with the IBF belt is a little bit more tricky, as shown in the thread, but he ended up fighting Vitali Klitschko, the opponent as good or even better than Byrd. So it's irrelevant in the long run.

 

Ruiz soon beat Holyfield in the same poor style as Lewis and generally showed himself to be much better than Grant. He could have beaten Ruiz and then fought Grant. He didn't do it even though Ruiz was No. 1 in the WBA. These are the facts. Klitschko was the best sporting and financial option in the rematch, and Lewis gave him the belt. If he didn't have to fight Klitschko, he would fight Tyson again, maybe Roy Jones, maybe Kirk Johnson or other guys, but he had to fight Vitali so he preferred the belt odds. He also preferred to give the belt to the uncomfortable Byrd. Ruiz and Byrd defeated Tua and Holy, which are Lewis' best victories. this makes it so that Lewis should fight them since his legacy is so weak but he earned it with rhetoric in interviews that you fell for. What are Lewis' greatest victories? 37-year-old Holy and 35-year-old Mercer after weak, equal fights. and 32-year-old Klitschko, who was better than him

 

Dear, dear - What's this^ unintelligible mess of agenda then?

It seems that you do not know the history and the sequence of events therein, or even have the vaguest understanding of said events. For example, Ruiz was installed as the WBA's #1 contender after the Lewis/Grant fight had already been made. Ruiz could have waited until after the Grant fight, but his promoter (King) sought to have Lewis stripped instead. Can you imagine why this was the preferred outcome for King?

If you want to fixate on the age of fighters, you might want to also take into consideration that, a) Lewis fought younger versions of Holyfield than did Ruiz and Byrd, b) Lewis himself was 33 when he first met Holyfield (who was 36 at that time), while, c) Ruiz was 29 when he beat a 38 year-old version of Holyfield and Byrd was 32 when he beat a 40 year-old Holyfield.

That you find similarities between Lewis/Holyfield and Holyfield/Ruiz is hilarious. Conversely, citing Lewis' retirement as an example of him giving the belt away is about as sad as it gets.

TKO 6

Cheers.

 

Lewis dominated Holyfield twice, Ruiz barely won the second fight, lost the first, and drew the last one. There is no comparison here. Especially since Holyfield never fought Grant.

Who cares who's number 1 in the WBA/ABC/WTF. Alphabet bodies rankings are a joke and Ruiz's situation perfectly shows it. Lewis fought the better challenger in Grant, end of.

Klitschko was hardly better than Lewis, he was TKOed in the close fight where he ended up looking like he was ran over by 18 wheeler truck.

 

If for you the second Holy-Lewis fight was domination, we watched other fights. It was a weak but equal fight, just like the Ruiz-Holy fight. in the first one, Ruiz was cheated just like Lewis, didn't you know that? Haven't you watched these fights?
Klitschko won 4 out of 6 rounds against Lewis, having him on the verge of a knockdown in the 2nd round and dominating him in the rounds he won. But he was unlucky, just like with Byrd. Lewis didn't look like a winner to anyone but his loverboys. Did you watch this fight? did you just read the result and look at the photo of Vitalij's face? why there wasn't a rematch... someone wrote there that Lewis didn't fight Byrd because it was for little money, he didn't fight Ruiz because it was for little money (maybe it was more for Botha?), but a Klitschko rematch would be perfect for him, for his legacy and would bring big money. Lewis preferred to suddenly feel tired from boxing

 

I don't know but he would have destroyed Ruiz. He's way too big and strong to be bothered by Ruiz's jab, grab and smother tactics, Byrd might go the distance because of his speed and slickness.

 

Holyfield won 5 rounds tops in the second fight, and that's being nice to him. 8-4 is a clear win and the first fight was a domination. Ruiz didn't even come close to that.

Klitschko won 3/4 rounds of the 6 rounds fight (you can argue Lewis won rounds 3, 5 and 6), which makes it pretty even, doesn't it? Especially looking at the state of Vitali's face. If the fight wasn't stopped, Klitschko could have lost his right eye. Again, clear win for Lewis.

Funny that Vitali was "unlucky" in the 2 biggest fights of his career, lol. He was fragile and it showed again and again. Wladimir had a glass jaw, Vitali had a glass body. Byrd made him miss shots by a mile and he tore his rotator cuff in the process. Lewis sliced him open and TKOed him.

Luis Ortiz was better than Wilder in their both fights, but lost. How unlucky he was!

Why wasn't there a rematch? Lewis knew he didn't have it in him anymore and stepped away. He beat the next bext heavyweight while he was in his worst shape ever. He didn't have anything to prove anymore. Even before the Vitali (and originally Kirk Johnson) fight, he said it can be his last bout. And it was. When the champion retires on top, there will always be some naysayers complaining about it as there is such and such boxer still to fight. Well, they only can do this. Complain. If Lewis lost to Vitali in the rematch would that change anything in terms of his accomplishments? Nope. Except for the fact that the lineage wouldn't be broken, which was a bit of a pain in the late 2000's.

You still didn't read the thread as you still clearly don't know why he didn't fight Ruiz, lol.

 

Well, to think about it again, Vitali would have probably broken a leg or something and retired, so that's that for the lineage, lol.

 

Lewis broadly speaking fought the opponents who generated the most public interest.

Sometimes they were the best available, and sometimes they weren't.

That was my take at the time, and it remains my take now.

 

That is a 100 % correct.

Lewis was the last man standing, he has no outstanding wins. Oldiefield, Ghost of Tyson, Trailhorse Mercer who lost to ancient Holmes, McCall/Rahman who should have never polaxed him, HBO Hypejob Grant, Mental Midget Golata who never ever won a meaningful fight, the Mohawk Euro Bum etc etc.

So that leaves us with the come from behind win vs Bruno, Ruddock who had the living shid beat out of him from Tyson and VK.

So VK is most likely his best win as he had one foot out the door and administered TKO6 but how good really was VK ? Resume trash and quit vs a featherfisted Cream puff.

 

You know what, my friend, for the sake of the discussion, I won't argue with you and I will admit that maybe, as you write, Byrd was better than Vitali and Ukra's injury was not an accident and in fact Chris deservedly won. So Lewis should fight him even more and not give him the belt. Byrd dominated Holy (the older one, in fact) more easily than him, he also won easily against another opponent defeated by Lewis - Tua, he showed several times that he can outplay big players and is much better than Botha or Grant. Even if I decide that Ruiz can be understood, what the hell is wrong with Byrd? and what about the lack of proving that he was better than Klitschko, if 20 years after their fight people are still discussing who would win and for one vote for Lewis, the other for Klitschko? Why couldn't Lewis, when he was in the worst shape of his career, get in better shape for the rematch like Holy did against Lewis in 1999? to this day he claims that he had a way with Vitali, but in 2003 he was surprised, rusty, weighed too much, so what prevented him from doing what he did with Rahman in the rewnzu?? in the second fight he wouldn't be surprised anymore, he could weigh less, he wouldn't be rusty, he would get the biggest payday of his career and such a fight would be the crowning achievement of his career.