Why didn't Lewis face Ruiz and Byrd?

The same Golota that took a shot of Lidocane before his bout with Lewis that caused a seizure after the fight. Watch his ring entrance he looks wired on a 3 day crack bender before the fight. Golota also had a knack for folding against big punchers - Brewster in 1, Tyson in 2. So the result all things considered was not surprising.

 

Had Tyson stayed with his original team I'm sure Holyfield would've gotten a shot before 1990. In fact, Team Holyfield had to generate recognition on the heavyweight stage first and foremost.

Cayton had a schedule that was to take Tyson around the world and defending against homebodies like Bruno in England, Damiani in Italy, Ruddock in Canada, etc.

Holyfield needed to build hype to become Tyson's next SuperFight opponent in Vegas. He also needed some work against the bigger heavyweights and gain experience.

 

it's true, I don't know what Bruno did with Tyson in 1989 instead of Holy, and I don't know what Foreman did with Holy instead of Tyson in 1991. I only know that it was Holy who went to court with the federation to defend against Foreman first, not against Tyson, and Tyson did not do that in 1989 because Holy did not use the rights of a challenger, preferring to fight Dokes, Stewart, and Rodriguez first. Can you understand what happened or not?
according to logic, the best players around 2000, apart from Lewis, were Byrd, Ruiz, Wlad Klitschko, Vitali. Lewis only fought the latter and it was quite accidental. He didn't want a rematch. He really wanted to fight Tyson again, he also wanted Roy Jones, twice his size, and Kirk Johnson. There are articles, interviews, these are facts.

 

well, I can't estimate the distance between Spinks and Frazier's victory over Ali. Same method, but I value Frazier more. And technically Holego was dominated by Toney, not Lewis. In the first fight, Lewis controlled her with a jab, nothing happened there. The second one was better, Lewis won by an inch. Yes, yes, I know that Holy was 37 years old, not 30 like with Bowe, and he was bigger, stronger, wiser, but somehow I still think that the 30-year-old Holy was better - this is indicated by Holy's career and fights with Bean, Lewis, Ruiz, Rahman and subsequent ones. It's strange that for one fight with Lewis Holy he suddenly became big and powerful, but not for the next and the previous one. Similarly with Mercer - at the age of 35, he is great for one fight with Lewis, but not for others... when did he learn this jab? with Ferguson? with Holmes he was 30 years old, had 17 fights, was an Olympic champion. How many fights did Spinks have before Ali, Whitearsppon before Holmes, **** - Ngannou before Fury??

 

Perhaps, but did Lewis' boxing end in 2000? Grant was a product of marketing and HBO. He was a good boxer, but after the Gołota fight everyone knew it was a fake at the highest level. Tua was a puncher, but there is no boxer in the history of boxing who fits Lewis' style better than Tua. I rate it highly, but what happened next? Where did Rahman come from who got the ko from Maskayev? There were at least 5 better than him at that time, similarly to Tyson in 2002, Lewis's championship after 2000 is a fake. He had two really good years in his career, but that was the period when the heavyweight division hit rock bottom.

 

Why you changing the subject? I'm not defending Holyfield here. His first reign was weak sauce. I'm just saying, every champion takes easy touches sometime instead of fighting top contedners. Mike Tyson, in that legendary run you always point to, did that the same. So keep the same energy with Lewis, or be a hipocryte, simple as that.

The Ring Magazine Top 5 for 1999 went likes this: 1. Holyfield, 2. Lewis, 3. Grant, 4. Ibeabuchi, 5. Tua. Lennox beat Holyfield twice and beat both Grant and Tua in 2000. Ike went to jail that year so was out of action. After that he took on another Top 10 guy in Hasim Rahman, he lost in the first fight and the rematched him. Ruiz only got into the Top 10 in late 2001. After that Lennox took the money fight that everybody wanted to see with Tyson (who was actually number 2 rated contender) and Vitali, who turned out to be the next big thing. Skipping Byrd is not ideal, but understandable. Wlad was in a mix for a short while, they even "fought" in Ocean's Eleven, but he lost to Sanders. So check your facts bruh, cause you're talking nonsense. Again.

 

I understand that and I don't hold it against Mike in any way, I just hate double standards people have for the fighters they like and dislike. Especially if they call Mike's run the best run in the history of the heavyweight boxing.

 

I can't be sure what you're getting at re Spinks, Frazier and their respective bouts against Ali but I'm not trying to make Lewis/Holyfield (I) out to be the greatest heavyweight victory of all time (Frazier's over Ali takes those honors, for mine). Nonetheless, it was an excellent win.

I prefer the first Lewis Holyfield fight because, as mentioned, it was a technically brilliant performance. The Lewis jab was at it's best, his work behind it at distance as he walked Holyfield onto his shots was impressive, out-landing Holyfield by more than 2-to-1 and winning 9 of the 12 rounds for my money. Holyfield, despite his age, turned up. He wanted to be undisputed again.

Implying James Toney's win, over a nigh-on 41-year-old Holyfield, is better would be a bit of a reach. Holyfield was in the midst of a hat trick of losses from 2002 to 2004 - The first of those being against Byrd, after which the press finally wrote Holyfield's career eulogy. I don't place much weight on anything Holyfield did, post-Rahman.

Lewis didn't really turn up with anything like a strategy for the Holyfield rematch; more a simple desire to land big. It was a fight that shouldn't have been necessary anyway. That said, Holyfield did try some new things and it was a generally more competitive bout as a result of the shift in both Boxers. I don't agree with your characterization of the win, though. Lewis won that comfortably on the cards as well - 116-112.

I also think you're mischaracterizing my comments re the differences between Holyfield (Bowe) and Holyfield (Lewis). The age is the obvious one, but it's well-documented that, following the first Bowe fight, Holyfield bulked up a bit (205 in the first fight; 217 in their rematch). He had also gained a reputation for ups and downs in form (remember him being the significant underdog against Tyson?) as well as using various rough tactics to shape the outcome of fights.

Holyfield/Bowe I is a classic; generally accepted as a Top-10 All-Time Great Heavyweight fight. It's one of my favorites and that's because it was an action-packed, competitive bout with all the drama you want from a Heavyweight Championship contest. But Lewis was technically superior to Bowe, more consistent and has the considerably better ledger.


Regarding Mercer and, as already mentioned, he had shown great form against Holyfield in his fight before Lewis (He was also in a competitive bout against Witherspoon post-Lewis). So, it wasn't just this one-night-only event. Had he not suffered a neck injury in '97 and then later contracted Hep B, he may have had some other good performances in him.

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ok, you're the first person to tell me that Lewis's victory over the 37-year-old Holy was more impressive than Bowe's victory over the 30-year-old, but ok. It's your perspective and I respect it. My optics tell me that Lewis won the second, more decisive fight 115-113, although I have heard opinions that it should have been the other way around or a draw. Either way, it was a fairly even fight and LL's victory was minimal. John Ruiz should have won the same victory in Holy's first fight, but the judges favored Holy, just like with Lewis I. Therefore, Ruiz compared to his best rival, Prime Lewis and his biggest, most valuable victory, was very comparable. Of course, Holy was older by these 10 months, but I understand that if the 7-year difference between Bowe I and Lewis II worked to his advantage, then 10 months between Lewis II and Ruiz I should not be a problem, right? Besides, Ruiz fit Holy much better in terms of style - he was not a tall outfighter, he played Holy's game. So I have no idea why suddenly the victory over Holy in 1999 is a great achievement and the real victory over Holy 2000 is completely ignored

 

I suppose that if one of them had merged two of the belts, it would have put pressure on Lewis.

You might have persuaded Byrd, but I don't think that Ruiz was interested in unifying.

 

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To be clear, Bowe can still be considered to have achieved the more impressive win, on the strength of Holyfield being considered prime (albeit undersized and tactically irresponsible). At the same time, Lewis can be said to have delivered the superior performance.

Only a slim minority view the result as anything but a win for Lewis.

I am not quite sure where this is going. If your query and perspective on Ruiz, in relation to Holyfield, is somehow trying to further a case for why Lewis should have fought Ruiz, I'm struggling to see the gain here.

 

Lewis and Bowe fought in a different style. Lewis was certainly smarter, more tactically than technically better. Bowe has gaps in defense but also a stronger jaw. Lennox more cautious. Lewis was less capable, but his basics were better developed. A difficult topic and deviates from the main thread. I actually got off it myself. My point is that Ruiz had grounds to treat him as a serious rival for Lewis. And also that the Lewis-Holy fight is overrated, just like Lewis himself.

 

I would say Bowe having a stronger jaw is opinion only yes Lewis did get stopped twice but he also fought alot more punchers so Lewis is more proven in that regard

Holyfield decked Bowe and almost had him out with one punch and Bowe never fought any notable punchers during his prime.

 

It's been covered in a lot of threads over the years.

Holyfield's WBA mandatory was Akinwande. They were scheduled to fight in New York but Henry had hepatitis. Then Holyfield and Lewis signed to unify. They fought twice. Part of the unification deal was the winner had to agree to face the WBA mandatory next, which was still Akinwande. When Lewis beat Holfyield, he took the WBA to court to block the mandatory defense, because Akinwande still had hepatitis and, also, because nobody wanted to see Lewis-Akinwande 2.

While a judge pondered his decision, Lewis signed to fight Grant. The WBA, to strengthen its position, also moved Akinwande out of the top spot and replaced him with John Ruiz.

Lewis and his team then negotiated with Ruiz and "Stoney" that Lewis would defend against Ruiz in London after he fought Grant. Ruiz and Stoney agreed.

When Don King got wind of that, he told them if the judge sided with the WBA they (Stoney and Ruiz) should reject Lennox's deal, because if they rejected it, Lewis would have to vacate and Ruiz could fight Evander for the vacant WBA belt, which King would promote.

Then the judge who Lewis took his case to finally decided, about two weeks before the Lewis-Grant fight, that the winner of Lewis-Holyfield had agreed to fight the WBA mandatory, not specifically Akinwande. And since Ruiz was now the WBA mandatory, Lewis had to fight him.

Ruiz and Stoney told the judge that they demanded a WBA title fight. So, the judge told Lennox about 10 days before the Grant fight that he had to face his WBA mandatory or vacate.

With HBO and the WBC and IBF all in favor of Lewis going ahead with the Grant fight, Lewis vacated the WBA belt.

That's why he didn't fight Ruiz.

Long story short: Lewis went to court to block an Akinwande rematch, Lewis signed to fight Grant, the WBA replaced Akinwande with Ruiz, Lewis offered to fight Ruiz after Grant, a judge ruled Lewis had to face his WBA mandatory or vacate, so Lewis vacated.

Lewis-Botha should've been Lewis-Ruiz.