Wlad is the Ukranian Lennox Lewis

Wlad is not fighting good opponents, but that has much to do with the heavyweight talent pool during his reign. It's not that Wlad is ducking anyone.

If you say Wlad is not on the cusp of retirement, I would like to point out that Wlad is older than Lewis when he fought Vitali. Presently, there is no heavyweight that seems to be a challenge. Helenius would be interesting, but most would agree it would be another mismatch at this point in time.

Lennox was not on the cusp of retirement until he fought Vitali. Lewis showed amazing heart during that fight, but the duck that followed is a mark against his legacy no matter how many times the "tko6" mantra is repeated.

 

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I'm not really trolling though...well...maybe a little.

 

Admittedly, Lewis came from a greater heavyweight era, but let's look at a few of the better names on his resume:

Mike Weaver: stopped by Larry Holmes in

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; stopped by Lennox Lewis in

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Ruddock: already defeated twice by a post Douglas Tyson before being stopped by Lewis. He was stopped by Tommy Morrison 2 years after Lewis.

Bruno: previously had been stopped three times before facing Lewis; I'll save the "who was winning the fight until the stoppage?" argument when we get to Vitali.

Tucker: quality win and managed to put him down on his way to a decision; however, this fight happened almost seven years after Tucker went the distance with Tyson. Arguably, past prime.

Tua: If you saw this fight, you understand the comparison to Wlad.

Mercer: Great tear it up fight. This is my second favorite Lewis performance next to his bout with Vitali. It was a majority decision and some felt that it could have gone to Mercer, but Lewis edged it out.

Morrison: I remember thinking that Tommy could pull this out. I was wrong.

Oliver McCall: I guess technically this avenged his loss, but everyone knows that was more McCall losing than Lewis winning-no fault of Lewis.

Golota: Golota sued his doctor over a bad reaction to a shot of lidocaine, but no excuses.

Holyfield: Got a make good decision that could have gone to Holyfield in the rematch. Holyfield was a former cruiser weight and past prime. Lennox seemed to receive the most hurt during this fight.

Rahman: He never avenged the ESPN loss:yep Trollin:yep

Tyson: Tyson was shot and everyone knows it.

Vitali: This doesn't really need anymore discussion, but Lewis retired being behind on the cards and getting a doctor stoppage from a cut. Not a quality win at all, but a great fight.

Lewis fought the best of his era, though it could be argued that many of those were past prime and he was sometimes enrolled in the bum of the month club just as Wlad.

Wlad is being criticized heavily for employing the same tactics that Lewis employed; at the same time, Lewis is making it into the top 3 in many poster's ATG lists.

I wonder if history will be as kind to Wlad when it is all said and done.

As I said before, both are great champions and are H2H hell for any heavyweight.

 

Tough as nails.

 

lewis tko6