Would any of these guys have had a chance to beat Lewis in Africa?

I believe it was beginning of February, 2001 when I read in newspaper that Lennox Lewis' team and HBO are considering 4 potential opponents to match against him in South Africa in April of that year - David Izon, Hasim Rahman, Larry Donald and Kirk Johnson. I was very disappointed by that list of potential opponents because I was hoping to see Lennox against Wladimir Klitschko who looked a clear number 2 HW in the world at the time. His brother Vitali was coming of the loss to Chris Byrd and very pedestrian performance against average Timo Hoffman, and Lewis has beaten basically everybody else except of Byrd (whom Wlad dominated), Ruiz and Klitschko brothers among top heavyweights. So I wanted to watch him against the best fighters of that group (which I was confident was Wladimir).

It needs to be said 2000 version of Lewis looked as good as ever - he destroyed Grant and Botha and outboxed David Tua. It was probably the most dominant year of his career. So I didn't consider any of the four mentioned names as a serious threat for Lewis. Looking back however at how things have turned out, I think it's a legit question IF any other of those guys would have had a chance to replicate what Rahman did against unfocused Lewis in Africa if any of them had been chosen over Rahman. And my answer is... No, they weren't.

- David Izon had similar size and power to Rahman, but he didn't have jab. And Rahman's jab was a big, big part of his success against Lewis. He set up that big right hand by backing Lewis to the ropes to avoid his jabs. Izon probably had enough power to KO Lewis like Rahman did but he wouldn't be able to set up a punch like Hasim did.

- Larry Donald? No, definitely. Donald was a good boxer, but he was light-hitting heavyweight. He had a good jab, and Lewis always struggled against good jabbers, but Larry did have nothing to back up that jab. Plus, I think Donald would be very defensive, worried by Lewis power. And finally, Donald was probably already past his prime by then, as he struggled badly against very average Obed Sullivan (barely getting a draw against him) and lost convincingly to Kirk Johnson that year.

Kirk Johnson, in my opinion, would have had the best chance of scoring an upset similar to Rahman's one. He could hit very hard, had good skills, speed and boxing IQ. So he had the potential to replicate Rahman's success. But I think he wouldn't do it just because he always lacked a mental part of the game. I actually wouldn't be surprised if he had come in much worse shape than Lewis had he been chosen over Rahman for that fight. Just like he did for Vitali fight in 2003.

I think that if any of these guys were chosen over Rahman, they all would lose. Can't see them beating even unfocused version of Lennox Lewis.