Would Lennox Lewis been as dominate if he wasnt allowed to hold

Trouble being Steward wasn't even training Lewis at the time

 

Almost all of them did stuff. Holyfield was terrible with that head and holding in select fights, Ali, Foreman with his pushing, Tyson was hardly clean, Holmes was accused of thumbing on occasions etc etc etc. Dempsey copped heaps, Marciano copped some. There's just not many princesses in heavyweight boxing and certainly no Arguello's.

 

It's not just heavyweights though. There's a crazy amount of it in the lower divisions too. Far more so than a few decades ago.

 

"If you can get away with it, do it" I am pretty sure now I could be wrong that Dundee either said that or something very similar.

 

I wouldn't be surprised.

 

Ruiz made Wladmir look like Joe Frazier.

 

Referees just don't have the physical strength and the will to enforce the rules on these heavyweights, more often than not.
And the bigger and heavier the heavyweights are, the more they can get away with.

To effectively stop a fighter holding and leaning, to pull them apart, usually takes some degree of physical involvement.
Huge tall heavy fighters like Lennox and Wlad took advantage of that. They had it down to a fine art.

 

I disagree with everything you just said.
It doesn't take any degree of physical strength to deduct a point or threaten disqualification.
Klitschko got deducted point a number of times and deserved a dq at least once for chronic displays of holding.
Lewis never came close to a dq loss for holding and he was never docked a point either.

 

You forgot the faking low blows,elbows and headbutts. Which is why the boxing public viewed Ruiz as a joke. Still does to this day I might add.