Lewis was technically not as good as Bowe was at that point in time. Lewis was at his peak between 30-34, Bowe peaked a lot earlier, but burned out pretty fast, Lewis started raw, relying on his athletic gifts a lot more, and learned a hard lesson before getting himself a proper trainer. Bowe had futch from pretty much day one, and you could see that in his boxing. Futch always lamented that Bowe lacked the dedication, and said many times he thought bowe could have been one of the all time greats, rather than the footnote he became.Lefthookhappy19 wrote:I in fact think Lewis would have smoked Bowe. When you watch Lewis fight these big guys he looks dangerous as hell. He's got that big right hand and he's just not going to miss a guy of that size with it. He's a sitting duck for it. Especially Bowe more than most who's jab cannot compare to Lennoxs. Judging Bowe by those Holyfield fights in comparison to a fight against Lewis is stupid. Evander in the low 200s being massively outweighted. Evander also had to fight Bowe's inside fight to have a chance. Bowe had to go to hell and back for his wins over Holyfield. Im totally convinced Lennox would have knocked him out.
Any heavyweight out there would have gone to hell and back with that version of Evander Holyfield, you talk like the guy was a midget. Frazier weighed only 205 lbs in his prime, but regularly knocked the shit out of bigger guys. Holyfield had a better chin that Frazier, and was technically better than him too.
Lewis never beat any really good big guys, there weren't many. Golota, Grant and Ruddock were all technically way inferior to Bowe.
The lewis who beat Tua, which for me was probably his most definitive performance, was the finished article and would have beaten any version of bowe, but
Bowe would always have had a chance of stopping lewis, Bowe was a natural puncher, and had quick hands for a man of his size too.
Sad thing is, we never got to find out, and for me that was the one fight the heavyweight division really needed to elevate it to the levels of Ali's era. Had bowe fought Lewis, and Tyson fought lewis and bowe during his prime, then we would have had a fantastic heavyweight division. i dare say the title would have changed hands a few times, because I don't believe that any one man would have been that dominant. I think Bowe would have beaten Tyson though, if Tucker could give Tyson so many problems, Bowe would have taken him apart. Tyson would have had a shot at beating a young lewis, because Lewis used to leave his chin out to dry.
And yes, that was a good point whoever made it about pace. The pace that bowe fought at in the first two contests with Holyfield, was something i never saw lewis match, the Mercer fight was probably pretty close, but Lewis was taken to hell and back by Mercer, who style wise was a less technically gifted, less defensively astute version of Holyfield.