Too true, he got his props in the sporting press and media, but he was never really liked by the public a great deal. Part of that was the perception that he wasn't really British, a fallacy really given that he grew up in East Ham. He was certainly more British than lunk-jawed greg Rusedski for instance.Syntax Error wrote:I can tell you that there is no British bias towards Lewis.lirva33 wrote:This is 90% irrelevant to the point I was making.jamesmcdonnell wrote: Not as bad a taste as your pathetic cowardice did when you wimped out of your bet.....now to pull apart your frankly ridiculous statement you pussy.
Vitali whined and cried like a bitch about losing on cuts, trying to make out he had been robbed, despite the fact the left side of his face was hanging off and he was getting clobbered in the last 2 rounds of the fight. Sure, Vitali did better than expected, because Lewis was ring rusty and took about 2 rounds to get his jab working.
I've watched the fight about 10 times on tape now, and once you get over the shock of seeing Lewis look so sloppy in the first 2 1/2 rounds it's clear that Vitali wasn't at all dominating the fight after the 3rd. Once Lewis started ramming home his jab, Vitali was on the back foot and started getting clouted with some almighty shots.
Vitali acted like a wanker after losing to Lewis, trying to put him on the spot and demand a rematch.
Lewis had EARNED the right to finish his career as he chose, and he chose to retire after giving it some serious thought, that's his right. He had already established himself as a dominant chap
Vitali on the other hand faced nothing but pathetic scraps in his reign as 'champ.' He won the right to call himself champion by beating whale-boy Kirk Johnson, and then defended against vastly overrated 'Colonel' Sanders who had more breasts than a bargain bucket. Then he took target practice on human punching bag Williams, who fought with all the guile and poise of a Wildebeest on roller skates.
Throughout his tenuous reign as 'champ' Vitali spent more time whinging about Lewis not coming out of retirement to face him than looking for serious challenges to cement his own legacy, then had a massive hissy fit and huffed off into retirement when Rahman was awarded the belt after Vitali kept injuring himself.
Vitali will be remembered as nothing more than a minor footnote in boxing history a guy whose best performance was losing on cuts to an ageing, out of shape and undermotivated Lennox Lewis, who took him on at a few weeks notice instead of a much easier opponent in Kirk Johnson. How many other fighters would have given Vitali a shot under those circumstances?
Tell me Lirva, who the smeg did Vitali ever beat to earn the right to call himself the main man in the division.
Which is, Lewis ran from the sport rather than face Vitali. Which is 100% true. "Lewis was beating Vitali etc" What was your scorecard? Because everyone I know had Vitali winning 4-2. He hurt Lewis numerous times and it was simply the luck of the draw that he got cut by a lucky jab and lewis didn't. Then lewis promises a rematch and waits over a year before finally retiring and allowing the division to move on. He held the belts hostage while he took the easy way out.
Vitali gave him a beating in most rounds. Hitting him repeatedly. Lewis was being worn down, he fell on his stool at the end of the 6th. The shots were taking effect, as they do with Vitali opponents.
The fact is, Lewis was in a topsy turvy battle that A LOT of people thought he was lucky to win. The record books will say it was a cuts win for lewis, but the tape of the fight will elave a bad taste in the mouth and will always say that Vitali was very unlucky.
If lewis got the cuts and Vitali refused to fight him, it would be a different kettle of fish on this board.
Jamesmcdonnell "Vitali should fight lewis again because that fight left a bad taste in the mouth"
So really, this is a british board and people are biased. I remember reading tumultuous postss about williams beating klitschko. I replied "Klitschko KO1" and was laughed off the board by YOU and others.
Were you laughing after 30 seconds of the fight james?
He is not really liked over here.
He is our best ever fighter, but yet when he was champ, he was practically invisible.
If Lewis had hailed from any other small country, he would be that country's all time sporting hero.
He would be on every billboard, on all the TV ads, the first face you see when you get off a plane at the airport etc etc.
His personality didn't help much, unlike Bruno, who played the dim but lovable big lug (which in reality he never was) Lennox was a big strong, proud and arrogant man who swaggered around and refused to confirm to the stereotype that boxers are either thick, criminal, perverts, raging animals, or any combination thereof.
Whilst personally I found a lot to admire in this, people tend to warm to affable losers, try hards or blood and guts warriors in boxing. Lennox was none of these, and was guilty of making many of his wins look too easy. His fight with Tua (which was in reality a masterful performance) wasn't much fun to watch for the drunken general sports fan, because he didn't give Tua a single look in. People prefer the likes of Holyfield who always make it look hard even when they win.
His two losses to Rahman and McCall will always hurt him, and rightly so. The first was probably unavoidable, as Lewis was still a bit green and needed a proper trainer to correct some obvious flaws, flaws Steward alerted McCall to, and then fixed in Lewis. The second loss was unforgivable, an overconfident, cocksure and underprepared Lewis allowed a guy who shouldn't have had a prayer to have a chance, and paid the price when he ran out of gas got clocked on the chops and went down like a sack of shit.
I celebrated and laughed at Lewis when that happened, because I thought he was a pratt the way he carried on in the build up to that fight. He rectified that in the rematch by slapping the shit out of Rahman in what was an excellent performance.
if he wants to retire it's his call. lewis had been thinking about retiring for a long time and that last fight made his mind up to get out.
