golden oldie wrote:Ambling Alp II wrote:golden oldie wrote:The only drivel is coming from you. The year Rahman upset Lewis ( 2001 ), V.K. was fighting Norris and Purrity in GERMANY. Lewis avenged the defeat in spectacular style in November of that year.
The year Lennox earned his biggest payday v Tyson, Vitali was still fighting Bean, and Donald in Germany. However the Donald fight earned him the right to fight for the WBA title, and must have had him near the top of the WBC rankings, hence they sanctioned the fight for their strap. A fight between them could well have taken place in Europe, there was no NEED for them to square off in the US.
I think we all know the biggest fight venues and revenue earners are in Vegas, and not the Staples Centre, and I would bet good money had the fight taken place on the agreed December date, Vegas is where it would have taken place purely for financial reasons. Hence the undercard fight in the US, so the public would see a fit Vitali knock over some stiff, while an unconditioned Lewis dispenses with the very ordinary Johnson.
It is beyond ridiculous to claim a fight between a 6' 7" guy, who in 33 fights had only been taken the distance once, plus had pulled out of a fight he was comfortably winning due to injury would generate no interest, and not be anticipated, particularly if the US public had seen him look far better than LL on the same fight card.
As for your examples of him fighting on PPV, as I said these were only successful because the majority of Americans desperately wanted to see Lewis lose, and despite the best efforts of the American judge ( enough to make both Jones Jr, and Foreman apologise and say they were ashamed to be Americans involved in the sport ) he didn't lose those fights.
It was not anticipated because people knew that V. Klitschko was not that good. Being tall or having a pretty record against stiffs doesn't mean that you are good. He was painfully slow, was easy to hit. He also failed miserably in his only fight against a decent opponent (Byrd).
People weren't screaming for V. Klitschko-Lewis fight. It's revisionist history to say there was a lot of interest.
Take Klitchko's record between 1996 and 2003, compare it with the top 10 American Heavies then come back and tell me all he fought were stiffs.
If you believe tearing a rotator cuff in his shoulder ( in a fight he was comfortably winning by 5, 7, and 5 points respectively on the cards ) causing him to pull out is failing miserably, you obviously have an agenda.
Incidentally, although the Byrd fight was in Germany 2 of the judges who had Klitchko winning were American.
He fought stiffs. There many other heavyweights from 1996-2003 that were much better than anyone he ever beat.
Best fighter he ever beat was Corrie Sanders. Big friggin deal.
Make all the excuses you want. He was 0-2 in the fights that really mattered.
The Byrd-V. Klitschko fight was a dreadful fight. Very little action. Klitschko did almost nothing in that fight. The scoring was terrible. As I have said on another post, Amercian judges usually don't automatically favor the American fighter over a non-American. Like judges everywhere, some are just incompetent as to how to score a fight. Should have been much closer. 7 points would mean that that Klitschko won 8 rounds. Please.
And he quit. This is boxing. He only had three rounds to go. Most other fighters would have toughed it out. If he just stands there he goes the distance. That has to count against him when rating him.
Yes I have an agenda. It is for people to realize that he was not that good. Some people do realize that he has no major wins, and came up short in two fights that a great fighter would have easily won.
They realize that he was slow, easy to hit and really had no great strengths.
Others grossly overrate him and resort to talking about his size and KO% against stiffs.