BoxRec

I tend to think John L. under-rates the returning Foreman, but I have to agree with him in this instance. Old Foreman had some useful tools which would play nicely against his younger self, were it not for the fact he just wouldn't be able to get out of the way of the punches.

Yes mike could have knocked Lewis out, does not mean he would.

Lewis is hard to rate beat every man he faced. His best win was a draw against Holyfield which I had him winning by 3 points.

Think Prime Tyson would have beaten the 99 version of Holyfield too.

Is Lewis a top ten heavyweight.

He has to rank behind Louis and Ali. But after than you can argue for him. He beat as good fighters as Holmes, Tyson. Admitedly Holyfield win over a 26 year old Bowe is better than any of Lewis wins. The Tyson Lewis fought probably is not worth debating too seriously when addressing Lewis Greatness.

Reality is that Lewis nor Tyson or Holmes have that Great win.

Holyfield as his over Bowe and Tyson
Ali has Liston, Frazier, Foreman
Foreman has Frazier
Louis holds the longest winning steak as a champion.

But Lewis can make a claim against over regular top ten fighters including Liston, Tyson, even Foreman (one of his wins was over a past prime Frazier). Certainly would smash Marciano head to head.

1. Ali
2. Louis

after that, Tyson, Foreman, Frazier, Liston, Marciano, Holyfield, Lewis, Bowe, Johnson, Dempsy
all have some claim.

The thing is the heavyweights have got so much bigger over the years, ranking say a 190 pound Marciano ober a 245 pound Lewis..... in hindsight its fair enough in terms of achievements.... but if a 190 pound Marciano met a 245 Lewis in the ring... Lewis would be far too big for him.

Sure Primo Carenera was big and lost to smaller heavyweights.... but Lewis is a super heavyweight WITH skills.
Thats the difference.

BarryWashington wrote:

Heartbreak_Kid79 wrote:The thing is the heavyweights have got so much bigger over the years, ranking say a 190 pound Marciano ober a 245 pound Lewis..... in hindsight its fair enough in terms of achievements.... but if a 190 pound Marciano met a 245 Lewis in the ring... Lewis would be far too big for him.

Sure Primo Carenera was big and lost to smaller heavyweights.... but Lewis is a super heavyweight WITH skills.
Thats the difference.

What achievements does Marciano have? His most credible wins are over Layne and LaStarza (twice). Walcott, Louis and Moore were as old as my dad when Marciano fought them. I also don't believe that was a prime/peak Charles that Marciano fought (I could be wrong).

Lennox has some underrated accomplishments. He stopped a peak Ruddock in two rounds. He (Lewis) gave the always tough Tony Tucker his second loss of his career. Lennox turned Tommy Morrison from the Great White Hope to the Great White Nope in 6. He beat a prime Mercer (I can't wrap my head around on how "Mercer was robbed" - I scored the fight 6-4 Lewis.) Lennox KO'd out a prime Golota who hadn't suffered his first genuine defeat. Made the "dangerous" Tua look like nothing more than an amateur. Lennox avenged both of his losses against McCall and Rahman. Lennox (in my opinion) has a better resume than Marciano. Lennox is very underrated and (to me) is an easy Top 10 candidate.

Many boxing fans have the attitude that the old timers were better no matter what you say. Marciano is often over-rated yet most of his opponents were far from being decent. I can't how anyone can't have Lewis in any Top 10 heavyweight list.

BarryWashington wrote:I can't how anyone can't have Lewis in any Top 10 heavyweight list.

Because from Dempsey to Ali and a "prime" Tyson there are dozens that could have beat him, and were just better boxers or fighters who did face much better opposition - including Louis!

"the bum of the month club" was a Reporter's "Spin" and amusement,
stating & expecting Louis' superiority over many of his contemporaries, just like Ali or Tyson's dominance at their times. the fighters and top contenders were very real, very real!

plus the periods/times some were proven superior era's mid 30s all of the 40s to mid 50s for all divisions namely middleweight and 70s for HW's.

and YES, to an earlier post, Lewis and most HWs of the last 20 years ARE S-HW's and should be rated as such; with the TRUE HW's left to their own divisional ratings!!!

jimglen wrote:

BarryWashington wrote:I can't how anyone can't have Lewis in any Top 10 heavyweight list.

Because from Dempsey to Ali and a "prime" Tyson there are dozens that could have beat him, and were just better boxers or fighters who did face much better opposition - including Louis!

You normally rate people of their achievements, not how they would fare against each other. Lewis had a better title reign that most. Anyway IMO a fit and focused Lewis would beat most heavyweights that ever lived.

Barrywash... i was agreeing!
I have seen Lennox get so mercifully bashed on forums.... Marciano has his unbeaten record and 4 year UD reign, and as a consequence he frequently makes top 5 on all time lists.

If a 1955 Marciano took on a 2000 Lewis.... Lennox would blast him out.... too much weight and power.

even with Joe loius who is unofficially recognised as the#2 heavyweight of all time.... sure he was an excellent fighter and he deserves his status... but one on one would he beat Lennox?
Louis a 200 pound (cruiserweight by todays standards) against a genuine and skilled super heavyweight at 245 pounds?
I dont think he would.....

But history is history so Louis' place is no doubt secure

Lewis does get overly criticised. I think he should be top 10 but If he’s top 15 or top 20 then I can live with that.

As for Louis being a Cruiser… Well Holyfield was a Cruiser who used modern technology to beef up. Holy nearly beat Lewis in the rematch. I think Joe would have KO’d him.

boxerbob wrote:2 names....oliver mccall and hasim rahman

both knocked out lewis with 1 punch when lewis was at the top of his powers.

oliver mccall and hasim rahman are 2 of the worst heavyweight champions there have ever been and for lewis to get beaten by them both by knock out isnt good enough for top 10 material

yes he beat them in rematches but to be beaten by 1 punch knockouts twice is terrible.

my top 10

ali.................beat the best bunch of heavyweights in history
louis..............longest reign and beat a host of top fighters in his time
marciano........undeafeated tells its own story
johnson..........talented beyond his age of boxing
holmes...........looked unbeatable untill he got old
holyfield.........only 4 time champion , fought every top heavy in his era
foreman.........the time he won his 1st and 2nd world titles is enough to make him top 10 alone
frazier............beat the best ali that anybody ever beat , only loses were to ali and foreman
tunney...........another who was talented beyond his age , fought modern in the old times
tyson.............could have been best ever , not the same after rooney left , wasted career with don king

now lewis beat both holyfield and tyson but both were way past thier best , if going by prime vs prime i dont think lewis lasts 3rounds with tyson , holyfield takes lewis late as lewis cant match holyfields workrate.

lewis also should have fought klitschko again after that match , lewis was behnd on points and looked like he was knackared , t

Forget the 1980's Tyson. The 1991 Tyson would have mauled Lewis circa 2002 so badly and broken his ribs and spirit.
Holyfield actually won one of those fights with Lewis in most peoples opinion and again what the 1991 or 1989 Holy would have done to that Lewis doesnt bear thinking about.

Lewis got a lot of guys at the right time. Obviously Tyson and Holyfield. His other most impressive wins are also tainted altho to Lewis's credit no one knew at the time that Golota was a nutjob who had panic attacks for no reason or that Ruddock was totally ruined by Tyson.

Emmanuel Steward on Lennox Lewis:

Lennox was good enough that he would have been a problem with any heavyweight in history. You still have size and usually the biggest disadvantage of big fighters, I always say when they hit over 6’4”, is they lose coordination and that’s why the shorter fighters always could neutralize that size advantage because they were much faster and better coordinated. But Lennox became a fairly good coordinated fighter. His good left jab, he had a very good variety of punches—he was pretty decent with his left hook, he developed a good right uppercut, and as we all know he had a very good strong right hand always—and Lennox could be very physical when he wanted to. That was the one thing that made him a little different. Maybe not like Muhammad Ali running around the ring and a lot of times he fought a little technical but still, even with me and the rest of the camp, we didn’t know what he would do sometimes.

Sometimes he would come out and be overly aggressive and knock out a guy like Michael Grant, (Francois) Botha, and even (Andrew) Golota—and then sometimes he would fight a technical fight, very safety like he did with David Tua—and then you have the fights where he would just totally come to life in the first round with Mike Tyson. He said I’m going to make Mike respect me, and he went out and went toe-to-toe with Mike the first round instead of fighting a technical fight and once he had gotten respect from Mike, then he settled down and worked his boxing plan, but Lennox had a good variety of punches. He could do it with any and everything and if he had to be in a tough fight and had to dig down deep to come and pull it out, then he did that, and I remember him doing it with Frank Bruno.

I remember going back to the Olympics in ’84, no ’88, when he was fighting and realizing that he had waited four years for the Olympics and was about to lose again after getting to the finals, and he just stormed out against Riddick Bowe after losing the first round and physically just crushed Bowe with really just strength. He just overpowered him, and I saw him do that in fights where he was losing, or maybe on the verge of losing. With Ray Mercer, when I told him the last two rounds were going to determine the fight, he looks down, and he goes out and he pulls it out even though he thought he was ahead on points already. The first fight with Evander Holyfield, even though the crowd was going crazy, I told him that I felt the fight was going to be closer. There was one particular judge I was very suspicious of and as it turned out, after winning the last round big, he got a draw. But the point is, when you told him to do something he would do it and he could be very physical and that’s what separated him from a lot of the big guys that I’ve worked with.

I would say a perfect example would really be the fight with Vitali Klitschko, his last fight. After being behind in the first three rounds, I realized that he was used to being the taller fighter and he was pulling back and relaxing and still getting hit with long punches because he was thinking he was out of range because he didn’t realize he was the shorter fighter. After I think the fourth round, I said, “Look, we got to change strategies. We got to take it to the streets.” I said, “When you out there and with your jab this time, don’t just jab—push all the way through where you push him off balance and if you miss with a left hook, bump him with your shoulders. When you get inside, start ripping uppercuts—just make it an alley fight.” He went out and he won the next two rounds, and at the end of the sixth round I think when I was talking to him, he said, “I got him now.” But he could resort to just being a brutal physical fighter if he had to and that’s one of the great attributes that I liked about him.

Look at the generation after him and the Klitschkos, which are dominating, it’s just unfortunate they really don’t have any name fighters to fight. He was fortunate, even though he was criticized earlier for being too technical and he was complaining to me that, “I don’t have a big name to fighter to fight since Riddick Bowe” who he was really looking forward to fighting, refused to fight him—and later on, I was with Eddie Futch and Eddie Futch said that was a decision that he made. He felt that as good as Bowe was, he still felt that Lennox was still mentally and physically too strong and if they had fought, that what happened in the ’88 Olympics would have happened in the professional fight—that Lennox would have still just overpowered Bowe at a certain point. So it was his recommendation that Bowe give up the (WBC) title rather than fight Lennox.

So Lennox then had no one to fight he thought, and all of a sudden—BOOM. Here comes the fight with Evander Holyfield and then the fight with Mike Tyson—even though both had been past their primes as far as I’m concerned and most of the boxing public. They still were big marquee value name fighters and the Tyson thing was attractive because he was like the street guy, the thug, the tough guy, you know the American guy from Brooklyn, the gangster type—and so Tyson appealed so much to the urban type mindset. Lennox was still the big Brit, the ‘Momma’s Boy’, the easy going guy and so Mike was too much of a street guy for Lennox and all of that more so than make decisions about who was going to win or lose on the talent level. It was more on the idea of two different lifestyles clashing, but what people didn’t know was that Lennox himself as he was raised up in Kitchener, Ontario.

They use that Brit thing but he came from England when he was twelve years and started boxing when he was in Kitchener, Ontario which is about maybe forty-five minutes south of Toronto and that’s where he learned to box and he represented Canada in the Olympics and only after realizing he wins the Gold Medal in ’88 that, hey it’s more money with the British Pound than the Canadian Dollar. They decided then to try and relocate him and label him out of England. That’s why they never really accepted him because it wasn’t like he won the Olympics for England and he was fighting international matches—he had never did any amateur boxing in England. So he was never really accepted as a Brit completely. I mean, he was there but it wasn’t like (Frank) Bruno and the rest of the guys. So he was a man that was really like caught in between, you know, Canada, Jamaica which is the place that was the ancestry of both of his parents, and then the Brit thing, and then the fact that he did nearly all of his training in the latter part of his career in America and all of his fighting in America and he had an American staff. So he was really a guy that was tied up with like four countries that he was identified with.

I think the fact that since he retired the Klitschkos are dominating but they just don’t have any fighter that the public thinks is a good marquee value fighter so you basically get credibility by your performance against top notch opposition, and it’s unfortunate. He did get to fight some of those things, even the Shannon Briggs which was an exciting fight, the Ray Mercer fight—and none of these guys have a chance to fight any fighters right now after, so he is considered by most as being the last top heavyweight and he’s more appreciated now because of the comparison thing—of what he fought compared to what the modern fighters or champions are fighting.

dberry wrote:I cannot put Marciano before him as Marciano was a small heavy weight from a relatively uncompetitive era.

Nonsence, I suggest you delve deeper into your research of the Heavyweight and Light Heavyweight boxing scene of the late 40s and 50s.

Marciano's achievements are greater than Lewis.
Lewis lost badly...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4RDkZBUTWY
If a limited heavyweight like Rahman can do that to Lewis, I would fear his chances against the truly great Heavyweights.

Look at Marciano's and Lewis' top 5 wins against their best opponenets.

Marciano top 5 vs Lewis top 5
Louis Tyson
Walcott Holyfield
Charles V. Klitchsko
Moore McCall
Layne/La Starza Rahman/Bruni

I'd safely say that Marciano beat better opposition...
4 of Rockys defeated opponents are Hall of Famers.

Tyson, Holyfield and Vitali are probably going to be in the IBHOF as well.

mugabi wrote: Holyfield actually won one of those fights with Lewis in most peoples opinion and again what the 1991 or 1989 Holy would have done to that Lewis doesnt bear thinking about.

Lewis got a lot of guys at the right time. Obviously Tyson and Holyfield. His other most impressive wins are also tainted altho to Lewis's credit no one knew at the time that Golota was a nutjob who had panic attacks for no reason or that Ruddock was totally ruined by Tyson.

Even Don Kings channel covering Holy-Lewis 2, scored it a draw... and we know how biaed they are! Lewis won a closer fight in the rematch.
Holyfield of 1991 struggled against old timers Foreman and Holmes (15 years past prime), and he was outpointed by Michael Moorer a couple of years later!
Come on!

Holyfield is one guy who got a lot of breaks in his career with his good connections

Heartbreak_Kid79 wrote:

mugabi wrote: Holyfield actually won one of those fights with Lewis in most peoples opinion and again what the 1991 or 1989 Holy would have done to that Lewis doesnt bear thinking about.

Lewis got a lot of guys at the right time. Obviously Tyson and Holyfield. His other most impressive wins are also tainted altho to Lewis's credit no one knew at the time that Golota was a nutjob who had panic attacks for no reason or that Ruddock was totally ruined by Tyson.

Even Don Kings channel covering Holy-Lewis 2, scored it a draw... and we know how biaed they are!

No, Sheridan scored a win for Evander, 7-5.

I had it for Holyfield by a point.

Holyfield got a lot of breaks? Maybe after the Lewis fights ,yes, but prior to that he was consistently fighting top-level competition.

If you are going to bring up Holyfield 'struggling' with Foreman (although he won about 9-3) or Holmes than one can bring up Lennox's 'struggle' with Mercer which many had as a win for Ray, or his 'struggle' with nobody Mavoric . .

Holyfield was not a popular champ from 1990-92 because he didnt put on impressive performances.
He was more heroic in his losing effor to Bowe.

He was lucky that he got to a faded Tyson first in 1996 rather than Lewis.
Tyson didnt want a piece of Lewis back then. even though Lewis was his madatory

Lewis and Holyfield were both great fighters who lost fights they shouldn't have. But when the dust settled they were the best of their era.

Ezzard wrote:Lewis and Holyfield were both great fighters who lost fights they shouldn't have. But when the dust settled they were the best of their era.

Without the shadow of a doubt Ezzard.

But I would rate Lewis' achievements as great... But I do honestly think that he is massively overrated...

Crease wrote:

Ezzard wrote:Lewis and Holyfield were both great fighters who lost fights they shouldn't have. But when the dust settled they were the best of their era.

Without the shadow of a doubt Ezzard.

But I would rate Lewis' achievements as great... But I do honestly think that he is massively overrated...

I think top 5 is too much... But although I rate Holyfield as the better of the 2 I don't think Lewis can be too far behind him.

All time i'd have Lewis about #9 or #10 and Evander about #12

Heartbreak_Kid79 wrote:All time i'd have Lewis about #9 or #10 and Evander about #12

I can live with that.

The thread starter obviously thinks (Lewis vs McCall) being knocked down from a punch that would have knocked any heavyweight down, then actually getting up at 6 only for the referee to prematurely call off the fight, is 'terrible' and far worse than consistently getting outboxed by Buster Douglas? I would look at it the other way.

Then the thread starter says that he can't have Lewis in his top ten because of the people he fought, yet he puts Tyson in his top ten, who fought far weaker opposition than Lewis.

I'm not one for top ten lists, but I don't agree with that logic.

Yeah,

the glass chinned "top ten all time heavyweight."

No thank you.

Heartbreak_Kid79 wrote:Holyfield was not a popular champ from 1990-92 because he didnt put on impressive performances.
He was more heroic in his losing effor to Bowe.

Right. Holyfield had some great individual fights and wins, but he never really had a tite legacy or period of dominance, like Lewis and Tyson did. His reigns were erratic and/or short lived and he didn't put together consecutive strong performances.

Holys HW title match record is 10-7-2 (really 10-8-1 if you score the first Lewis fight correctly).

Even before he was washed up, (Say before 2000) its 9-3-1 (or 9-4 really).

Holy is a legend of course, but he didnt have a long sustained run of title defences, its very blotchy

Heartbreak_Kid79 wrote:Holys HW title match record is 10-7-2 (really 10-8-1 if you score the first Lewis fight correctly).

Even before he was washed up, (Say before 2000) its 9-3-1 (or 9-4 really).

Holy is a legend of course, but he didnt have a long sustained run of title defences, its very blotchy

I won't dispute that, but in fairness, his titles were taken by nothing less than prime incarnations of Riddick Bowe & Michael Moorer --- competitively. That's a hell of a lot more to overcome, in both instances, than Hasim Rahman. Beating Bowe & Moorer in rematches also out-strips what Lewis did in his return with Rahman.