Better hw resume, Lewis or Holyfield?

Not counting head-to-head matchups, Holyfield has the better resume at Heavyweight.

Bowe-Lewis was a matchup that excited boxing fans, but it didn't cross over to the casual fan and become a "must see" event like other Heavyweight matchups. Lewis at the time was still an untested commodity in terms of marketing and name recognition. The fight would have been big at Wembley. Anywhere else, probably lucky to fill 10k seats (at most) in a 16k capacity arena.

 

Why wouldn't you count Lewis' two victories over Holyfield? ::

 

decent victory for lewis over holyfield in their first fight, coupled with a close loss in the rematch. still, a younger holyfield would have thumped that chap.

 

Youre clueless.

Win or lose, Holyfield never thumps Lewis. Its a close fight seven days a week.

 

well the size discrepancy was about five times worse for holyfield against lewis than for ricardo lopez against marcellus johnson, yet either way the american would have prevailed.

 

It's inconvenient.

 

Lewis won both fights, but his level of dominance in the first fight was so great that people erroneously give Evander credit for not getting his ass whipped as badly as he did in their first fight. Evander didn't have what it took to beat Lennox. Period. Lennox's pitcher's mound, combined with his punch, was always going to present difficulty to Evander. Similar to how heavyweights nowadays struggle to land much of consequence on the Klitschkos.

 

So other than the fact that Lewis whipped Evander's ass badly in the first fight and won decisively in the rematch, you feel that Evander has the better resumé. I guess we shouldn't count the Bowe fights either since Bowe beat Evander twice and ran from Lennox.

Bowe fought them both. He went 30 rounds with Holyfield, stopping him once. He went 2 rounds with Lewis, getting stopped, but dumped a belt rather than fight him as a pro.

Interestingly, after he threw the WBC belt in the trash, Bowe or his handlers had hotel staff retrieve it out of the garbage and bring it up to his hotel room. I guess he didn't want to drop it that badly. ::

 

holyfield won the rematch with lewis, despite being well past his prime. if not for the shit decision the first go round holyfield would have received the rightful verdict in the rematch and there would have been zero uproar.

 

:atu: is that your idea of an ass whip? i thought that typically involved inflicting much pain?

 

Neil, you're my boy, but Evander lost both fights. The only difference is he lost the 1st one pretty badly. He was still beaten decisively in the second but he kinda got credit because he didn't get hammered nearly as much as in the first fight.

 

Agreed that Lewis won both, but you could probably argue a draw for the rematch. Youre right that Holyfield gets a lot of cred for getting so much closer in the second fight.

However, I strongly disagree Holyfield couldnt ever beat Lewis. Thats a very close match in their primes. I really think its near to 50-50.

As an aside, there is WAY too much stock being put into Lewis beating Bowe in the ams in this thread. Its meaningless in the context of a pro discussion.

 

Nobody is favourite against Lopez. Nobody.

 

Thats because, as I said, youre clueless.

Pernell Whitaker, Willie Pep, Wilfred Benitez, Nico Locche, Muhammad Ali, Gene Tunney...you have a lot of Boxing to watch if you want to understand what the fuck youre talking about, mate. Best of luck.

 

This means you are discounting losses (as I think you should, but many don't). Otherwise Holyfield's resume is greatly improved by having two fights with Lennox.

So then comparing resumes, but adding in losses:

Holy: Bowe, Tyson x2, Moorer, Douglas, Rahman, Ruiz, Mercer, Foreman, Holmes, Dokes, Thomas, Cooper, Bean, Stewart, Rodriguez

Losses: Bowe x2, Moorer, Ruiz, Byrd, (Toney and Donald maybe. I think you have to include Byrd if you include Rahman, though)

Lewis: Vitali, Tyson, Tua, Rahman, Ruddock, Tucker, Bruno, Morrison, Akinwande, Botha, Grant, Mavrovic, Briggs, Golota, Mercer, McCall, Jackson, Mason, Butler.

Losses: McCall, Rahman

We'll never know how Lennox would have done against Bowe in a pro match, but we know he got the better of Bowe the only other time it really mattered in the olympics, we know that Bowe shamelessly ducked Lennox, and we know that Bowe was never afraid to get in the ring with Holyfield and demonstrated why 2/3 times (and I thought he deserved the other time, but that's beside the point).

Lewis' resume from the OP fails to include their head to head matchups and that is an oversight. Despite Neil's protests, the judges all saw Lennox comfortably outpoint Holyfield in the rematch. Everyone but a couple of judges saw Lennox dominate the first fight.

The OP isn't about who was better, it's about who had the better resume...at the top end I think it's pretty close with Lewis nipping him, in the middle it's solidly Lewis, at the lower end of decent wins it's pretty even. When you look at losses, they are different types of losses. The fact that Lewis only has two vs Holy's 5-10 means that Lewis wins this part of the comparison as well, but Lewis' losses being kayo's counts against him, just not enough to give Holy an advantage imo.

Also, holyfield is a proven steroid cheater (evan fields) so Lewis deserves the benefit of every doubt against the piece of shit.

 

LOL

"one of these things.. is not like the others!"

 

i realize that you are a simpleton, but i expect others here to be able to differentiate an ass whipping from a one sided points victory.

 

I'd pick the best version of Lewis over the best version of Holyfield every time, although I concede he'd never have an easy night

 

that's cool, in that case you are right, definitely a more compelling matchup:cheer:

 

except for the vast majority of us who scored the fight for Lewis

 

Lewis won a minimum of 8 rounds in the return bout.

 

I believe I had it 8-4, I could maybe see 7-5

It's become closer as time has gone on and people have banked on other's forgetting so they can insert their little revising of things into the mix.

In 50 years, Whitaker/Ramirez I will be an "I scored it 6-6" type of event for some revisionist fuckface

 

When I'm an old boxing "expert" taking part in documentaries, I'll be sure to remind of the masses of the whipping Holyfield gave that poor Brit.

Cigar in mouth, of course

 

::

"Holyfield was like an enraged demon as he hammered the hapless Englishman with sledgehammer blows. Lewis was actually blind in one eye after the fight from those shots. After the fight Lewis told everyone that Holyfield was a monster and that the fight had been fixed by the judges. He offered to give up his crown, but they wouldn't let him. The mob was involved" [Cigar Chomp]

 

Word for word.

 

Really? So Tunney wasnt a defensive counter-puncher who won the majority of his bouts on the strength of assets other than power?

Tunney kicked Dempsey's ass without ever seriously threatening him.

If youre reading, Neil, its Boxing, not a street-fight. Lewis won ten rounds from Holyfield in their first meet. Thats an ass-kicking in a Boxing ring.

Talk about simple, right?

 

:: :: ::

 

:hammert:

 

If you both read the initial post that started this thread, you would see that the opponents listed for each man did not include bouts against each other. That was the basis with which I posted my reply.

 

in 50 years few will remember that shitty, boring ass fight.