Vitaly Klitschko vs Lennox Lewis, a very underrated fight

hahahah

classic!

 

18 seconds?

 

Lewis v Vitali was the last great heavyweight fight and was a great one indeed. This can be seen in the fact that even the loser comes out with a huge slice of credit; Vitali's reputation for being tough, having heart and being able to take a shot all pretty much stem from his losing effort vs Lennox. As the OP alludes to, the fight becomes more relevant and more interesting as the years pass by and as nothing of that scope comes along to replace it.

MTF

 

it was a good fight but i don't like when fights end between rounds like that

 

Wasn't the only slice he got it seems.

Pretty much agreed on the rest though.

It happens a lot in boxing, sometimes fans lean for or against when they revise old fights. I am pretty sure that Vlad's boxing performance vs Haye hasn't gotten the credit it deserves, that Cotto's performance vs Margarito remains obscured by "the eye" issues, with precious few people taking into account that Cotto made subtle adjustments himself.

Likewise, Mayweather vs Ortiz/Mayweather vs Gatti needs to be dug up 5 years from now, and subject to a rigorous autopsy which damns HBO, Ortiz and Mayweather to all hell. Virtuoso my balls. Same with fights like Ray Leonard vs Lalonde....a complete sham of a fight where Ray basically took on a one-armed guy that he forced down to a ridiculous weight. Same with the Duran rematch.....running, clowning and relying on the combined stupidity of your opponent and the strength of your bargaining position DO NOT constitute a "brilliant, timeless performance" There's a great many fights out there that attract far too much affection and attention.

Some fights which deserve far more credit than they get......Eubank vs Thompson, both installations....barely known outside of the UK...most fans don't even know it took place, never mind that it was a classic... and even Thomas Hauser once said that "Cruiserweight is Loserweight" a comment I am sure he made AFTER that fight had taken place., and Toney vs Jirov was a great fight and deserves credit for same, but the Eubank/Thompson fight was 5/6 years before that and I bet it never got a mention in the run up to Jirov vs Toney.....anyone want to check?

 

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Eubank - Thompson I & II were epics, as were most fights involving The Cat

 

Thompson knocked out Haye, and was in epic wars with Uriah Grant, Ezra Sellers, Eubanks times two and Sebastian Rothmann....but you won't hear his name or his fights mentioned Stateside very often when discussions about Cruiserweight come up. It's Holy and Toney as far as they are concerned. Thompson deserves better than that. He was involved in some of the divisions most entertaining and significant fights either side of Toney-Jirov.

 

discussions about Cruiserweight?

One of the most uninteresting divisions in history. How often is it discussed?

 

"Coulda, woulda, shouda" is often substituted for facts around here. This is happens when a fan tries to defend a fighter with a very thin resume.

Because it cannot possibly be proven, we have to hear about how that Lewis uppercut "would" have KOed all of the top heavyweights ever at the same time...and, of course, that is because Vitali wasn't KOed by it.

And somehow this good fight is now being exaggerated in the attempt to add it to the list of best heavy fights ever. I watched that fight live and and at no point did I find myself thinking this was one for the ages. That's not to say it wasn't a good fight, because it was.

 

Great fights are great fights. How often is straweight discussed? Often enough for Ricardo Lopez to get a mention. If a noted writer can pause long enough to conclude that "Cruiserweight is Loserweight" then he least he can have done is watched the best fights that division has offered,most of which Carl Thompson was involved in.

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one or two great fights and one or two great fighters does not a division make.

Strawweight is never discussed. Ricardo Lopez is notable for being an undefeated fighter and the only strawweight with a notable enough impact to be mentioned. The fighter himself is mentioned only once in a blue moon and usually just when one or two guys throw him about as an all-timer candidate and then people pile on about how he hardly fought anyone worth a damn and midgets sucks and blahblahblah

Toney/Jirov is mentioned a lot more than Ricardo Lopez ever is. And essentially no Strawweight is ever mentioned outside of Lopez. Why? because the division has never been particularly compelling and has never had a substantial talent pool to discuss. Cruiserweight is no different. As heavyweights continue to weigh more and more, that may change and the division may become a bit more glamorous as time goes on. As of right now, the entire history of the division yields but a handful of notable names.

Furthermore, the stakes are often crucial to how a fight is remembered. Outside of the one time I mentioned it, I've never seen anyone discuss or mention Mando Ramos vs. Sugar Ramos. I don't think its because it wasn't a great fight (it was) but more likely because it was a 10 rounder with no title at stake and thus didn't have the extra cache of attention that a big title fight gets.

Carl Thompson and Chris Eubank were fighting, in 1998, for the WBO Cruiserweight title. The WBO was seen (rightly, at that juncture) as a second-rate organization in 1998. Chris Eubank was considered well past his prime and the division itself had absolutely no cache, generated absolutely no mainstream interest. There are dozens upon dozens of fights like that throughout the history of the sport. It's got nothing to do with the nationality of the fighters and everything to do with the division, the stakes, the timing.

Holyfield/Qawi is a famous fight essentially because of who Holyfield became. If he flops as a heavyweight and never becomes a champion, it remains one of those fights that hardcore fight fans know about, but precious few care about outside of that circle. If James Toney wasn't at one time a middleweight champion and a P4P entry, then Toney/Jirov has nowhere near the same recognition. Still a great fight, but not a fight that will get a lot of ink.

"Stateside" is a load of bollocks. "Cruiserweight is Loserweight" is an accurate description of the division historically. It is a leap to turn that statement into "There has never been a great Cruiserweight fight"... If it were all some elaborate diss based off of the citizenship of the particpants, then where was all the talk of Lee Roy Murphy vs. Chisanda Mutti in the lead-up to Toney/Jirov? That's one of the craziest fights in the history of Boxing... an absolute classic. I would bet you 10 million bucks that more American boxing writers have typed the names "Chris Eubank" and "Carl Thompson" than have ever typed "Chisanda Mutti" and "Lee Roy Murphy".

 

Yes, I should have known, the mere mention of how the fight between Thompson and Eubend was unknown in America would bring out the worst, knee-jerk sentiments.

The fight between Eubank and Thompson is not the sort of fight which should be eliciting, or supporting, statements to the effect that the entire division was "loserweight".

Hauser, not a hack by any stretch, an Ali biographer, came out with a Sugarism, and you know it.

Boxing, as I alluded to before, has {an ever increasingly} feudal nature.... If the banquet is thrown in one Lords castle, the other Lords act like it never happened.

Watch carefully now with scrubby josh. The Americans will act as if he doesn't exist. The Brits will tell us he's the next Lewis, the Germans will look on with polite, but firm, indifference, and the truth will lie roughly somewhere in between.

 

Really? Who said that? I mentioned Frazier, who was KO'd by uppercuts during his career, thrown as they were by a guy who didn't have a better right uppercut than Lewis. I mentioned Holyfield, who Lewis hurt with pretty routine efficiency, especially early, in their first fight, and I mentioned Bowe, whom he stopped in the amateurs and who shit-canned the belt rather than face Lewis again.

Regarding the Lewis uppercut, I merely alluded to how Lewis came up off the canvas with the power, that shot started right down at his ankles, and considering the state Vitali was in, his taking it makes it all the more remarkable. Throw in the fact that he was regarded as having no staying power to begin with, and it would have been even more striking to fans viewing it at the time.

Who came out with this coulda/woulda stuff?

You don't have to listen to much, merely read what is written.

 

Thompson v Eubanks were epic fights mainly because Eubanks was so far past his best. Cruiserweight had a real chance to make a name for itself in the Mormeck-Bell-Haye-Braithwaite era but it never really captured imaginations despite some good fighters and some very good fights.

The fact that none of them were American almost certainly made a difference in that regard in spite of Holy almost certainly being the best ever to campaign there.

MTF

 

What are you talking about? YOU brought that "Stateside" shit into the discussion. Again, I ask, how many times have you seen Lee Roy Murphy/Chisanda Mutti, on the single most ridiculous slugfests in history, ever mentioned by anyone in America? Murphy was one of the poor unfortunate 1980 would-be Olympians, so he has SOME name recognition, yet almost no one has heard of him or of that epic fight.

Cruiserweight has an undistinguished and largely shit history. There have been great fights in every division. There have been a handful of great fighters. The division still has a thimble-deep history. Are the writers in the UK frequently discussing Lee Roy Murphy? Being a Cruiserweight has historically meant being largely anonymous in the mainstream. It has also historically meant fighting for less money. "Cruiserweight is Loserweight" is an apt statement. You want to read into that and turn it into "All Cruiserweights suck and there has never been a good Cruiserwieght fight", be my guest, but you are stretching the statement to fit your political bent. You do realize "Cruiserweight is Loserweight", under your definition of what Hauser supposedly meant, would also mean that Evander Holyfield/Dwight Qawi is being swept under the rug, right alongside Thompson/Eubank, don't you? Where's the jingoism in that?

 

Everytime cdogg makes a post, I have to bring out the beer and get comfortable because I know I'm gonna be here for a while with cdogg's long and thought-provoking posts!
:bears:

 

When Holyfield was a cruiserweight, no one in America gave a flying fuck about him outside of hardcore boxing fans. Holyfield had to be a heavyweight to become famous.

 

Weren't you a bit young at the time to know this, cdogg? I think you may have been like 6 or 7 when Holy was a cruiser.

 

Eubank had the talent, Thompson had the size and the grit. Eubank always seemed to have some minor financial issues lurking in the background and always seemed to need one more big cash-out fight. Thompson never got any respect and never had any favours done for him- he was brought in to be beaten by Nicky Piper, probably one of the worst bits of matchmaking ever. So you got this strangle collision of styles, outlooks and desires from both men.

I just never liked Hauser's sweeping-statement- these comments get made, Sugar was best at it it..."If boxing was a stock, I'd short-sell it"....:wack: yeah, well done, now shut the fuck up Bert. For Hauser {who is way more grounded and progressive than Sugar ever was} to have made a comment like that was a bit odd to say the least. He either hadn't seen the fight, saw it and didn't think much of it, or didn't even know it took place. Of course, one swallow doesn't make a blowjob, but still......{to the best of my knowledge, Hauser made the statement circa 2000}

None of this is surprising. During the Jones vs Calzaghe fight, Jim Lampley commented that Joe had been knocked down in the first round of the Eubank fight and had come back to stop Eubank :scratcher: Do these people follow the sport? Eubank had been knocked down in the first, and the fight went to the cards.

Its this sort of partial, oblique, passing interest in fights that defies any explanation other than that the fight took place in somebody elses backyard and was therefore of no import. If not, then how else can Joe Calzaghe have been made such an underdog vs Lacy? If they had seen Joe vs Eubank, and then Eubank vs Thompson, then the impression of Joe is probably more favourable, but, hey, "Cruiserweight is Loserweight"...and it all goes under the radar.

In any event,@ Cdogg.........I have always alluded to the global nature of the "feudalism" at work. In Ireland, in the UK, in America, Germany....its the prevailing attitude in all of those places.

 

I was 8 when he fought Qawi and saw the bout on TV

Furthermore, getting a sense of the pulse of the time is not particularly difficult.

Do you need to have been alive in 1963 to know that the assassination of John Kennedy was a big deal?

 

Maybe.......but.........anybody who knew that Eubank had two wars with Carl Thompson, and that Calzaghe had beaten Eubank immediately before that.....{and that Thompson would go on to beat Haye}.....would probably refrain from painting vistas that had Joe rising from the floor to stop Eubank and that Cruisers were Losers. Numsayin?

 

No, but John didn't rise from the dead in Ireland either. We didn't sit here and say "Dallas Schmallas, He's still alive".

 

The statement "Cruiserweight Is Loserweight" has fuck all to do with Eubank and Thompson. It's a statement that clearly indicates that the division historically has generated little to no public interest. Again, I ask, did Hauser make some special exclusionary statement regarding Holyfield, Dwight Qawi, Lee Roy Murphy?

 

We were discussing Hauser, if I recall correctly

Anybody who expects Jim Lampley to know what he's talking about is grossly overestimating him. He has never been anything other than a cheerleader and a shill.

See... there it is again "Cruisers are Losers" ... no. that was not the statement. The statement was "Cruiserweight is Loserweight" which carries a vastly different meaning than "Cruisers are Losers"

 

No, he just made a sweeping statement, the like of which no writer of his caliber should ever have made, and the like of which no writer of his caliber would have ever made if they had known of, and then checked out, that fight. That's my point. Hauser isn't a fan....he's an observer, and I am trying to figure out what causes a person to stop observing. Lack of interest. What causes the lack of interest? Well in the interests of brevity, and continued levity......we will agree to disagree on that.

 

Find me an article by Hauser, pre-Thompson/Eubank, where he glowingly portrays the division and you'd potentially have something. Like I said, nobody talked about Cruiserweight when an American Olympian was the undisputed champion of the division.

 

From a business standpoint, Cruiserweight IS Loserweight. The statement is accurate. You see it as a statement against fighters or fights. It's pretty evident that it's not.

 

That was done out of expediency by me. Do give me some license.:blackcloud:

 

That was in what year?

By roughly the time Hauser came to make his epically flippant pronouncement, Roy Jones was pushing cans around at 175, Tyson was fighting the prison warden and Lewis/Holyfield was the hottest ticket/biggest controversy in town.

Hauser didn't know about Eubank vs Thompson.....and there is a reason for that which has nothing to do with a mouse eating the wires in the telegraph office.