Mike Tyson (88) vs Lennox Lewis (00)

Touche brother.

 

Lewis all day

 

The Tyson that fought Berbick and Holmes was an entirely different animal to the guy Lewis fought. peole don't seem to realize this.

 

True, but Berbick and and the 80 year old version of Holmes combined weren't the same animal as Lennox Lewis.

 

True. That "80 year old version of Holmes" went on, YEARS LATER to dominate a then undefeated ray mercer, who himself later gave a PRIME Lennox Lewis ALL HE COULD HANDLE.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it! :kick:

 

Bad logic, staff. First off, Holmes was 21 months inactive and only fought Tyson for the nice paycheque before getting serious about his comeback. Secondly, the whole A beats B, B beats C, C beats A theory doesn't work AT ALL. It's just a bullsh*t argument used by desperate fans with no argument.
Remember when Tyson beat Tucker, Tucker beat Buster, Buster beat Tyson? :: See? The theory doesn't work as I just proved.

 

I know it doesn't work and my example was to illustrate that you fat hairy meddling punk. Whether or not Holmes and Berbick were as good as Holmes isn't relevant based upon my comeback.

 

Sly, just admit you got owned and we'll leave it at that.

 

Lewis wins about eight times in ten. I'd agree that the version of Tyson Lennox beat was a pale shadow of the Tyson who fought in 1988, but for fuck's sake, the way some are going in this thread, and this includes some usually sensible, credible and intelligent posters, there is a serious danger of this thread becoming one of the greatest Tyson circle-jerks of all time...

Let's look again at these brilliant HW's that Tyson dismantled in his early days which mean that he dismantles Lennox Lewis inside a handful of rounds. Here they come, the real big hitters:

A two year retired, thirty-nine year old Larry Holmes.
Pinklon Thomas
Trevor Berbick (who had lost, what, four fights previously :dunno:)
Tony Tucker
Carl 'The Truth' Williams :laughing:
Tony Tubbs

and

Frank fucking Bruno

The ONLY standout fighter, and by this I mean a fighter of similar class to Lennox Lewis and who is somewhere near a 'prime' version is Michael Spinks- a career LHW and about as far removed from Lewis in terms of strengths, styles and physical attributes as you can get.

On the basis of all of this, supposed sensible boxing people are picking Tyson by KO2.

Absolutely ridiculous. The myth of Iron Mike and of Lennox Lewis being a chinny mug continues unabashed, it seems...

MTF :shit:

 

Agreed meethefeebles. People are selling Lewis really short on this forum. Good post.

 

I think it's a combination of selling Lewis short combined with having some hero-worship mentality when it comes to remembering a prime Mike Tyson.

Feebs did a great job of showing how suspect almost everyone on Tyson's pre-Douglas resume are.

That being said, Tyson did clean out the division and beat every guy that was anywhere near each sanctioning body's top 5. The problem is that most of the guys either sucked to begin with or they were guys already beaten by Larry Holmes (i.e. Smith, Williams, Berbick).

And the other issue with Mike is that the dominance ended so quickly and to one of those same re-treaded guys that was never a world beater. Douglas was part of that same whole post-Holmes hodge podge of mediocre HW's that tried boringly to emulate the style of Ali and Holmes.

Let's be honest, Tyson defended the linear HW title only twice, against Bruno and Williams, before losing it to Douglas.

Tyson did a great job of taking out the garbage. Unfortunately Lennox Lewis and Evander Holyfield weren't garbage.

 

George Foreman's competition was pretty decent when he first met Joe Frazier. "Pretty decent," is positively light-years removed from what Joe Frazier was. Therefore, Foreman can't step up & win? Tyson can't step up & beat Lewis? Lewis is also facing a better fighter than he ever did during his career, incidentally. A much better fighter.

 

I'd have to favor Lennox, as long as he was careful and had the jab working overtime... the more Lennox jabbed the better he did... he got in trouble when he failed to really work that jab... it was his bread and butter... if Lennox isnt focused, you have to figure tyson has a hell of a chance of hurting him and taking him out... but I'd have to think if they fought 80 times, Lennox would win 75 of 'em

 

Speed still kills for me, in this match-up. Tyson to find his man wanting & knock him out.

 

tyson via brutal knockout

 

Yes, but hindsight then showed that Foreman was capable, more than capable in fact, of mixing it with elite or slightly below elite level guys like Frazier, Norton and Ali.

1. Win brutally v Frazier x 2 (elite level fighter)
2. Win brutally v Norton (B-level fighter)
3. Lost to Ali (elite level fighter)

What did Tyson do to demonstrate this in his entire career? Let's compare...

1. Lost to Douglas (B-Level fighter)
2. Lost to Holyfield x 2 (elite level fighter)
3. Brutally KO-ed by Lewis (elite level fighter)

The FACTS are that Tyson folded when he faced elite fighters. Someone above put it prefectly when he said that Tyson was Grade-A at taking out the trash, but Lewis wasn't trash. Not even close.

You don't like Lewis, that much you have made clear and that is fair enough. But your opinions on the strength of his resolve and/or his chin are, with respect, absolute rubbish. As I have mentioned to you elsewhere, you completely underrate both.

MTF

 

That's a good post & I can certainly agree with the most of it. You are right --- Tyson never bested an elite level opponent --- I simply watch him at his peak & imagine he was capable of doing so. That's my assessment, anyway. He had some truly unique gifts (& some unique weaknesses, to be fair).

The only thing I would disagree with is Lewis' resolve & chin. They both were poor, in my own view. I've always contested that of the man, but I don't think it's fair to conclude I, "don't like" Lennox Lewis as a result. I have no problem at all with Lewis --- whose achievements I consider to be above Tyson's. However, I have never rated his heart or jaw.

 

If Lewis had a weak heart, how do you explain his rematching both of the men who beat him and his dominant return victories in those fights?

MTF :dunno:

 

I consider heart an in-ring function. He took on all-comers, & no one can take that from Lennox Lewis.

However, what happened with Rahman was just a very embarrassing display for him. Rahman is a good puncher, but has no business ending your night if you're an elite fighter. Briggs, also, was a good, but never great, puncher, who had Lewis doing a Bambi on ice routine. I don't rate his chin, I don't rate his heart.

I do, however, rate almost everything else about him (there were a few other obvious flaws, as there are with all HW's), & he makes my top-ten of all-time.

 

You didn't answer. When did Lewis demonstrate lack of heart? Fighting safe and winning is different of not having heart

 

The loss to Rahman. I didn't think he was really out. I think he packed it in as a combination of poor conditioning & a good, solid shot.

 

I see:notallthere:

 

Well, you asked. All I can do is say what I saw.

I think Tyson puts him to sleep, but that's my take.

 

Lennox was OUT. How on earth can you say otherwise?

When McCall caught Lewis with that hail mary shot, Lewis was looking the other way and throwing a punch of his own at the same time. He got to his feet and was stopped despite his protestations. He wanted to continue, clearly, and that showed a good deal of heart.

But the Rahman shot was as clean as shot as you'll see. that is the very beauty of the HW division- each fighter is so big that just one shot can change any fight. And Lewis was sparked out.

Oh, and he STILL tried to get up:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZN6ONCH7B0

MTF :dunno:

 

Look, it's a tired point by now and I realize it always comes off as grasping-excusery (sic!), but it's nonetheless true - Tyson DECLINED after Rooney left, pure and simple. And he declined quickly. So the fact that he lost to the only 2 elite fighters he ever faced is certainly relevant to his historical greatness but it doesn't say anything definitive in a MM context since the slope of that decline can only be measured subjectively.

I also think it's become fashionable to diminish those Spinks & Holmes wins TOO much. They were SOLID B, B+ level heavyweights when he faced them and he absolutely decimated them. Sliced thru them like soft butter. It's not as if he was fighting bums before Douglas came along as any sort of step up. And that being the case, it throws the relevancy of the Holy win into doubt too. In the end he really did go off the rails mentally in terms of his ability to focus and prepare properly for big, hard fights....again counting against him massively in the greatness stakes where the bottom line can be objectively measured, but in MMs the arc of a guys career should be considered less dismissively, IMO.

 

Rahman never, "sparked" a single quality fighter the way he did Lewis, before or since. Why? Well, for one, he was just a rather poor fighter across the board. Additionally, the man is simply a good puncher, but never, ever would I call him a legitimate power-hitter. His punch exposed Lewis' chin (as other fights did) as lacking. It is too facile to say, "Heavyweight are big men, & anything can happen," as my first sentence points out.

I don't really think he put as much as he could've into getting up, personally. Like anyone, it's exceedingly rare for me to ever say that (off the top of my head, the only other instances I can recall straight away where I would second-guess a fighter on the canvas would be Etienne, Seldon & Spinks, all gainst Tyson), but that look on Lewis' face just struck me as a guy who didn't want it as much as he could've.

Yes, you will disagree very strongly. Well, that's just how I saw that fight.

 

I for one do not diminish the quality of the Spinks win. Oddly enough, I only rewatched that fight two days ago (someone bougth me the Tyson DVD for my birthday and it includes a bonus DVD of his early fights) and it was an incredible performance against a really, really good fighter.

However, what this has to say about Tyson's chances of beating Lennox Lewis I'm not sure. Michael was a fairly small and mobile HW, coming up from LHW, who had completely different physical attributes to Lewis, who was a HUGE HW and fought a completely different style to Spinks.

That was the point I made earlier.

MTF

 

That was a sweet KO. I was and I'm still a Lewis fan but the fact that he was smiling while the KO punch was travelling towards his chin was a sweet payback for his arrogance and lack of preparation.

The period between this fight and the rematch was crazy on messageboards. A lot of people made fool out of themselves. Especially in light of the rematch's result. LOK hasn't accepted the result yet.artie:

 

It isn't too facile to say that. It is a FACT. HW's are the biggest fighting men and even the very shittiest of them packs enough of a punch to cause major damage to any other. The history of the division is littered with examples of this, as you well know.

I'm not saying that Lewis had a GREAT chin. He didn't. It's just not as weak as you (and others) try to claim and certainly not weak enough to say that 'all Tyson has to do is land a few bombs and Lewis is fucked'. that is ridiculous. As is the idea that Lewis' chin was 'exposed' in a number of other fights. What other fights? He was Ko-ed twice in 40-odd outings and took some tremendous shots without going down in any of them.

Rewatch the Vitali fight for evidence of this. Lewis was on the verge of retirement and comparatively out of shape, yet he withstood a fist fight with Vitali and ultimately stopped him. Vitali landed plenty of HARD shots, and Lewis didn't go down or look for somewhere to quit. He stood his ground and traded, like the great champion he was.

Over the course of his career, lewis took plenty of hard, punishing punches from a great number of HW's. Only two of them ever knocked him out, and one of these KO's was arguably premature.

MTF

 

Agreed. I remember watching it live (it was on the BBC for some reason as I recall) and I just knew he was gonna get KO-ed. He looked knackered after three rounds. The smile before that shot still makes me chuckle.

MTF ::