Who hates Lennox Lewis the most?

Underrate Holyfield? Certainly not, he was awesome. As is Pacman.

But the fact is, Lewis was naturally a significantly bigger man than Holyfield.

12% bigger actually, outweighing him by 30 pounds, and there is a 12% difference between Mosley and Pacman at 17 pounds.

You can say what you want to try and gloss over Lewis' pathetic performance, but the fact is, if Mosley and pacman were in the ring together, it would be a similar size differential to Lewis - Holy. Both Mosley and Lewis would look significantly bigger.

And if mosley fought like a scared bitch against the smaller men, you'd never hear the end of it.

 

So winning does not count, only theway how you do it does. You sound like Karl

 

Dsimon writes:

:doh: :: Almost as bad as the people who say he ducked Vitaly.

 

dsimon writes:

:doh: :: He also ducked Herbie Hide ::

 

I thought he lost the fight.

But no, just winning doesn't count if you put up a disgraceful, safety first performance.

What a naive thing for you to suggest. If winning was all that mattered then fighters like Johnny Nelson, Sven Ottke, Cory Spinks and even Lewis himself would be far more liked and highly regarded.

 

the main problem I have with him is how dominate he COULD or SHOULD have been

to have a guy that size and that talented fight careful or scared is sad.. and to have Manny say they don't want to fight Byrd because Byrd's style could be a problem and could maybe Beat Lennox.. that is straight up ducking

 

The problem with that analogy is that the guys you listed (whom you probably consider boring) didn't have an all-time great ring record. That is why they were not highly regarded. Pernell Whitaker's fights were not that colorful either but he still is pretty highly regarded.

IMHO winning and achievement is what counts and that is it. As long as you follow the rules and win, it makes no difference if you fight techically (=pussy)

Also your percentage thing about Mosley/Lewis does not work since 220lbs guys have the power to kncok out anyone, but 126 lbs guy has plenty of trouble KOing 20 lbs bigger guys. It doesn't work mathematically there.

 

And still you haven't proven this crap

 

You're clueless and you're simplying things.

Lewis didn't fight technically, he was not a master boxer. He was tall, had VERY good reach, and a decent jab. He exploited those strengths to their max.

That's hardly on the same level of technical mastery as Floyd, or Leonard or Whitaker etc

Shit even Ottke was a better technical boxer than Lewis.


Floyd is very highly skilled and technically brilliant, but you don't see me saying he fights like a bitch, because in general he doesn't, and especially not against smaller men.

Against the naturally bigger De La Hoya, he fought a braver fight than Lewis did against smaller opponents.

Lewis had the size, had the talent, and had some skill - but more often than not he would fight like a scared bitch against smaller guys - and that's essentially why I don't like him as a fighter.

 

dsimon writes:

Some things about one's nature you can't change. I think it was Joe Reine who told me that the rumor about Ray Robinson..... perhaps the guy most people think was the best ever.... was that boxing was business, and in fact Robinson didn't like to fight. And then there is Oscar Wilde's tale about the violin virtuosa who was also a talented boxer and would risk destruction of his hands to fight because he loved to fight.

Lewis was a chess player. I guarantee you that if he could have Lewis would have preferred to play the Klitschkos in chess than physically engage. :: Guys like Lewis just don't really get off on the visceral sensation of the ring, they like the mental aspect.

Holly is the opposite. He was never really all that talented so much as determined. Holly was Enkidu in the epich of Gilgamesh, the beast man who was untamed in the ring (and in the bedroom!! all them kids). Holly likes to fight. He would fight til he was eighty if he could... Lewis got out as soon as he could.

You like the visceral feeling of a fight also brother Lok. Which is probably why you don't like the "Lewis'" of the world.:: The feeling of a good watermelon at the end of that jab as it connects..... is priceless! Lewis could get up for a fight but he loved to fight guys like Briggs that he could outsmart. Lewis hated the Vitaly fight. You could see after the fight he was livid. A lot of guys would have loved to mix it up at that level and rose to teh occasion... Lewis was just petulant after that fight.

 

WTF? So are you saying that Lewis should have done James Toney -like slips and shoulder rolls just for the hell of it just to look better?

Personally I understand boing technique different than most. I don't give a shit if a guy fights like it is told in a textbook or not. To me, if a fighter does not get hit, then he does have good defense, no matter how he does it. That's why Ali, Tyson and Lewis all had good defense

 

wtf

 

:bears:

all true Dsimon..

:bears:

 

I think you just have a simplistic way of looking at boxing.

You're right, all 3 had good defense.

But for example, say Fighter A is an aggressive fighter. He comes forward, throws a lot of punches, and masterfully slips and parries most shots, and very rarely gets hit flush.

Fighter B gets hit flush just as rarely, but instead of being an attacking fighter, he is a retreating, defensive fighter, who covers up a lot, and blocks a lot of shots, all the whilst moving back out of the range of his opponents attack.

They both don't get hit much, but fighter A has by far the technically better defense. He uses skill and technical ability to evade attacks and is in a much better position to land his own.

A handful of times I've sparred heavyweights, and basically been forced to fight on the back foot because the size difference was just too much.

Now I never got hit flush by any of them, literally, just glancing blows. That was because I was moving backwards a lot, ducking, covering up etc etc.

I am not a particularly good defensive fighter, but the fact is, it took hardly any skill and ability to do that.

There's no WAY I would have been able to come forwards, stay in the pocket, slip and parry shots from those same fighters and not get hit flush. Purely because I am not skilled or technically accomplished enough.

There is nothing technical about retreating, covering up, and cowering away from punches.

 

That is true, but that does not win you fights either. Lennox Lewis did beat everyody he ever faced so something here does not work. If it worked that easily then everybody would do that, one would assume being a millionare would interest most.

Lewis based his fighting on his natural talents that were size, reach and good athletic abilities for a big guy. Just like Muhammad Ali based his fighting on natural abilities that were speed, reflexes and great athletical skills. Both followed only the parts of textbooks that suited them, Lewis more than Ali.

I think you are viewing boxing like it is a basketball game or a running competition where to be better than someone else you have to be better all around. In boxing you don't have to be that. It is enough to be better in some way and make that factor the deciding one. Lennox made sure that in his fights he was the one who landed the more shots and the more telling ones.

 

You're entire line of thinking in this thread is out of whack.

You're comparing Lewis to lighter weight fighters instead of heavyweights.

You compare his fights with Holyfield to mythical match-ups like Mosley-Pacquiao instead of something more realistic like Spinks-Ali, Spinks-Holmes.

Now you compare his fighting style to lower weight fighters like De La Hoya than someone like Holmes.

That's like comparing Shaquille O'neal to Kobe Bryant and criticizing O'neal for not being able to do the same things.

 

You obviously didn't read the post properly, I used to Floyd as a comparison, not Oscar.

It's a valid comparison, NOTHING I have said is out of whack. The fact is, it all makes sense, but the Lewis fans don't want to hear it.

Tyson and Ali's technical proficiency was far, far superior to Lewis' - including their defense.

There you go, a heavyweight comparison.

 

I'm not surprised.

Your use of language implies you have a hard time separating your opinions and biases from reality.

 

Why are you not surprised? He won the first fight clearly, and lost the second.

If I was such a lewis hater that I failed to be objective in the slightest, I would have said a draw was a fair result for the first fight.

But Holy won the rematch, Lewis did fuck all.

 

Well put:bears:

 

You're comparing Lewis, physically, to Tyson and Ali...when he was taller than both (much taller than Tyson) and outweighed both of them by 20-30 pounds or more at times in his career.

I think George Foreman understands this a lot better than you do.

 

Then you'd be completely laughed at.

You probably admitted as much as you thought you could to retain as much credibility as you could while still admitting to having Holyfield winning the rematch.

 

Yet the point is, Lewis had a better career than Tyson, so how does it matter at all how they looked like technically? This is no beauty contest.

I don't think why you should pay respect to a guy for learning skills that are useless for success.

 

Lewis was a metally superior fighter to Tyson, and far more dedicated.

 

Um, so what? Vitali and Wlad are bigger men than Lewis all in all, and both are technically superior.

You're talking rubbish. Technical ability and size are not related.

Carlos Monzon outweighed featherweights by over 30 pounds, yet he was technically superior to most of them.

Just in the same way as Tyson outweighed middleweights by 50 pounds, and was technically superior to most of them.

Yet somehow you're acting like because Lewis was a bigger man than Tyson and Ali it was IMPOSSIBLE for him to be technically superior ::

Seriously, listen to yourself.

 

Holy won the rematch no doubt

 

I don't think either Klitschko is technically or athletically superior to a prime Lennox.

 

Seriously, Lewis beat everybody he faced so however bad his technique was, it was enough to make him a heavyeight great. So why the hell SHOULD he had a "better" (=more nice-looking) technique? Maybe he could have learned more tricky moves but he found a style that suited him perfectly and I see nothing wrong with that

 

I just think he should have opened up more and DOMINATED guys.. not fought safty first like a bitch.. it is like Shane fighting pacman scared.. Lemmon fought scared, he was not exciting at all, he was abig guy who fought like he was afraid of little guys instead of just showing them he's the big guy and dominating them

 

The Klitschko's are technically superior offensively in some regards. Their punches are more straighter, more precise, their punches are thrown with very little motion wasted. But that is also part of their deficiency. Lewis could come up with much greater angles and use his superior athleticism and dexterity to a much greater effect than either Klitschko.

Neither Klitschko could attempt to pull off the left hook to set up the roundhouse right that Lewis did to knock out Rahman.

They couldn't put together the kind of three punch combination that put away Botha.

Neither could throw much of an uppercut, either.