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He was a "good" heavy weight who took advantage of a great traner in Manny Stewart. Manny IMO was the guy who Lennox on the map.
lewis is one of the best ever no doubt, he beat every fighter he ever fought and retired as hw champ and had a jab to rival holmes.
lewis and joe louis are prob the 2 most complete hw of all time, lewis would have beaten marciano, frazier, liston, norton, foreman and holmes and these guy's are on everybodys list.
lewis and joe louis are prob the 2 most complete hw of all time, lewis would have beaten marciano, frazier, liston, norton, foreman and holmes and these guy's are on everybodys list.
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I hate to disagree with both of you but I think Lennox was a sub-par Champion. All of the big names he defeated, Tyson, Ruddock, Morrison were all past their prime (including Holyfield and Mercer who he barely beat even as they were on their way out, Mercer by only a single point after Holyfield had dominated him just the past year). Whenever he stepped up, and baby steps mind you, he got beat McCall, Rahman, and frankly Vitali in their first fight. He was a good fighter but benefited from the weakest Heavyweight division I think in recent decades, significantly worse than even the past couple years. Top contenders around now like James Toney and Sam Peter are a lot better than those Lennox faced like Micahel Grant and Francois Botha. The two times Lennox did face a tough challenge as Champ he was knocked out once and beaten on points before the fight was stopped. No where near a Top Ten Heavy in history, I think.
yes im sure briggs and golota would agree with you.JohnnyBigBallz said:I hate to disagree with both of you but I think Lennox was a sub-par Champion. All of the big names he defeated, Tyson, Ruddock, Morrison were all past their prime (including Holyfield and Mercer who he barely beat even as they were on their way out, Mercer by only a single point after Holyfield had dominated him just the past year). Whenever he stepped up, and baby steps mind you, he got beat McCall, Rahman, and frankly Vitali in their first fight. He was a good fighter but benefited from the weakest Heavyweight division I think in recent decades, significantly worse than even the past couple years. Top contenders around now like James Toney and Sam Peter are a lot better than those Lennox faced like Micahel Grant and Francois Botha. The two times Lennox did face a tough challenge as Champ he was knocked out once and beaten on points before the fight was stopped. No where near a Top Ten Heavy in history, I think.
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Yeah, I loved the Briggs vs. Lewis fight back when. People I think forgot about that fight before the Liakhovich bout last week. They just saw that it was a W for Lewis but forgot that Lennox got seriously wobbled and was hanging on in the early rounds. I always thought Briggs should have had a second shot at him, rematch. Golota brought a lot of excitement I think to the divsion but has always seemed to not show up to Championship fights.
tommygunn said:lewis is one of the best ever no doubt, he beat every fighter he ever fought and retired as hw champ and had a jab to rival holmes.
lewis and joe louis are prob the 2 most complete hw of all time, lewis would have beaten marciano, frazier, liston, norton, foreman and holmes and these guy's are on everybodys list.
His jab did not rival Holmes, Holmes's jab was in a league of its own. The only person who had a jab that was very close to Holmes's jab was Ali/Clay. Lewis had a glass jaw and you can't say that he had a jaw like Liston. Holmes would take him, Frazier would take him, so would Marciano, Liston, Norton, and Foreman. Holmes had decent power too. Lewis was one of the top 20 heavyweights ever, not top 10. Lewis is one of my favorite fighters too, but you can't exagerate him that much.
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Hey, I love Lewis too. He was smart, technical and powerful in a very conventional way and I think Stewart capitalized on all of those things. The fact that he had a weak chin made him exciting to watch because we all knew that he could get taken out with one punch by anybody at anytime. So not the most impressive but even more fun to watch. If not for that weakness I never could have made it through the Tua fight.
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I'd say 8 out of 10 for sure in skill, maybe even 8.5 or 9! My only knock on him is the same as Wlad who I think is around the same 8-9. They both have the kind of chin that can make their skill a non issue if a big punch lands by even a mediocre guy. So I don't know exactly how I would factor that into their overall respective scores, but it does hurt their dominance in the sport.
JohnnyBigBallz said:I hate to disagree with both of you but I think Lennox was a sub-par Champion. All of the big names he defeated, Tyson, Ruddock, Morrison were all past their prime (including Holyfield and Mercer who he barely beat even as they were on their way out, Mercer by only a single point after Holyfield had dominated him just the past year). Whenever he stepped up, and baby steps mind you, he got beat McCall, Rahman, and frankly Vitali in their first fight. He was a good fighter but benefited from the weakest Heavyweight division I think in recent decades, significantly worse than even the past couple years. Top contenders around now like James Toney and Sam Peter are a lot better than those Lennox faced like Micahel Grant and Francois Botha. The two times Lennox did face a tough challenge as Champ he was knocked out once and beaten on points before the fight was stopped. No where near a Top Ten Heavy in history, I think.
How can you say the division was weaker then than now? Toney & Peter are better than Holyfield, Briggs, Vitali, Morrison,Tua, Golota, Bruno & Ruddock. I would say those 2 may fit right in :dunno:
He faced many tough challenges hew fought just about everybody in his era. Your sayin the 2 times he stepped up where Rahamn & McCall? He stepped up to plenty of other challenges those 2 he just got caught in.
Lewis beat Vitali period. He may have been behnd by a point or 2 but he won. It wasnt a 6 round fight it was a 12 round title fight.
I wont say Lewis is a top 5 Heavy but probably around top 10.
bill1234 said:His jab did not rival Holmes, Holmes's jab was in a league of its own. The only person who had a jab that was very close to Holmes's jab was Ali/Clay. Lewis had a glass jaw and you can't say that he had a jaw like Liston. Holmes would take him, Frazier would take him, so would Marciano, Liston, Norton, and Foreman. Holmes had decent power too. Lewis was one of the top 20 heavyweights ever, not top 10. Lewis is one of my favorite fighters too, but you can't exagerate him that much.
Why do you say Lewis had a glass jaw? He went down twice I think in his career. How many times did Ali or Your "God" Holmes go down in their careers? Did they have glass jaws then?
I dont think Lewis had the best chin,but it was average. He got KO'd by 2 good punchers. It wasnt like he was down every fight. He took every thing Vitali could give him & he did not go down.
Ali has taken extreme punishment from lots of people, when Lewis would have been KO'd. Same with Holmes, he took a tremendous about of punishment before and got up to win, where Lewis would have been KO'd. Like the biggest right hand Shavers has ever thrown that landed fluch on Holmes jaw, Holmes got up on the count of 5. Holmes was down against Snipes by a flash knockdown, Holmes was down against Tyson 3 times was up on the count of 6, 4, and then got his tangled in the ropes when Tyson dropped him the 3rd time in the final 10 seconds of the 4th round, the ref stopped it. Holmes was down a total of 4 times in his career, not including the bad call when he fought butterbean. You also have to remember that Holmes and Ali had more fights than Lewis too.
bill1234 said:Ali has taken extreme punishment from lots of people, when Lewis would have been KO'd. Same with Holmes, he took a tremendous about of punishment before and got up to win, where Lewis would have been KO'd. Like the biggest right hand Shavers has ever thrown that landed fluch on Holmes jaw, Holmes got up on the count of 5. Holmes was down against Snipes by a flash knockdown, Holmes was down against Tyson 3 times was up on the count of 6, 4, and then got his tangled in the ropes when Tyson dropped him the 3rd time in the final 10 seconds of the 4th round, the ref stopped it. Holmes was down a total of 4 times in his career, not including the bad call when he fought butterbean. You also have to remember that Holmes and Ali had more fights than Lewis too.
So does Holmes have a glass jaw?
Lewis was not given the chance to finish in the McCall fight. The fight was waved off. He may have been able to clinch & survive that round. Probably not.
bill1234 said:No, Holmes didn't. I'm just saying his jaw wasn't exactly like Marciano's, or Holmes's, or Ali's or any of them, he had a questionable jaw.
Questionable is better. NOT Glass.
I would say average, in the heavyweights 1 punch can change a fight.
slick said:the man lost to two fighters, both of which were beaten in rematches. Criticize his era as much as you like, given what he had to face he couldnt do much more than he did. He is one of the greatest.
I dont think his era was that bad. The heavyweight division was not that bad in the 90's. It was a pretty good division.
His resume is good & there where some really good fighters that he didnt get to fight Bowe, Foreman etc.
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