Lennox Lewis argues SHOWTIME Boxing in Twitter for dissing his Undisputed Status!
"So apparently Showtime Boxing thinks they can rewrite history, by writing champions like myself, Bowe, Douglas and Holyfield out of it, by saying there hasn’t been an undisputed champion since mike tyson in 1989. I personally recall facing holyfield for that honour TWICE," wrote former undisputed heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis, who responded to Showtime's claim that there hasn't been an undisputed heavyweight champion since Mike Tyson.
LENNOX LEWIS CHECKS SHOWTIME FOR DISSING HIS UNDISPUTED STATUS: "DON'T THINK I'LL TAKE IT LIGHTLY"
How about Michael Bentt, Herbie Hyde (2 times) and Henry Akinwande?
They all held the WBO HW title during Lennox's undisputed reign.
Akinwande relinquished it to fight Lennox for the WBA, WBC and IBF .. and he got KO'd.
Lol, oh yeah. The fight where Akinwande hugged Lennox to no end.
Lol, Akinwande was scared to death.
The WBA recognized the WBO in 2001, the WBC recognized the WBO in 2004, the IBF recognized the WBO in 2007.
So the definition of undisputed didn't include the WBO until 2007. The WBO wasn't even recognized as a major world title until 2001. That means any boxer with a pre-2001 WBO title to his name owned the equivalent of today's IBO title.
Thank you sir, it's not hard to understand or comprehend really.
Francesco Damiani, Lol, never heard of him until now.
Lol, those guys at Showtime are ridiculous. SMH
How about Michael Bentt, Herbie Hyde (2 times) and Henry Akinwande?
They all held the WBO HW title during Lennox's undisputed reign.
Akinwande relinquished it to fight Lennox for the WBA, WBC and IBF .. and he got KO'd.
I did a bit of research last night. And I discovered that, by Steve Farhood's reasoning, Mike Tyson didn't lose the undisputed world HW crown when he got KO'd by Buster Douglas in 1990.
Tyson's reign as undisputed HW champ actually ended on May 6th 1989, when Francesco Damiani beat Johnuy Du Plooy to become the first WBO HW champion of the world! :lol1:
Francesco Damiani, Lol, never heard of him until now.
Lol, those guys at Showtime are ridiculous. SMH
If AJ were to become undisputed by beating Parker and Wilder he'll have been the first to unify it in the same manner as Tyson did in the late 80's by defeating each and every one of the other individual belt holders one by one to unify the division. Where as Douglas, Holyfield, Bowe and Lewis for the most part just beat the man holding all the marbles for that recognition. Tyson and potentially Joshua should get more credit for doing it the hard way in my opinion.
It's not only Lewis though. Buster Douglas, Evander Holyfield and Riddick Bowe held the Undisputed Heavyweight Championship too, they can't rewrite or erase history.
Back then Roy Jones Jr. was also Undisputed Light Heavyweight Champ, he had the WBC, IBF and WBA, no WBO was needed back then because they were not one of the major bodies.
When Hopkins fought Trinidad that was for the Undisputed Middleweight Championship, only WBC, WBA and IBF.
The WBO was the IBO back then.
Yes, today the WBO is a major world title and is part of the major sanctioning bodies and I'm glad it is.
But back then the WBO was not one of the major sanctioning bodies. That is a irrefutable fact.
I did a bit of research last night. And I discovered that, by Steve Farhood's reasoning, Mike Tyson didn't lose the undisputed world HW crown when he got KO'd by Buster Douglas in 1990.
Tyson's reign as undisputed HW champ actually ended on May 6th 1989, when Francesco Damiani beat Johnuy Du Plooy to become the first WBO HW champion of the world! :lol1:
Exactly .. good point!
As others have already said in this thread, S.T are trying to make a fight between AJ and Wilder appear even more historic than it already is by pushing the last unified HW champ back to the Mike Tyson era.
Possibly they are also trying to stoke up the rivalry and trash talk already going on between UK and US fans even more by discrediting Britains one and only undisputed HW champ.
Them damned yanks .. go get 'em AJ! :lol1:
It's not only Lewis though. Buster Douglas, Evander Holyfield and Riddick Bowe held the Undisputed Heavyweight Championship too, they can't rewrite or erase history.
Back then Roy Jones Jr. was also Undisputed Light Heavyweight Champ, he had the WBC, IBF and WBA, no WBO was needed back then because they were not one of the major bodies.
When Hopkins fought Trinidad that was for the Undisputed Middleweight Championship, only WBC, WBA and IBF.
The WBO was the IBO back then.
Yes, today the WBO is a major world title and is part of the major sanctioning bodies and I'm glad it is.
But back then the WBO was not one of the major sanctioning bodies. That is a irrefutable fact.
I still feel like it was legit before 2003ish. Mid to late 90's sounds about right to me, but thats just from me doing minimal research in the last 15 or so minutes.
Fair play on agreeing to disagree.
To me the whole concept of undisputed has long been destroyed cuz a lot of what it takes to get to undisputed involves fighting all these bs mandatory fights that do little for ones legacy usually vs fighting the best guys in your division. Personally I'm more impressed with a guy who fights a top 5 indie opponent fight in fight out or at least more aften then not vs trying to placate all these ABC Groups to keep the belts long enough to have all the belts.
Thats not what a Undisputed Champion should represent. So the whole concept has been raped as far as I see it.
Lol, mid to late 90's. Hahahahaha
I'm in my early 40's, I definitely remember WBO being a joke title in 99 and 2000, 2001 ish.
The WBO came from the WBA when certain partners disagreed with how things were going in the WBA so they broke apart and created the WBO in 1988.
If you look up the WBO you'll see the WBA finally acknowledged them first in 2001, WBC in 2004 and IBF in 2007.
Yeah, we can definitely agree to disagree.
Fair play though sir.
And I agree, Undisputed should be the guy who wipes out all the best in his division and not necessarily who owns all the stupid alphabet titles. SMH
God forbid we get another alphabet group being added to the major groups already. Please no!
it makes sense in the context that Tyson was the last one who unified the titles, but wasn't the last undisputed/unified champ. But yeah, they need knowledgable staff. It's a bad look to tell Lewis that he's wrong lol
Just been casting my mind back to 1990's. Happy days!
Back then, there were so many Frank Warren fighters holding WBO titles, or challenging for WBO titles on Frank Warren shows, that some UK fans actually thought that Warren ran the WBO himself - that it was part of his business.
2 UK fighters, Herbie Hyde and Henry Akinwande, held the WBO HW title at different times and defended it in the UK. Me and my mates used to refer to those fights as "Warren Boxing Organization HW title fights" :lol1:
And nobody - put nobody - ever thought that Hyde and Akinwande were legit HW champs, not even in the UK.
The WBO belt back then was like the IBO is today. It was not part of the major sanctioning bodies.
Roy Jones Jr. was Undisputed Light Heavyweight Champion with the IBF, WBA, WBC belts.
Lennox also Undisputed.
When Hopkins fought Trinidad it was for the Undisputed Middlewight Championship
Buster Douglas, Evander Holyfield and Riddick Bowe as well held the Undisputed title.
Showtime is definitely wrong here, they can't re-write history.
This would be similar to 20 years from now the IBO becomes a part of the major sanctioning bodies and then Showtime says Terence Crawford wasn't Undisputed Jr. Welterweight Champion when he beat Indongo because he didn't have the IBO belt. Lol, see what I mean.
These fools can't try to rewrite history. Lol
The WBO started to become recognized little by little. First the WBA recognized them in 2001, the WBC recognized them in 2004 and the IBF recognized them in 2007.
I hope and pray that this it and no more orginazations get recognized. We don't need 5 or 6, Lol.
Exactly .. good point!
As others have already said in this thread, S.T are trying to make a fight between AJ and Wilder appear even more historic than it already is by pushing the last unified HW champ back to the Mike Tyson era.
Possibly they are also trying to stoke up the rivalry and trash talk already going on between UK and US fans even more by discrediting Britains one and only undisputed HW champ.
Them damned yanks .. go get 'em AJ! :lol1:
Holmes never went life and death against Shavers. He was knocked down, but won every other minute of that fight and eventually stopped Shavers, while Lewis lost at least 4 of 10 rounds to Mercer.
Lewis was very skilled indeed, but he had a lot of problems against overweight inactive Mercer and past prime Holyfield (in the rematch), both of whom were much smaller than him. And I don't even count Bruno and Vitali fights here because he was pre-prime against Bruno and past prime against Vitali.
Also, you are wrong about Lewis facing and beating every single top fighter that was out there. He didn't beat Bowe (not his fault that fight didn't happen, but still he hadn't fought him in the pros), Moorer and old Foreman. Byrd and Ruiz were top fighters at the end of Lewis' reing too and Lennox never faced them. Ruiz beat washed-up Holyfield and prime Rahman, while Byrd got the wins against prime (though injured) Vitali, prime in-shape Tua and washed-up Holyfield. They were way more deserving opponents for Lewis than Kirk Johnson, whom Lewis wanted to fight in 2003, or Botha, whom he faced in 2000.
I think there will always be a fight one can go to and say a fighter struggled its apart of the game
If that's what they meant they could've easily said that. Instead they were going on about the WBO belt when responding to Lewis.
lol word but like someone else posted they need a new guy that actually knows what he's talking about
what they meant to say was that in the way tyson collected the belts wilder/aj will do the same etc...
a bit different than fighting and beating one guy for all the belts
If that's what they meant they could've easily said that. Instead they were going on about the WBO belt when responding to Lewis.
Oh so it was Wilder who never wanted that action?
Yeah, though probably his team more than anything. They knew Wilder was still very green and needed a slew of easy defenses to refine his craft. That's why he fought guys like Molina, Szpilka, Arreola etc.
what are ya talking about?
wilder won it in 2015 and wlad was already getting ready to fight fury.... and then he lost..... then the fury rematch was scheduled but didn't happen, then he was in hiatus even tho wbc ranked him number 2 behind wilder after the aj loss.....
but somehow that's wilders fault? oh in the mean time he woulda fought povetkin etc but we all know what happened there
Lennox Lewis argues SHOWTIME Boxing in Twitter for dissing his Undisputed Status!
"So apparently Showtime Boxing thinks they can rewrite history, by writing champions like myself, Bowe, Douglas and Holyfield out of it, by saying there hasn’t been an undisputed champion since mike tyson in 1989. I personally recall facing holyfield for that honour TWICE," wrote former undisputed heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis, who responded to Showtime's claim that there hasn't been an undisputed heavyweight champion since Mike Tyson.
LENNOX LEWIS CHECKS SHOWTIME FOR DISSING HIS UNDISPUTED STATUS: "DON'T THINK I'LL TAKE IT LIGHTLY"
what they meant to say was that in the way tyson collected the belts wilder/aj will do the same etc...
a bit different than fighting and beating one guy for all the belts
Showtime is in the wrong here. I looked at it as someone making a screw up, then not wanting to admit they were wrong and doubling down on their own BS. Lewis, Holyfield, Bowe and Douglas were all undisputed and forgotten by Showtime
The problem with Showtime is that they cut funding and hire people who don't care about the sport. While managing to keep some good commentators on, they hire ****balls, like that little black guy, he sucks....can tell he doesn't care about boxing in his own time. Forgot his name.
8y ago
Lennox Lewis argues SHOWTIME in Twitter for dissing his Undisputed Status! | BoxingScene Community