Lennox Lewis: One of the Greatest Heavyweights?

[-EX-]

"Not in Ali's class of the greatest, but he's definatly a top ten all time Heavyweight."

True but he is still a great, besides his "questionable chin".

[j]

ll was a great heavyweight, no doubt. since i don't like to rank fighters, especially comparing them to fighters in very different eras, i will just talk about what i liked and what i didn't like about him.

lewis was a patient fighter. very clever. steward was actually known to have criticized lewis for thinking too much in the ring and stating that lennox had sometimes fought like he was playing chess(always trying to think a few moves ahead of his opponent). but he was quite clever i'd say, and fought a bit dirty at times, especially if he was in trouble. so, sometimes his sneakiness had actually gotten him out of trouble.

his jab was one of his better tools. he was pretty quick with it and certainly knew how to use it against smaller fighters to exploit his size advantage. lewis was a pretty big guy - listed as 6'5" or 6'6" depending on the source. very comfortable fighting smaller opponents and this was largely due to knowing when to use the jab and when to set up a powerfull attack off of the jab.

lewis was also quite skillfull in the clinch - something which steward's wladimir klitschko has yet to get comfortable with. lennox, however, was very comfortable in clinches and was able to do considerable damage from the inside with his left hook and uppercuts. his uppercuts were a great part of his arsenal and lewis knew when to use them.

his overhand right was nice as well, even though he would sometimes miss wildly with it. ll always had decent composure and stability, which helped him bail himself out from when he'd miss an overhand right by a mile.

has a great resume. beaten the likes of, well, we know who he beat - impressive wins over rahman, botha, holyfield, tyson, and briggs among many others. perhaps 2 of his toughest wins came over ray mercer and vitali klitschko.

his fight with ray mercer was a jab fest(hoping i can remember this fight accurately) with mercer landing an incredible 60% of his jabs throwing an average of 22 a round. ray also landed 59% of his punches whereas lewis averaged 53% - source compuboxonline. lewis squeeked out a victory by scores of 96-94, 96-95, and 95-95. now that this thread has got me thinking about this fight, i'm going to have to watch it in a minute as i haven't seen it in a year or two and couldn't go into great detail.

his fight with vitali klitschko was considered a "escape" win by many neutral fight fans. lewis was out on his feet from round 2 but lewis held on for dear life while klitschko was trying to throw him off to batter him and avoided what would've been another embarrassing ko loss(although losing to a fighter of vitali's caliber need not be emberassing at all). lewis' aforementioned ring intelligence and vitali's thought's of lewis playing possum both contributed to lewis escaping out the round. lewis was rocked many times throughout the 6 rounds of blood and guts. i've seen over half of lewis's fights and have never seen him manhandled the way vitali did. ll had suffered a minor cut under one of his eyes and nearly an inch sized gash on the bridge of his nose. but the real damage was not in the cuts on lewis, but came from the repeated straight rights, left hooks, and stiff jabs that klitschko threw - at one point landing 4 thudding jabs in succession. the stats of this fight tell an interesting tale. in total, lewis landed at a better ratio(46% to 36%). lewis through 221 punches while vitali threw an amazing 430 punches through 6 rounds. 430 thrown punches were the most punches ever thrown at lewis in his entire career. mercer had thrown 381 total punches, the most ever thrown by a lewis opponent before fighting vk. and that fight went 10 rounds. as the fight continued in a back and forth manner, lewis threw a a punch that sc****d against klitschko's eyelid as klitschko was leaning back to avoid the full brunt of the punch. it is thought that the "tape" on the cuff lewis' glove had caused a massive gash on klitschko's eyelid as lewis' gloves were duct taped instead of using a more clothlike tape that is used by some commissioins - source compuboxonline. lewis had landed 2 massive uppercuts which shook klitschko's head and provoked him into a clinch to clear his head. the fight, as we know was ultimately stopped before round seven by doctor stoppage with lewis down on all 3 cards by 2 points.

to sum up what i didn't like about lewis was seemingly trying to avoid a fight with klitschko who was a mandatory challenger for over a year before the kirk johnson injury. he also wanted to fight tyson again for some reason before fighting klitschko - source blackathletesportsnetwork. then, promising a rematch multiple times and ending up retiring instead. i believe he was afraid to lose and vitali posed that much of a threat to him. lewis is also seemingly a racist with quotes that mention him being embarrassed if he ever would have lost to a white person. i'll have to dig to find the source on that. he was always reluctant to give credit to fighters it seemed. his image, to me, could be summed up with the word "pompous".

so, there you have it. my view on him as a fighter and the image i saw of him.

[Islandboy3]

Ike Ibeabuchi would have gave him problems and had a good chance to beat him. And common man Klitchko had him. Wierd how they stop the fight at the right tme so he wouldnt loose.

[j]

islandboy3, i hear ya. but that cut was getting really bad with lewis targetting it with his punches and rubbing his head at the cut. so although the stoppage might have saved ll from getting ko'd, vitali's eye was really really bad. so a good stoppage i feel.

[Johnny Blayzz]

I think Lennox wanted Mike Tyson again so badly because he knew it would be his biggest payday, and because it was easy money, (for some reason later in their careers both of these great fighters also liked to slack off in their conditioning as well, I'm sure this made a Tyson Fight payday very attractive to anyone who could get into the ring with him...)

As for the Klitschko stoppage; (and this one always makes me laugh)...

Vitali Bloody near lost his ****in' eye, and people are still saying the fight should have gone on. These people are idiots.

Sure Vitali looked like he wanted to keep goin', but lets be completely honest here and look at the facts, Vitali never faught a "real top contender" after he was "handed" over his heavyweight belt, and then he quit when a manditory big name was sent his way. So if Vitali didn't want to fight Rahman or Toney even as an example when he was healthy; (and hey Vitali has other huge career prospects so all the power to him now that he is not a boxer), but imagine how he would have felt losing not only a fight to Lennox Lewis that night, but also a ****in' eye.

It was a great stoppage. There are rules in boxing to protect the boxers, this is a "gentleman's" sport, and had that fight gone on much longer, the entire respect of the sport may have been lost. I mean sure boxers die, and basketball and football players collapse and die as well; But imagine a politcal figure wearing an eye patch in an internationally broadcasted debate or interview or whatever, because the referee of a boxing match let a very poorly conditioned Lennox Lewis take the guys eye right out of his face before claiming victory for the champion is absolutely rediculous, and imagine what kinda of dammage that could have done to boxing around the entire world...

There are very clear rules about cuts in this sport that date back to ... hell I don't even know how far, gotta be the bare knuckle days. And those rules proved their purpose in the Lewis Klitschko fight, just like the TKO rule was necessary when Rahman grew a beachball on the side of his head. The object of the game is to win, not to end the oppponents life, that's what seperates the "art" or the "sweet science" of boxing from MMA (which I also love and have a complete respect for), and other combat sports which are derrived from complete survival fighting, which is totally different. Boxing is a very tough "gentleman's" competion, one on one, hands only, no huge bones to strike with like elbows or skulls, and has very distinct rules to keep it as safe as possible, and as UFC has even proven, any fight sport has to have a certain level of rules now or people will die, or possibly worse, have to be pushed around in a wheel chair all disfigured for the rest of their lives, because a ref let a fight go 10 seconds too long.
Anyone who says the Lewis Klitschko fight should have gone on either has never been inside the ring, or is a complete idiot. End of discussion...

[Past m' Prime]

to the guy above I think he beats all but Holmes. I think Holmes makes him eat so many jabs he upchucks leather for a week.

[willjoes]

I dont think he is a top 5 great, but he is by far the most inteligent. He got out in time You could beat him once, but never twice

[kadyo's]

You got to respect the achivement of lewis. Yes he belongs to the top ten of all time.

[Parody]

bump, this thread deserves to be on the top

[Parody]

I think Lennox wanted Mike Tyson again so badly because he knew it would be his biggest payday, and because it was easy money, (for some reason later in their careers both of these great fighters also liked to slack off in their conditioning as well, I'm sure this made a Tyson Fight payday very attractive to anyone who could get into the ring with him...)

As for the Klitschko stoppage; (and this one always makes me laugh)...

Vitali Bloody near lost his ****in' eye, and people are still saying the fight should have gone on. These people are idiots.

Sure Vitali looked like he wanted to keep goin', but lets be completely honest here and look at the facts, Vitali never faught a "real top contender" after he was "handed" over his heavyweight belt, and then he quit when a manditory big name was sent his way. So if Vitali didn't want to fight Rahman or Toney even as an example when he was healthy; (and hey Vitali has other huge career prospects so all the power to him now that he is not a boxer), but imagine how he would have felt losing not only a fight to Lennox Lewis that night, but also a ****in' eye.

It was a great stoppage. There are rules in boxing to protect the boxers, this is a "gentleman's" sport, and had that fight gone on much longer, the entire respect of the sport may have been lost. I mean sure boxers die, and basketball and football players collapse and die as well; But imagine a politcal figure wearing an eye patch in an internationally broadcasted debate or interview or whatever, because the referee of a boxing match let a very poorly conditioned Lennox Lewis take the guys eye right out of his face before claiming victory for the champion is absolutely rediculous, and imagine what kinda of dammage that could have done to boxing around the entire world...

There are very clear rules about cuts in this sport that date back to ... hell I don't even know how far, gotta be the bare knuckle days. And those rules proved their purpose in the Lewis Klitschko fight, just like the TKO rule was necessary when Rahman grew a beachball on the side of his head. The object of the game is to win, not to end the oppponents life, that's what seperates the "art" or the "sweet science" of boxing from MMA (which I also love and have a complete respect for), and other combat sports which are derrived from complete survival fighting, which is totally different. Boxing is a very tough "gentleman's" competion, one on one, hands only, no huge bones to strike with like elbows or skulls, and has very distinct rules to keep it as safe as possible, and as UFC has even proven, any fight sport has to have a certain level of rules now or people will die, or possibly worse, have to be pushed around in a wheel chair all disfigured for the rest of their lives, because a ref let a fight go 10 seconds too long.
Anyone who says the Lewis Klitschko fight should have gone on either has never been inside the ring, or is a complete idiot. End of discussion...

I agree with that sir.