Vitali proved tonight how great Lennox Lewis is.....

[check hook]

Lewis said he was "at the peak of my powers" when he got his ass whooped by Vitali.

Lewis was coming off the KO win over Tyson. In the Lewis-Tyson post fight interview Lewis stated "I'm like fine wine, I get better with age"

In an interview right before the Vitali fight, Lewis said "I'm at the peak of my powers, I will keep fighting for many more years"

Vitali dominated Lewis and scared him into retirement. That's a FACT.

Domination, who is going to say they aren't at their peak? To paraphrase Hatton a boxer never says training camp has been "****house" in the lead up to a fight, or that they are in terrible shape. It might come up after they lose. Bottom line is Lennox was heavier than he had ever been before and gassed very early. Your point is well taken though and Vitali was winning, but alas he didn't win and Lewis retired rather than give him another opportunity which is sad.

Also Vitali>Wlad by a sizeable margin imho.

[edgarg]

It proves that Vitali's style doesn't work as well against a 6'5 opponent with an 84 inch reach as it does against a slightly over 6 feet tall opponent with a 75 inch reach.

Fairly obvious that keeping your hands low, leaning back and backing up in straight lines is not the best style to use against an opponent with similar reach, but it works extremely well for Vitali against smaller opponents and against lesser skilled men of his size.

I believe that Klitschko's reach is quite short for his size around 80" I think. His brother has 81". Or the measurements for the brothers may be reversed. One or the other.

[edgarg]

On the other hand, Lewis showed up at a career high weight while Vitali was a lean 248 pounds.

Nothing lean about 248 for Klitschko, tonight he was 243. Lewis said he'd be few lbs heavier because the weight helped against a big man.

[check hook]

To this day I will never know how vitali didn't go down when Lewis landed that monstrous right uppercut on him, vitali has one serious chin!!

which is why he is so much better than Wladimir. All the best HW's have one thing in common, they all had excellent chins.

- Holyfield
- Tyson
- Ali
- Holmes
- Frazier
- Foreman
- Liston


etc etc

All great chins.

[edgarg]

That's true, but Lummox kept delaying his retirement and kept saying he'd give Vitali a rematch.

In fact, as I've written before, but which I NEVER see mentioned. Lewis made Klitschko schlep all the way to London to have his eyebrow examined and "passed" by his, Lewis's own specialist, because, as he said, he wanted to make sure that he wouldn't stop him again sooner and the fans wouldn't get a good fight out of it (paraphrased).

Exactly 10 days AFTER the fight, Klitschko appeared on TV to show everybody that his eyebrow was now recovered, not even a scar was to be seen. He statred this as his reason for the appearance.

Besides, the fight was stopped by the dr because of supposed cut nerves preventing Klitschko's eyelid from opening, making him therefore, blind in one eye. There were numerous threads on this on Boxingscene for weeks afterwards. This turned out to be untrue. As can be seen in ANY picture of Klitschko when he heard that the fight had been stopped.

Why is it that nobody mentions this either, even those who follow Klitschko's career closely.

AND...on the very night that the rematch was supposed to have happened, Klitschko chewed up and spat out Kirk Johnson in a rd and a half. Dec.6th 2003.

[edgarg]

Almost every 'expert' predicted Iron Mike would destroy Lewis but, apart from perhaps the first three minutes of the bout, it finished as one of Lewis's easier paydays.

'The thing about that fight is that the world still hasn't seen the best of me. I only hit him with two combinations, which were the right hand, the jab and the right uppercut, and I've got an arsenal that I can unleash at any given moment.'


So after the Tyson fight, he says the world hasn't seen the best of him, but then he feels like he can't give anymore to the sport?

That is not true. All the experts acknowledged that Tyson was already well finished and had been for years. And in fact Tyson didn't want this fight although I think at some early stage a couple of years earlier he'd agreed to the fight. I recall Lewis kept pushing and pushing and even threatened legal action. I recall the press reports about it very well.

[Big Ukrainian]

Lewis should have given the rematches he promised to Vitaly and Mercer. All great boxers did it

- Louis had really tough fight with Walcott, so did he retire like coward? No! He fought him once again and beat him much more convinsigly. He was losing his fight to Billy Conn before knocking him out (not stopping him on cuts). But Louis wanted to prove he was better than Conn, so he beat him much easier in their second fight.

- Ali showed his warrior's mentality, giving rematches to Frazier and Norton

- Holyfield gave rematches to Bowe, Lewis, Tyson, Qawi and Ruiz

- Marciano knew there were some unanswered questions after his wins over Walcott, Charles and LaStarza, so he decided to prove he is a better fighter and beat each of them much more convinsigly in the rematches.

And this list is full of ATG fighters, such as Ray Robinson, Roberto Durant, Manny Paquiao, Morales, Barrera, Mosley, Wright, La Motta, Zale, Graziano, Michael Spinks, Tunney etc.

Even Mayweather, who is often critisized for his lack of heart, gave rematch to JL Castillo.

But Lewis didn't. He was scared, he knew Vitaly would KTFO him in rematch, so he basically said: "I'd better look like a bіtch and retire, than do what other ATG fighters did".

Vitaly >>>>>>> Lewis

[TheGreatA]

Nothing lean about 248 for Klitschko, tonight he was 243. Lewis said he'd be few lbs heavier because the weight helped against a big man.

That's because he came in at the lowest weight of his career since 1998. Vitali has weighed around 245-250 pounds throughout his career and has had some of his best performances above 250 pounds. 248 was a normal weight for him, he came in at 243 to compensate for the smaller man's speed.

What did you honestly expect Lewis to say? That he was in poor shape, hadn't trained and was past his prime? The fighters themselves aren't the greatest source of information on how their training camps have gone. Otherwise you'd believe that Lewis trained like an animal for the first Rahman fight when in fact he spent more time filming a movie and taking life easy.

David Tua too must have always been in great shape, when the guy would often skip out on roadwork and run out of gas walking up stairs.

[BoZz]

yes lenox was real great he was behind on points on every scorecard and he b1tched out with not giving vitali a deserved rematch..to me he's a coward for retiring in such a fashion.

[Joeyzagz]

Lennox is most peoples toughest opponent. Lennox was Vitali's toughest opponent by far.

But Vitali barely makes the top 5 of Lennox's opponents. Mccall, Rahman, Mercer and Bruno all did better.