Comments Thread For: Anthony Joshua Shakes Head at Criticisms From Lennox Lewis

[Phenom]

However if you compare Lewis career after 23 fights and Joshua after 23 fights Joshua is LIGHT YEARS ahead of Lennox Lewis. AJ has done enough to get a tick for his career so far but Mr Lewis doesnt want to acknowledge any of it.

Do you just copy and paste whatever Eddie Hearn says word for word?

Honest question

[alexjust]

What a fking mental midget Joshua is...
He pulled the two favorite cards that idiots always go to when they can't articulate a retort;
"he's jealous"
and
"he wouldn't say it to my face"

Lewis earned the right to criticize anyone he wants. If Joshua ever comes close to his level, then he'll earn that right too.

Interesting.. well, anyone can criticize anyone. That just comes with the freedom of speech, it has nothing to do with the ATG status. Its not like you need to earn the right to criticize someone, right? Half of the geniuses here call Klitschko boring, robotic, bla-bla-bla. How many of them earned that right, if we follow your logic? His critique is quite unfounded though. He's whining and nagging for no good reasons. I followed the negotiations with Wilder, which started with their ridiculous demand to accept the offer of $50m. Unless there is a contract on a table or at least a letter of intent, there is nothing to accept. That was Wilder's bluff all along, that's not how multi-million dollar deals are done.

So, to criticze Joshua for not fighting Fury or Wilder is just unfounded if we judge this purely on facts.

Secondly, at least on paper, AJ has already beat Lennox's achievements by a mile. Who did Lennox fight in his 23rd fight? How many belts did he have at 23rd fight? How many top ranking fighters (of his era) did he beat by his 23rd fight? I'm not even talking about money, we can set it aside due to different economic conditions (although Tyson was earning hefty at comparable stage of AJ's career).

Bottom line is Lennox's criticism is premature.

[Redd Foxx]

Interesting.. well, anyone can criticize anyone. That just comes with the freedom of speech, it has nothing to do with the ATG status. Its not like you need to earn the right to criticize someone, right? Half of the geniuses here call Klitschko boring, robotic, bla-bla-bla. How many of them earned that right, if we follow your logic? His critique is quite unfounded though. He's whining and nagging for no good reasons. I followed the negotiations with Wilder, which started with their ridiculous demand to accept the offer of $50m. Unless there is a contract on a table or at least a letter of intent, there is nothing to accept. That was Wilder's bluff all along, that's not how multi-million dollar deals are done.

So, to criticze Joshua for not fighting Fury or Wilder is just unfounded if we judge this purely on facts.

Secondly, at least on paper, AJ has already beat Lennox's achievements by a mile. Who did Lennox fight in his 23rd fight? How many belts did he have at 23rd fight? How many top ranking fighters (of his era) did he beat by his 23rd fight? I'm not even talking about money, we can set it aside due to different economic conditions (although Tyson was earning hefty at comparable stage of AJ's career).

Bottom line is Lennox's criticism is premature.

You're trying too hard and in the process, missing the most basic and obvious point. If it was someone like Price, he wouldn't have any cred. Lewis has walked the walk. If you don't get how that works then I guess I won't be able to explain it to you.

[Earl-Hickey]

You're trying too hard and in the process, missing the most basic and obvious point. If it was someone like Price, he wouldn't have any cred. Lewis has walked the walk. If you don't get how that works then I guess I won't be able to explain it to you.

So since Lewis has "walked the walk" nothing he says is in any way questionable or disputable?

How does that work.

[theface07]

Is he seriously implying that Lennox wouldn't have the stones to say what he said to Joshua's face?
Lennox was the real deal and made his bones the hard way. AJ could learn a thing or two from the Geezer

Yeah?
Lennox was a top boxer but he didn't exactly step up at a blazing speed. Go check his record out. He ended up fighting for a world title much later than expected and he got a lot of criticism for it by the British press. In the end he had a HOF career so it doesn't matter but everyone forgets (or never knew) that Lewis didn't always fight the best competition available. Everybody expects Joshua to fight the best competition available all the time but it doesn't always work that way and if Lennox stopped to think for a minute, he'd realize what a hypocrite he's being for criticizing Joshua's level of competition at this point in his career.

[Combat Talk Radio]

Lol I love how people create this almighty perception on past generations which well, are absolutely false.
Lewis was at the time of his run was perceived as a boring snot nose Pom that many felt damaged the sport with his long distance jab, constant tying up and holding behind heads illegally while hitting on the break. Although effective for him to win fights didn’t create many fans at the time.
I’d barely call it a golden age either he was just the biggest guy in the division at the time. Then came the klitshko years and now we have atleast 3 huge guys with big power.
We’re in a new era that can’t be compared.

Rahman KO - the sheer quality of it - made up for any boring fights he might have had.

[theface07]

At the same age, Joshua has faced a lot better opponents than Lewis had

Why is Joshua expected to have an ATG resume aged 28 when lewis did not?

It seems like you're one of the only people here who actually saw Lewis' career before his career defining fights against the likes of Holyfield, Tyson and Klitschko.
Lewis took on more mediocre competition than Joshua before fighting for a world title. Of course Joshua's first title win wasn't really a legit title win since the belt holder was Charles Martin, who beat Glazkov after he injured himself for a vacant title. Nevertheless, Joshua has still taken on as good or better competition than Lewis had at this point in his career.

[Earl-Hickey]

It seems like you're one of the only people here who actually saw Lewis' career before his career defining fights against the likes of Holyfield, Tyson and Klitschko.
Lewis took on more mediocre competition than Joshua before fighting for a world title. Of course Joshua's first title win wasn't really a legit title win since the belt holder was Charles Martin, who beat Glazkov after he injured himself for a vacant title. Nevertheless, Joshua has still taken on as good or better competition than Lewis had at this point in his career.

Yeah the Martin win isn't really important in the scheme of things I consider the klitschko fight to be the fight that launched Joshua.

People always look back at historical fighters and focus on their best nights where the current ones get judged on their worst nights.

[theface07]

You're trying too hard and in the process, missing the most basic and obvious point. If it was someone like Price, he wouldn't have any cred. Lewis has walked the walk. If you don't get how that works then I guess I won't be able to explain it to you.

You can say Lewis has "walked the walk" all day but in the end, he's still being a hypocrite for criticizing Joshua's level of competition at this point in his career compared to his own.

[Kezzer]

Lewis has achieved a lot and in my opinion isn’t helping his own reputation here.

He keeps coming out with comment and it comes across very much like jealousy. My view is that he doesn’t want to be overtaken by AJ.

Lewis
- won Olympic gold in 88.
- handed a heavyweight title before his 23rd fight which he defended 8th May 93
- unified a heavyweight title on his 37th fight in nov 99

For context of when he fought opposition.
Frank Bruno 24th fight
Shannon Briggs 34th fight
Holyfield - 36th and 37th fight
Tua - 40th fight
Mike Tyson - 43rd fight
Vitali klitschko - 44th fight


Did Lewis really do what he is claiming Joshua didn’t? I don’t think so.

Joshua has had 22 fights. He has won the title and unified it twice.
He has beaten Klitschko, Povetkin, Parker and Whyte. At least three of those you would have considered top5 at the time and the 4th arguably is top5 now in hindsight.

AJ is doing a far quicker job of taking on the opponents than Lewis ever did so despite what he has achieved I really can’t take his argument seriously