Recently one Al Bernstein declared Lennox Lewis as the greatest heavyweight of all time in boxing history. Now Lewis has chimed in.
Like ourselves at Boxing News and Views and most others, Lewis does not think he is the greatest heavyweight of all time.
Lewis has declared that Jack Johnson and Muhammad Ali are in fact ahead of him and are greater than he in the all time debates.
Jack Johnson was the first black heavyweight champion in boxing history.
Muhammad Ali is widely rated as the greatest heavyweight boxer of all time with exceptional speed, toughness and movement.
Ali almost had the speed and movement of a middleweight in a heavyweight body and was extremley tough.
Lewis beat the likes of Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield but both were a bit overrated and Tyson was way past his best.
Any time Tyson was confronted with tough opposition like against Buster Douglas, Holyfield and Lennox Lewis he folded easy and did not rise to the standard of fighter in front of him, like great champions often do.
Holyfield was a notorious head butter as well and should have been disqualified and thrown out of fights many times over the years for his illegal use of the head in professional boxing matches.
These were among Lewis’ greatest wins in his career but the impressive thing about it was the two losses he had to Oliver McCall and Hasim Rahman in that he came back in his career to avenge both.
Beating both by knockout the second time round.
So every man Lewis ever stepped into a professional boxing ring with he beat.
Lennox Lewis is in the top 10 heavyweights of all time but not the greatest.
His jab was outstanding and he could unusually for a big man fight on both the inside and the outside, going backwards and going forwards, and his uppercuts and right hands could be game changers at times.
Genuine knockout power in both of them.
The uppercuts he hit Vitali Klitschko with nearly knocked him into next week in their fight but Lewis was lucky to win that fight as well.
If not for cuts he might have lost that bout and got the win just about towards the end of his career.
Lewis compiled an impressive record as a professional of 41-(32KO)-2-1.
When you consider others as well they would surely be above Lewis in terms of the likes of Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano, George Foreman, Larry Holmes and possibly Sonny Liston, furthermore.
Marciano was nothing more than a middleweight in today’s times which makes him impressive and Liston was a ferocious boxer with elite power and timing when on form.
Very lethal.
Joe Louis might have been a bit too accurate with the straight right hand right over the shoulder — thrown text-book-style in his prime — for someone like Lewis.
George Foreman was a brute but his power might just have been too much for Lewis, when you consider Lennox Lewis was knocked out by Oliver McCall and Hasim Rahman.
Imagine what George Foreman would have done with him if those two could knock him out.
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