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boxingcardmanI think the "problem" with Lennox Lewis is that he is a smart man and wasn't afraid to show it. People like the Tysons, guys who appear not to give a crap and just fling it out there. Lewis isn't going to threaten to eat someone's kids; maybe do their homework. Lewis learned and adapted, which is why he had a long career at the top. He learned to cut up his opponents, learned to use the jab to keep them away, understood that winning is the key, not how you win.
I also agree that the prime v. prime thing isn't a valid comparison, but for a slightly different reason: styles. We cannot know how a fighter would respond to another fighter's style unless they really went at it. How would Tyson get inside Lewis's jab? How would Marciano deal with Jeffries' crouch? Could Ali play mind-games with a sociopath like Tyson?
The better measure seems to me to be how a fighter did with his contemporaries. As far as Ali v. his contemporaries, he did not dominate them. He lost to Frazier the first time and just won the second and third, and split a pair with Norton. He didn't dominate Foreman but outwitted him and outlasted him. All valid things to do and all contributing to his greatness but not the devastating result we think of when we think of dominance. He also had his bums: Wepner, Bugner, Lyle, Coopman, Dunn, etc. Not taking anything away from the heavyweights of the 1970s--it was the best bunch ever at once and I proudly have all their autographed cards in my collection--and Ali was the best of the four--but he wasn't so much better than the others that he could be said to have been dominant over them. But, he was so charismatic, so beautiful to watch, and such a joy to listen to, that he captured the imagination. He was what a champ should be and as the first truly personable champ of the tv age, is the one against whom all the rest will be measured.
Heck, measured on the sheer toughness of the battles, Sullivan might well have been the greatest of all time. He dominated for years in the sport at its most brutal. Does a man who can go 75 bare knuckle rounds (yes, I realize they were truncated rounds but still) and lick any son of a bitch in the place for several years deserve a place closer to the top?
Tyson for a short time made the opposition look stupid. He was dominant. He was also a psychopath who lost his grip on reality and his edge when Cus D'Amato died. He had the tools to be the best ever but not the mind. Baer did too, for different reasons. He was everything you could hope for physically but too nice a man to be dominant. He was deeply affected when he killed a man, perhaps more so than we rightly credit him, which is fatal to a fighter dominating his class. Louis said before the Schmeling II fight that he was afraid he might kill Max, and he meant it; Tyson said that he tried to drive the nose into the opponent's brain. IMO to be a great champion, a fighter has to have a bit of a nasty streak.
Holmes has always troubled me. He was a legit champion, did everything he was supposed to do, fought everyone who was there, etc. But he had the misfortune of following that 1970s era. I also think he tends to give himself a lesser rating by whining about not being respected. The only fighter who could toot his own horn was Ali, and he only got away with it because you could never tell if he was serious or kidding around. At least some people think that Holmes's whining about how he's dissed is one of the reasons he isn't respected. If you have to promote yourself you can't be that good, right?
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