Mike Tyson v Lennox Lewis

you find western boxing exciting!? geeze...you're not to hard to entertain.

 

What can I say?

I'm also fascinated and in love with the exciting sport . . . paddleball!

 

I think the main difference between Naz and Ali was that Ali had more charisma. Just as cocky and arrogant but he was charismatic with it.
And of course Naz is small and small cocky people always seem worse than big cocky people.

The single best round of fighting (of any kind) I've ever seen is the first round of Hagler v Hearns. I can't even describe it...just watch it.
Like anything some boxing is bland but others not. Depends who's fighting and how.

 

I sometimes watch boxing (on TV), but sit there in fascinated horror.
Basically there are people consentually committing GBH to each other in the knowledge that they'll have brain damage later in life.

Tyson in his day was mind bogglingly awesome, and nobody wanted to take him on.
Comparing him in his waning years after the abuse, jail, and so-on is just a waste of time.
He came back for money, but he was well past his best then.
Sure Lewis beat him, but he was only half the fighter he had been.

Ali was one of the greatest sportsmen ever and also had the gift of the gab.
His speed and fitness was amazing (back then in the days of 15 rounds!).

IMHO the best fight ever was Marvin Hagler vs Sugar Ray Leonard (I was in Vegas the week after).

One of the best times for British boxing was the Eubank/Watson/Benn era.
I think that Eubank and Watson handled the aftermath of that tragic fight amazingly well. (And Eubank never really hit anybody again properly after.)

 

Ali says in his autobiography that the so-called middle class upbringing he had did not come until his fighting earnings allowed him to buy his parents a better place, but your right Joe Frazier the son of sharecrapper did grow up in greater state of poverty than Ali. I think the race traitor bit was brought on my some of Frazier's own actions though. Being that there was a national movement in America at the time with blacks not only trying to attain equal status under the law as whites but also improve their personal image of self. Ali by shedding what he called his "slave name" was making an attempt at doing this. Frazier on several tv appearances repeatedly called him Clay which made some blacks look at him at being against a movement Ali was becoming synonymus with. But you make a point one in which I have heard before, although I think it was an attempt by Ali to get in Frazier's head, calling him a gorilla was way out of line.

But did you know that after the fight they wanted to interview Ali in the dressing room but he had heard Wallace Frazier (Joe's son) was angry with him. He refused to do any interviews after the one in the ring until he spoke to him. He apologized to Wallace for calling his father a gorilla and said he did respect him. Even 20 years later at award ceremony Ali recieved an award but could not attend, he had however prepared a speech that a representative read for him and the speech in large was a tribute to Frazier. I know this may sound crazy but I don't think the "gorilla comment" was meant to be the level of disrespect that many people think that it was.

 

But back to Tyson v Lewis. I grew up watching Tyson and his power and raw abilities were awesome. On a purely physical note Tyson was gifted and had a lot of natural attributes which contributed to him being a good fighter. He was naturally strong and had a good solid build to begin with. His training was top of the line. Cus Damata, Tedday Atlas, Rooney all of these guys had been training fighters for a long time and had numerous methods to develop a fighter. Early in Tyson's career he was a master of head movement, bobbing and weaving and doing all that was neccessary to get inside his opponent's fighting range. Most people don't give the man his proper credit. Yeah I say that he was blessed with natural physical atributes but I also say that Tyson worked extremely hard to develop his craft. With his height the way he repeatedly got inside his opponent's range was brilliant. Unfortuantely he wasted his talent and youth away. All we can speculate on is what might have been. It isn't unfathonable to think that he could have knocked out Lennox Lewis at one point. I think few would argue that Tyson in his prime could not hit harder than Haseem Rakhman. But that was then. When Tyson fought Lewis I was going for Tyson. Tyson lost because in 2002 Lennox Lewis was by far the superior boxer period.

 

At the time of the fight he was. In 1986, I think Lewis would've lost by decision.

 

Yeah that was a moment of joy. Naseem with all his arrogance and showboating and all that nonsense and Barrera wasn't having any of it... he just plain outboxed him... and handed out a good solid beating in the process.

 

Yes he did . . . it was a beautiful thing.

Especially when he ran Naseems face into the corner in the last round and still won by decision!

 

on an odd footnote... Now Naseem is sitting in jail.