Quote Originally Posted by Mr140 View Post
Lennox was landing pretty well in last few rounds of the fight did not go very long. 38 is fucking old dude not prime or close to it name a top guy not named the Klitschko that is good who is 38 dude. I am biased how funny that is coming from you dude Wald is your fucking god man i said he was top 10 were is my biases at. There was no passing of the torch so to say for this division at least Tyson knocked the champs out before him. Also say what you want about Larry but he beat Mercer and McCall but was robbed. Fact is there was no torch passed because Vitali failed and at his age Lewis does not owe jack shit. Wald the champ now lost fucking Purty garbage fighter and Sanders who was a contender went off to golf after owning Wald then Brewster who was out boxed sub par guys knocks out Wald then lose to a guy who got his ass knocked out of the ring by fucking Briggs yea there way ahead of there time. Vaule being a champ is a joke in it self and if you scored that fight for anyone not named Holyfeild do not know what to say because Holyfeild landed more accurate shots and doge every thing that was thrown at him.
Yeah Lennox was landing pretty well in the last couple of rounds, but nothing at all significant in the first few.

It's almost too stupid to point out, but possibly the most serious front to all Lennox afficinados with regards to TKO6 is that it stands to reason that the debilitating performance of Vitali in those later rounds is obviously attributed to the worsening injuries he was sustaining to his face. The fact he managed to maintain parity with Lewis with half a face in those rounds is testament to how much better he could have smashed LEnnox had he not been cut. And I don't think anybody could seriously argue that Vitali would be cut again in the rematch.

So it comes back to the cuts. You can see clearly how they occurred, because Vitali was pushing it on Lewis so furiously, LEnnox was swiping like a wild jungle cat without any recourse to technique as he was overwhelmed. Fortunately these slashing shots from Lennox managed to slice VK open. It's boxing. Vitali has to wear that loss. Just as he has to wear the Byrd loss. But it's also obvious these are un-conventional and in-conclusive stoppages which in no way prove LEnnox or Byrd's worth over Vitali at time of bout.

Both Klitschko's were good at 38. Lennox Lewis was good at 38 (he destroyed Tyson and Rahman 1-2 years earlier. Rahman being his very best performance. A 38 yr old Holyfield was a top competitor. Larry Holmes and George Foreman were top competitors in their 40's and had some of their best wins at this time. Bernard Hopkins just retired at age 50. Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pac are still the best in their eras at this age too. And so on...

38 is not old for a fighter. Take the average 20 year old, put him against the average 38 year old boxer down any gym and the older bloke usually beats them up due to strength and experience. Obviously!

The main elements that are prime in the 20's are speed and athleticism. Strength, stamina, weight, power, ring IQ and experience are all much later.

What is generally referred to as PRIME, the athletic prime, occurs near the beginning of a boxers pro career. The REAL prime occurs much later when the most attrinbutes combine together to produce the ost formidable boxer. In my opinion this is at about 35 on average. Later for long range technical boxers.

Torch passing is a purely OTNB argument, same with ATG, HOF, number of world title wins etc etc. I deal with only objective analysis, so I'll simply hand wave that one.

Wladimir bashed the crap out of Puritty who only survived because of an iron chin. Wlad gassed because he was still green, despite 20 fights, most of them had been early round KO's, he'd never even been in those rounds before and learned the hard way that a giant boxer must pace himself. Puritty's experience also played a huge factor here and he had the punching power to exploit the exhausted Wlad.

Brewster was a similar situation but involved a serious medical condition so wasn't even really legitimate, despite being almost in a coma, he still managed to one sidedly bash Brewster until the very end.

Sanders got Wladimir, Sanders was extremely dangerous vs any boxer in the first rounds. Clearly Wladimir underestimated Sanders and didn't treat him seriously, almost exactly the same as LEnnox with McCall. Except close inspection reveals there was a massive sandwich headbutt punch which initiated the entire thing.

Where are the corresponding issues with LEnnox's losses? Or Larry's losses? Or Muhammad's losses?

These guys were all outboxed. Wladimir was never outboxed, even in the fights that he LOST! Same with Vitali! The Klitschko's HAVE NEVER BEEN OUTBOXED! (Unless you want to call the Sander's incident outboxing strictly). It's plainly obvious that Wladimir is much better than any of his conquerers, as was LEnnox.

Mentioning Puritty as a bum is a valid point, but that was one very big, tough, strong, powerful and experienced bum. Conversely you overlook that Muhammad Ali lost to 2 CRUISERWEIGHT BUMS! Jimmy Young and LEon Spinks, who were utter fetherfists. Puritty had a punchers chance, these guys could not punch through the surface tension of water. They simply outboxed Muhammad Ali.

Mike Tyson lost to another featherfist bum in Buster Douglas.

It is understandable how one can lose a fluke to a bummy puncher. But not understandable how a great boxer can lose to a bum by being outboxed unless they weren't as great as you thought they were.

Valuev is one of the slowest boxers of all time and awkward due to his weight with only limited skillset. That's a given. Although his competition is not great, he still went 50-2 and was never stopped. His enormous SIZE obviously COMPENSATES for many things and Valuev would obviously be a major factor in any era because of it!