Southpaw Heavyweight Ranked Contenders? 1924-2023

[JAB5239]

Cliff is knowledge and as I remember he opened out of the debate and would not post the photo of the ring magazine ratings that he has. WHY? He settled on I was right on the on line ratings.

Lewis fought 15 ranked Ring magazine ranked men, which is outstanding! Unfortunately for your he also avoid people by dropping a belt avoid Byrd, a re-match vs VK, and did not fight any southpaws, I say by choice! All facts.

I don't have much time for you, fool. Be gone.

You say Lewis avoided people by dropping belts, yet he fought better people in place of them. Vits did the opposite. He held his WBC trinket and fought lesser fighters. You keep harping on Lewis not fighting a Southpaw, yet there were far less top 10 southpaws to fight than there were other eastern european contenders that Vits never fought. Come on man, Lewis fought a much better resume of fighters, it isn't even debatable.

[Dr. Z]

You say Lewis avoided people by dropping belts, yet he fought better people in place of them. Vits did the opposite. He held his WBC trinket and fought lesser fighters. You keep harping on Lewis not fighting a Southpaw, yet there were far less top 10 southpaws to fight than there were other eastern european contenders that Vits never fought. Come on man, Lewis fought a much better resume of fighters, it isn't even debatable.

Better than Mike Grant and a washed up Tyson? Um no, Lewis avoided Bryd and Ruiz who were cleanly better than those two at the time. VK fought southpaws, Lewis did not.

And Lewis ducked the re-match with VK.

This thread is not about who fought better fighters, but who avoided raked contenders by guys calling him out, and to a lesser degree avoiding southpaws.

[JAB5239]

Better than Mike Grant and a washed up Tyson? Um no, Lewis avoided Bryd and Ruiz who were cleanly better than those two at the time. VK fought southpaws, Lewis did not.

And Lewis ducked the re-match with VK.

This thread is not about who fought better fighters, but who avoided raked contenders by guys calling him out, and to a lesser degree avoiding southpaws.

Grant and Tyson were both rated in the top 3 of the Ring's ratings. Far more impressive than Vits WBC defenses. You keep talking about southpaws. Did Lewis avoid more southpaws, or Vits more top 10 eastern european fighters? Hmmmm. And lastly my friend, Lewis was under no obligation to rematch Vits. He won. Vits lost to Byrd and never tried to rematch. Why is that ok for him when he lost but not Lewis when he won?

[Ivich]

Better than Mike Grant and a washed up Tyson? Um no, Lewis avoided Bryd and Ruiz who were cleanly better than those two at the time. VK fought southpaws, Lewis did not.

And Lewis ducked the re-match with VK.

This thread is not about who fought better fighters, but who avoided raked contenders by guys calling him out, and to a lesser degree avoiding southpaws.

Grant was the number 1 contender!
Tyson was the number 1 contender!
Vitali was no4
Tua was no5
Ruddock was number 4
Tucker was number 5
Lewis fought 6 men who held the world title.

How many number 1 contenders did Vitali fight?

[Dr. Z]

Grant and Tyson were both rated in the top 3 of the Ring's ratings. Far more impressive than Vits WBC defenses. You keep talking about southpaws. Did Lewis avoid more southpaws, or Vits more top 10 eastern european fighters? Hmmmm. And lastly my friend, Lewis was under no obligation to rematch Vits. He won. Vits lost to Byrd and never tried to rematch. Why is that ok for him when he lost but not Lewis when he won?

You don't know the particulars of the conversation between VK and Byrd. But Lewis said re-match VK several times. Why did it happen my friend?

Vk fought all type of fighters. Southpaws, defensive specialists , movers, punchers, Eastern Europeans ( one was ranked ), African Americans, Latinos, etc... He did fight any asian men! At least he did not in pro boxing. None were ranked, but he did fight one in pro kick boxing. It was for a title.

Lewis never gave ANY re-matches to guys that game him tough fights ( Burns, Mercer, Klitschko ) in a win, but gladly re-matched the guys he lost to.

[Ivich]

You don't know the particulars of the conversation between VK and Byrd. But Lewis said re-match VK several times. Why did it happen my friend?

Vk fought all type of fighters. Southpaws, defensive specialists , movers, punchers, Eastern Europeans ( one was ranked ), African Americans, Latinos, etc... He did fight any asian men! At least he did not in pro boxing. None were ranked, but he did fight one in pro kick boxing. It was for a title.

Lewis never gave ANY re-matches to guys that game him tough fights ( Burns, Mercer, Klitschko ) in a win, but gladly re-matched the guys he lost to.

He re matched the 2 men that beat him!

[Dr. Z]

Grant was the number 1 contender!
Tyson was the number 1 contender!
Vitali was no4
Tua was no5
Ruddock was number 4
Tucker was number 5
Lewis fought 6 men who held the world title.

How many number 1 contenders did Vitali fight?

You keep switching the record to points I made. How may #1 were there for Vitali to fight? He could not fight his himself or his brother.. VK did not fight Tyson because Williams TKO'd him!

[JAB5239]

You don't know the particulars of the conversation between VK and Byrd. But Lewis said re-match VK several times. Why did it happen my friend?

Vk fought all type of fighters. Southpaws, defensive specialists , movers, punchers, Eastern Europeans ( one was ranked ), African Americans, Latinos, etc... He did fight any asian men! At least he did not in pro boxing. None were ranked, but he did fight one in pro kick boxing. It was for a title.

Lewis never gave ANY re-matches to guys that game him tough fights ( Burns, Mercer, Klitschko ) in a win, but gladly re-matched the guys he lost to.

Vits said after the fight he would be back to get his WBO title. It never happened. Lewis had already said he was retiring one more fight after Jonson with either Jones or Vits. He got Vits and won, and had no obligation to rematch him. I suppose I have to give you Adamek for Vits EE fighters. To bad he avoided the rest of them. His resume is still lousy, especially co.pared to someone such as Lennox Lewis. And as Ivich has pointed out, Lennox did rematch the two men who beat him.

[JAB5239]

You keep switching the record to points I made. How may #1 were there for Vitali to fight? He could not fight his himself or his brother.. VK did not fight Tyson because Williams TKO'd him!

He didn't fight Botstov, Chageav, Ibragimov, Valuev, Dimitrenko and 23 other top ten rated fighters and instead fought guys like Charr, Sosnowski, Briggs, Chisora.

[Anthony342]

Vits was winning the fight, but the rounds were closer than the scores indicated. Byrd back up the much larger Vitaly many times during the fight and made him miss regularly. Given all all Klitschko’s advantages he only landed 8 more punches the entire fight. It was no walkover, and at the end of the day he still lost.

So then the reason why Vitali didn't want a rematch would be because he thought the faster Byrd would beat a much older Vits by then, I guess.