Carl Froch has named Lennox Lewis as the greatest British boxer of all time — and pointedly refused to hand himself the crown. Speaking on his YouTube channel, the former super-middleweight world champion placed Lewis narrowly ahead of Joe Calzaghe, leaving his own name out of the very top bracket entirely.
Froch, a Hall of Famer who beat the likes of Mikkel Kessler, Lucian Bute and Jermain Taylor, conceded he does not belong in the conversation for outright British supremacy. Instead he framed it as a two-horse race between Lewis and Calzaghe — and admitted it was tight.
“I can’t take Lennox Lewis’ crown. [Calzaghe makes it] very, very tight, even closer than [between] Lewis and myself, but I’ll still give that one to Lennox Lewis,” Froch said, as reported by Boxing News Online.
Why Carl Froch gives it to Lewis
The case is built on résumés. Calzaghe retired 46-0 in 2008 with a record 21 consecutive super-middleweight title defences, beating an unbeaten Kessler and knockout artist Jeff Lacy before outpointing Bernard Hopkins and Roy Jones Jr at light-heavyweight. Lennox Lewis, though, holds arguably the single most valuable scalp of the lot: dethroning Evander Holyfield for the undisputed heavyweight crown in 1999, either side of avenging shock defeats to Oliver McCall and Hasim Rahman.
It is the kind of debate that never truly ends. But for Froch, the man who beat everyone put in front of him at heavyweight edges the one who did the same at 168 and 175lbs.
