Lennox Lewis
Lennox Lewis | |
|---|---|
| File:LennoxLewisPromot.jpg | |
| Born | Lennox Claudius Lewis September 2, 1965 |
| Nationality |  British &  Canadian |
| Other names | The Lion |
| Statistics | |
| Weight(s) | Heavyweight |
| Stance | Orthodox |
| Boxing record | |
| Total fights | 44 |
| Wins | 41 |
| Wins by KO | 32 |
| Losses | 2 |
| Draws | 1 |
| No contests | 0 |
Lennox Claudius Lewis (born September 2 1965 in West Ham, London, England) is a retired professional boxer, who represented Canada in the Olympics and fought under the British flag as a professional. He is a former undisputed heavyweight champion. Along with Muhammad Ali and Evander Holyfield, Lewis is one of three boxers in heavyweight history to have won the Heavyweight Championship on three separate occasions. Lewis is 6 ft 5 in or 196 cm tall and sports a phenomenal 84 inch reach, much longer than average for his height. During his boxing prime he weighed 247 lb, which is 112 kg. Lewis often referred to himself as "the pugilist specialist".
Biography
Early life
Lewis was born in West Ham, London in 1965 to Jamaican born parents,[1] and moved to Kitchener, Ontario, Canada in 1977 at the age of 12, where he attended Cameron Heights Collegiate Institute for High School, and excelled in the sports of football and basketball in high school; he eventually decided that his favourite sport was boxing. Future events proved he was quite skilled as well, as he became a dominant amateur boxer and won the world amateur junior title in 1982.
Two years later, Lewis represented Canada as a super-heavyweight in the 1984 Summer Olympics held in Los Angeles. He advanced to the quarterfinals, where he lost a controversial decision to American Tyrell Biggs and settled for a fifth-place finish.
Surprisingly, Lewis chose not to turn professional after the Olympics, and instead fought four more years as an amateur, hoping for a second chance to win a gold medal. After winning several more amateur titles over those years, he travelled to Seoul, South Korea for the 1988 Summer Olympics and achieved his goal. In the gold medal match, Lewis defeated future world champion Riddick Bowe by a second-round technical knockout.
Having achieved one goal, Lewis now declared himself a professional boxer and moved back to England, where boxing had a significantly higher profile than in hockey-mad Canada. The early part of his pro career was filled with knockouts of journeymen, and he quickly shot up the world rankings.
Professional boxing career
Lewis captured the European heavyweight title late in 1990, added the British heavyweight title in March 1991 and the Commonwealth title in April 1992. By this time, Lewis was a consensus top-five heavyweight in the world.
On October 31 1992, Lewis knocked out Canada's hard-punching Donovan "Razor" Ruddock in two rounds for the No. 1 contender's position in the WBC world rankings. But ultimately, the victory won Lewis even more than that. After Bowe, who had become world heavyweight champion by upsetting Evander Holyfield, refused to fight Lewis as he had vowed before the Holyfield-bout, his WBC title was declared vacant. On January 14 1993, the WBC declared Lewis its champion. He thus became the first world heavyweight titleholder from Britain in the 20th century.
Lewis successfully defended the belt three times against Tony Tucker who was decked for the first time in his career, Phil Jackson (boxer) and Frank Bruno before he suffered a controversial knockout loss at the hands of Oliver McCall on September 24 1994, he was up at 8 signalling to the referee that he wanted to continue but the Mexican waved it off.
He received a chance to fight for the mandatory position of the WBC and won it by knocking out contender Lionel Butler in the US. But the WBC chose to bypass him and give Tyson the first shot at the title that had changed hands to former Lewis and Tyson-victim Frank Bruno.
While he had the No. 1 contender's slot in the WBC rankings he defeated Olympic gold medallist Ray Mercer and contender Tommy Morrison on the road, but agreed to stand back in exchange for a multi-million dollar payoff by promoter Don King, who wanted his fighter, Mike Tyson to unify with Bruce Seldon's WBA title. After doing that Tyson refused to defend against Lewis, the WBC title was declared vacant, setting up a rematch between Lewis and McCall who squared off on February 7 1997 in Las Vegas. In one of the most bizarre fights ever seen, McCall refused to fight in the fourth and fifth rounds, beginning to cry and eventually forcing the referee to stop the fight and award Lewis the victory.
On March 28 1998, Lewis retained the WBC world title when he knocked out linear champion Shannon Briggs in five rounds. He had also retained the title this time against former WBO world champion Henry Akinwande, who was disqualified after five rounds for constantly clinching Lewis. He then went up against Andrew Golota, whom he knocked out in the first, and against undefeated European champion Željko Mavrović, beaten by a twelve round unanimous decision.
Years as Undisputed Champion
On March 13 1999, Lewis faced WBA and IBF titlist Holyfield in New York City in what was supposed to be a heavyweight unification bout. Although most observers believed Lewis had won the fight, the bout was declared a draw, to much controversy. Eight months later in Las Vegas, the two men fought again and Lewis won a close, but unanimous decision.
Lewis later dropped the WBA and IBF titles in disputes (Lewis refused to fight the WBA's number 1 challenger, John Ruiz). He successfully defended his title three times: knocking out Michael Grant in two rounds, knocking out Francois Botha in two, and winning a twelve round decision against David Tua. However, on April 21 2001, Lewis was knocked out again, this time by 14-to-1 underdog Hasim Rahman in a bout in South Africa. He would, while promoting the fight with Rahman on ESPN's UPCLOSE, get into a brawl similar to the one that Muhammed Ali got in with Joe Frazier in front of Howard Cosell on Wide World of Sports. The loss, coupled with Lewis' earlier KO loss to McCall, led many ringside observers to question Lewis' chin. Lewis regained the title on November 17 by knocking out Hasim Rahman in the fourth round of their rematch. That same year, he had a role in the film Ocean's Eleven in which he boxed against Wladimir Klitschko.
Lewis vs. Tyson
On June 8 2002, Lewis defended his title against Tyson. A fight many had hoped would turn out to be one of the classics in fact turned out to be very one-sided as Lennox used his jab and superior reach to record a dominant victory over a very faded "Iron Mike". By the eighth round Tyson was looking tired and sluggish, his face swollen and his eyes cut. As he came out for the round his corner begged him to give them one more round of solid effort seemingly in a desperate, last ditch attempt to get him to ko Lewis. However it was Tyson who was ko'd by a perfectly timed right hand that sent him to the canvas for the full count.
This fight was the highest-grossing event in pay-per-view history, generating $103 million from 1.8 million buys in the USA. It was a joint distribution by both HBO and Showtime networks. The fight was also the second most-watched PPV event. Only Tyson's 1997 rematch with Evander Holyfield did better with 1.99 million buys. But because that fight cost $49.95 and Lewis-Tyson was priced at $54.95, Lewis-Tyson generated more revenue.
Ticket sales were slow because they were priced as high as $2,400, but a crowd of 15,327 turned up to see the biggest sporting event ever in the city of Memphis, Tennessee. Tyson also had to pay Lewis $335,000 out of his purse for biting him at the news conference to announce the fight, which was originally scheduled for April 6 2002 in Las Vegas. Las Vegas, however, rejected the fight and several other states refused Tyson a license before Memphis finally bid $12 million to land it.
Lewis vs. Klitschko
In May 2003, Lewis sued King for $385 million, claiming that King used threats to have Tyson pull out of a rematch scheduled with Lewis for a month later. Lewis then scheduled a fight with Kirk Johnson for the championship belt of the less-recognized IBO, but dropped it when Johnson suffered an injury in training. Instead, Lewis fought Vitali Klitschko, the WBC's No. 1 contender and former WBO titlist. Lewis had planned to fight him in December, but since Klitschko had been on the undercard of the Johnson fight anyway, they agreed to square off on June 21. With Lewis weighing in at a career high 256 lbs, Klitschko was slighty ahead on all three scorecards after six rounds, however the ringside doctor stopped the fight before round seven due to a severe cut above Klitschko's left eye and Lewis was awarded the win by TKO. The likely winner of this fight had it continued has been a subject of popular debate since.
Hanging Up the Gloves
Because Klitschko had fought so well against Lewis, boxing fans soon began calling for a rematch. The WBC agreed, and kept the Ukrainian as its No. 1 contender. Lewis was evasive about fighting Klitschko a second time and ultimately decided to pursue other interests, including sports management and music promotion. On February 6, 2004, in a press conference held in London, Lewis became the first reigning lineal heavyweight titlist to relinquish the title since Rocky Marciano in 1956. Lewis said he will not return to the ring. At his retirement, Lewis' record was 41 wins, 2 losses and 1 draw, with 32 wins by knockout.
Amateur Highlights
- Record: 94-11
- 1983 Junior World Super Heavyweight Champion
- Represented Canada as a Super Heavyweight at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. Results were:
- Defeated Mohammad Youssuf (Pakistan) TKO 3
- Lost to Tyrell Biggs (United States) points
- 1985 Silver Medalist at World Cup competition.
- 1986 Super Heavyweight Gold Medalist at Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh, Scotland
- 1987 Super Heavyweight Silver Medalist at Pan-American Games in Indianapolis. Lost to Jorge Luis Gonzalez of Cuba in the final.
- 1987 Won the North American Super Heavyweight championship competition, defeating Jorge Luis Gonzalez
- Won the Super Heavyweight Gold medal for Canada at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, South Korea. Results were:
- Defeated Chrispine Odera (Kenya) TKO 2
- Defeated Ulli Kaden (East Germany) TKO 1
- Defeated Jasz Zarenkiewicz (Poland) forfeit
- Defeated Riddick Bowe (United States) TKO 2
Life outside the ring
Outside the boxing ring, on August 29 1992, Lewis participated in WWF SummerSlam 1992 at Wembley Stadium, London, hoisting the Union Jack to lead the late British Bulldog to the ring for his Intercontinental Championship fight against his brother-in-law and then-current champ Bret "Hitman" Hart. British Bulldog, a native of Wigan, won the fight and the title in front of his homeland crowd.
1995, documentary made about Lewis's life by director Pogus Caesar for Carlton Television. Part of the 'Respect' series focussing on black sports personalities.
In 1995, Lewis founded the Lennox Lewis College in Hackney, East London. The college offered vocational courses for boys aged 14 to 20 who had been excluded from other schools, had a record of persistent truancy, had got into trouble with the law or were in danger of doing so. However, the college encountered financial difficulties and relied heavily upon contributions - running into millions of pounds - from Lewis and and his business manager Panos Eliades. Despite a rescue plan by Hackney Council and Waltham Forest College in January 1998, with the aim of reducing the college's reliance on personal donations, the Lennox Lewis College was forced to close down.
In 1999, Lewis became the BBC Sports Personality of the Year.
In 2001, Lennox was featured in the film Ocean's Eleven, boxing against Wladimir Klitschko.
In 2002, Lennox had a son, Landon Lewis.
In 2003 Lewis was heavily rumored to fight Brock Lesnar in a WWE pay per view event. It was supposed to be a Champion vs Champion shoot fight which all was pushed by Vince Mcmahon but it has been said that Lewis backed out in the last minute.
Lewis married his longtime girlfriend, Violet Chang, in July of 2005. Lewis enjoys chess in his spare time. He purportedly offered to challenge Vitali Klitschko (also a chess player) in a doubleheader chess match followed by a boxing match.
Lennox acted in his first film (he played himself in Ocean's Eleven) in the 2006 Ben Katz Productions [1] release of Johnny Was. He plays a Rastafarian Pirate Radio DJ in Brixton.
Lewis is a devoted supporter of West Ham United F.C.
He is also a regular guest commentator on HBO boxing matches.
In 2006, Lennox played in the Main Event at the 2006 World Series of Poker but was eliminated on day one.
See also
- List of heavyweight boxing champions
- List of male boxers
- List of WBC world champions
- Featured Athlete on Fox Sports Net's Beyond the Glory
External links
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- ^ The Lennox Lewis interview. Playboy online. April 2002. Accessed 6 October 2006
- 1965 births
- Living people
- BBC Sports Personality of the Year winners
- Black Canadians
- Boxers at the 1984 Summer Olympics
- Boxers at the 1988 Summer Olympics
- Canadian athletes at the 1984 Summer Olympics
- Canadian athletes at the 1988 Summer Olympics
- Canadian boxers
- English boxers
- English immigrants to Canada
- Heavyweights
- Jamaican Canadians
- Olympic gold medalists for Canada
- Ontario sportspeople
- People from Kitchener
- People from London
- People of Jamaican heritage
- Professional wrestling managers and valets
- World Heavyweight Champions
- WBA Champions