Lennox Claudius Lewis CM, CBE (born September 2, 1965 in West Ham, London, England) is a retired British/Canadian professional boxer. Despite representing Canada at the Olympics and Commonwealth Games, he fought under the British flag as a professional. He is a former undisputed lineal heavyweight champion. Along with Muhammad Ali and Evander Holyfield, Lewis is one of three boxers in history to have won the heavyweight championship three times. Lewis is 195cm (6 ft 5 in) tall and has an 84-in reach, much longer than average for his height. During his boxing prime, he weighed 112kg (247lb). Lewis often referred to himself as “the pugilist specialist”.

Early life

Lewis was born in West Ham, London in 1965 to Jamaican born parents,[2] and moved to Kitchener, Ontario, Canada in 1977 at the age of 12. He attended Cameron Heights Collegiate Institute for high school, where he excelled in the sports of Canadian football, soccer and basketball.[3] He eventually decided that his favourite sport was boxing. He became a dominant amateur boxer and won the world amateur junior title in 1983.

The next year, Lewis represented Canada as a Super Heavyweight in the 1984 Summer Olympics held in Los Angeles. He advanced to the quarter-finals, where he lost a controversial decision to American Tyrell Biggs and settled for a fifth-place finish.

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 during 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 that goal, Lewis declared himself a professional boxer and moved back to England, where boxing had a significantly higher profile than in Canada. The early part of his pro career was filled with knock outs of journeymen, and he quickly rose in 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, Bowe’s WBC title was declared vacant. On January 14, 1993, the WBC declared Lewis its champion, making him the first world heavyweight titleholder from Britain in the 20th century.

Lewis successfully defended the belt three times, defeating Tony Tucker, who was decked for the first time in his career, Phil Jackson and Frank Bruno before he suffered a technical knock-out loss at the hands of Oliver McCall on September 24, 1994. In the second round, McCall connected with a powerful right hand to the chin, putting Lewis down on his back. Lewis was up at the count of six, signalling that he wanted to continue, but the referee felt he was dazed and ended the fight. Lewis and others argued that the stoppage was premature and that a champion should be given the benefit of the doubt.

He received a chance to fight for the mandatory challenger position within the WBC and won it by knocking out contender Lionel Butler in the U.S. However, the WBC chose to bypass him and give Mike Tyson the first shot at the title that had recently been won by Frank Bruno. Bruno had previously lost to both Lewis and Tyson.

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 aside in exchange for a multi-million dollar payoff by promoter Don King, who wanted his fighter, Mike Tyson, to unify the titles by taking Bruce Seldon’s WBA version. After Tyson’s win, however, he [Tyson] refused to defend against Lewis, and the WBC title was declared vacant. This set up a rematch between Lewis and McCall, who squared off on February 7, 1997 in Las Vegas. In one of the strangest fights ever, McCall refused to box in the fourth and fifth rounds and actually began to cry in the ring, 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 lineal champion Shannon Briggs in five rounds (Briggs had recently outpointed George Foreman to win the lineal title). Lewis also successfully defended against former WBO world champion Henry Akinwande, who was disqualified after five rounds for excessive clinching. Lewis then met Andrew Golota, whom he knocked out in the first round, and beat formerly-undefeated European champion Željko Mavrović in a 12-round unanimous decision. Lewis stated in 2006 that his fight with Mavrovic was the toughest of his career.

Years as Undisputed Champion

On March 13, 1999, Lewis faced WBA and IBF title holder Evander 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 (November 13, 1999), 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 12-round decision against David Tua.

However, on April 21, 2001, Lewis was knocked out by 15-to-1 underdog Hasim Rahman in a bout in South Africa. The loss, coupled with Lewis’ earlier TKO loss to McCall, led many ringside observers to question Lewis’ heart and chin. Prior to the bout, Lewis had a role in the film Ocean’s Eleven in which he “boxed” against Wladimir Klitschko, and many feel that the distraction and disrupted training schedule contributed significantly to his loss.

While promoting the rematch with Rahman on ESPN’s Up Close, the fighters got into a brawl similar to the one between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier in front of Howard Cosell on Wide World of Sports. Many felt the brawl was staged to promote the fight, so the reality of the episode is still a matter of debate. Lewis regained the title on November 17 by knocking out Hasim Rahman in the fourth round of their rematch.

On June 8, 2002, Lewis defended his title against Mike Tyson. A fight many had hoped would be a classic turned out to be one-sided as Lennox used his jab and superior reach to score a dominant knockout victory over “Iron Mike”. By the eighth round, Tyson was 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 knocked out 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 $106.9 million from 1.95 million buys in the USA, until it was surpassed by De La Hoya-Mayweather in 2007.

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 boxing promoter Don 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. Lewis entered the ring at a career high 256 1/2 pounds. For the first time in his professional career, Lewis was physically dominated. From the opening bell, he was often shoved around the ring, a technique he frequently employed against smaller heavyweights.[citation needed] Lewis was dominated for much of the fight, being wobbled in round two. However, Lewis gave a better showing in the fifth and sixth rounds, and appeared to have Klitschko on the verge of going down after two uppercuts in the sixth round. Before the start of round seven, with Klitschko ahead on all three ringside scorecards, the doctor advised that the fight should be stopped due to a severe cut above Klitschko’s left eye.

Interviewed about the fight by HBO, the doctor explained his decision: “”When he raised his head up, his upper eyelid covered his field of vision,” doctor Paul Wallace said. “At that point I had no other option but to stop the fight. If he had to move his head to see me, there was no way he could defend his way against a punch.”

As Larry Merchant interviewed Lennox post-fight, the first question he was asked was, “You dismissed his boxing skills, and that he was a threat. What do you think of him now?” Lennox wouldn’t admit to being challenged and hurt a few times in the fight, even to the point of taking the microphone away from Merchant and acting as if everything was going his way.

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 decided to pursue other interests, including sports management and music promotion. 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. Though it was rumoured in an article published by the Daily Mail on the 24 February that he would return to fight Klitschko once again, Lewis quickly shot down those rumours on his personal website. He announced once again, on March 4, 2007 (after the Edison Miranda vs. Allen Green fight), that he was not coming out of retirement. He said he was putting on weight and that “You’ve never seen a skinny King”.
Along with Gene Tunney and Rocky Marciano he is one of three world heavyweight champions to have retired with no unavenged defeats.

Lewis is now a boxing commentator on HBO. He also appeared recently in the film Johnny Was as the DJ of a pirate radio station, alongside actors such as Vinnie Jones and Eriq La Salle.
Lewis appeared in the 2007 world series of poker and was knocked out without winning any money.
Lewis appeared on NBC’s Celebrity Apprentice in 2008. He came in fourth place.

Personal Life

Upon retiring from boxing, Lewis moved to Miami Beach with his wife, Violet, a former Miss Jamaica runner-up. The couple has a daughter named Ling, and a son, Landon. Lewis told AventuraUSA.com in 2007 that he is contemplating opening an “international boxing academy” and perhaps one day starting a record label, but contrary to rumours, he has yet to embark on either endeavour.