A Boxing Memory: Lewis vs Tyson

A Boxing Memory: Lewis vs. Tyson

Boxing history is littered with fights that didn’t happen, or when they did, they happened too late to matter. A pale imitation of what they could have been. Add Lennox Lewis and Mike Tyson to the seemingly never-ending list of stories of when boxing failed itself.

Early sparring sessions in the 80s planted the seed. Tyson looking to knock out the young world amateur junior champion. Lewis learned that several days later. Lewis claimed he was holding his own in the Catskill week-long sparring sessions. Lewis said Tyson was cold to him in those early exchanges outside of the gym wars. By 2002, when the two were scheduled to square off for real, the temperature dropped much further. There were pre-fight scuffles, bites, and Tyson threatening to eat Lewis’s children. Tyson, by that stage of his career, had developed quite the appetite. But it wasn’t for boxing.

Even when Tyson stopped ‘The Truth’ inside a round in 1989, a different kind of truth would soon hit a fighter whose life was quickly spiralling out of control. A toxic marriage, a life on the edge, he would soon come crashing off it. James ‘Buster’ Douglas ended the aura of invincibility in 1990. He never got it back.

By 2002, Tyson had been convicted of rape, and when he returned from his incarceration, his decline was largely evident. After four years away, Tyson beat a couple of carefully selected opponents before he beat a reluctant Frank Bruno to regain a portion of the world heavyweight title in 1996. A win over an even more reluctant Bruce Seldon proved nothing. But when Evander Holyfield beat Tyson twice, nothing could disguise the obvious. Tyson unravelled in plain sight, took a chunk out of Holyfield’s ear, served a ban and carried on with little love for his craft, only a need to bolster his flagging finances, kept Tyson in the game. A European tour and further controversy followed before the Holyfield defeats were far enough in the rearview mirror for Tyson to be matched with Lennox Lewis for various versions of the heavyweight championship of the world.

Lewis had remembered those early punches exchanged with Tyson. For Lewis, it was the fight he always wanted and the one he felt his career needed. Beating Tyson wouldn’t mean as much as it once did, but it still meant plenty for Lewis, who had spent most of his career trying to convince a doubting public. Lewis had to work harder than most to win over the masses. Even in 2002, he was still fighting that battle. Lewis was only a marginal favourite to beat a badly faded Tyson.

A pre-fight promotional press conference in New York ended in chaos and more. Tyson admitted in his autobiography that he was high on coke and that he lost his mind when Lewis was announced. WBC President Jose Sulaiman said he was knocked out and sued both fighters. Lewis and Tyson ended up brawling on the floor, Tyson again reigniting his desire for human flesh, taking a chunk out of Lewis’s thigh. Tyson was fined for that latest brush with the unsavoury and also spat out obscenities at a reporter who he overheard saying Tyson should be in a straitjacket. When the likes of Las Vegas and New York declined to stage the bout, it finally settled in Memphis. The good, the bad, and the ugly generated enough interest to make it the highest-grossing PPV event in history at that time.

With both Michael Buffer and Jimmy Lennon Jr. on microphone duties and an army of security keeping the two fighters apart in the ring while the tiresome pre-fight rituals ran their course. The whole evening had the ring of the circus about it. The fight had come too late in the day for Tyson, who was an ancient 35 by the time he shared a ring with Lewis. The old champion won the opening round, but little else. One last reminder of the rampaging ferocious fighter of old. Winning the round wasn’t enough. He needed more. Much more. The next three minutes were competitive. The remainder of the fight, anything but. Tyson survived until the 8th, and trust me, survival was exactly what it was.

It really should have been the end for both. In many ways, it was. Tyson won a comeback fight in 49 seconds but lost his final two fights to Danny Williams and Kevin McBride, and in 2005, his career was finally over. In truth, it had been since Tokyo, if not before.

Lewis was 36 when he finally got Tyson in the ring. But he had preserved his body, Tyson had abused his. Lewis was also in decline, but he had enough left to finally get the name of Tyson on his resume. But when he had a life-and-death struggle with Vitali Klitschko in 2003, Lewis knew his time had come. He took his time but eventually announced his retirement and left the sport with a little more dignity than his old rival.