His middle name is Claudius, poor guy

iamasadlittleboy · Joined: 06 Oct 2006 Posts: 4728

His name is Claudius
By Scott Graveson

A lot of things are said about Lennox, most often than not an arguement about whether he's British (as he was born in England, and claims he's British), Canadian (who he represented in the Olympics) or Jamaican (where his family originated from) will ensue from any boxing fan (oddly it's usually the american ones that call him Canadian as they can't believe a Brit beat two of their boxing hero's in Tyson and Holyfield). But I won't go on.

Lennox was born on September 2, 1965 in West Ham, London, England as Lennox Claudius Lewis (can we blame him for hiding the Roman name? Poor guy must have had it ripped out of him for that) and moved to Kitchener, Ontario, Canada when he was 12. Here he excelled at sports including Basketball, Soccer (Football damnit) and Canadian football (which I presume is a bit like rugby for wuss's with pads >_>) as well as boxing which he decided to take up properly.

Canda and the Ama's:
With this in mind he started to dominated the Canadian domestic scene in the early 80's winning the world amateur junior title in 1983 before taking a gold in the commonwealth games (1986) for Canada and then going one better 2 years later in Soeul. What made this more remarkable (on 2 fronts) was at the L.A games in '84 he got to the quarter final before losing a highly disputed fight with American boxer Tyrell Biggs and decided to turn down the alluring money that can come with being a pro-boxer (especially a highly regarded amateur-See cases such as Amir Khan, Audley Harrison, Roy Jones Jr, "Sugar" Ray Leonard and Oscar De La Hoya).
In the '88 games he gained the gold by beating the future heavyweight world champion Riddick Bowe with a second round TKO (Technical Knockout-often used as a term for when a fighter has beaten the count but can't continue).

Then he turned pro and moved back to England (boxing in Canada has always been rather limited for domestic opponents whilst Britian has often has highly publicised boxers). For the first few years Lennox fought mainly journey men trying to work out the ropes in the pro ring.

Now that may seem like a silly thing to say, but pro-and-ama boxing are different "arts" if you will, ama is about point scoring, the rounds are different sizes and often fewer rounds are fought. Fights rarely (not never, but rarely) end in a TKO and the scoring is different. Oh and I almost forgot about the most obvious difference, the helmets worn in the am. game aren't even considered for the professionals except in sparring.

The early fights:
The journeymen Lennox faced include the immortals such as Jorge Alfredo Dascola, Michael Simuwelu and Jean Chanet (yeah I've never heard of either of them since either so don't worry) and domestic rival Gary Mason (for the BBOFC title, i.e. The British title) and putting the only loss on Masons record (who retired two fights later with a 37-1 record, including 34 ko wins).

After the win over Dixon he started to travel to the states regularly (he fought his second pro fight in the states) and went chasing the likes of former world champion Mike Weaver and gaining revenge for the '84 heartache by beating Briggs (TKO-3). Between those two fights he also defended his British title against Glenn Mccrory. After winning the Lonsdale belt outright (defending a british title 3 times means you get to keep it and is an often done part of a brit's boxing career), by defeating Derek Williams in mid '92 he then went hunting bigger names and better fights.

World champion I:
These fights included a fight against Donovan "Razor" Ruddock, a Canadian (one of the few who have made much of themselves at the higher weights, though I'm hoping Bute can be a little bit special at 168). Ruddock was beaten by a 3rd TKO in a WBC title Eliminator (to face the then champion Riddick Bowe). Riddick declared he didn't want to fight Lewis (going as far as to dump the WBC title in to a bin).

His first defence of the WBC title was against Tony "TNT" Tucker who had a record of 49-1 (The only loss coming to Mike Tyson in '87) and had beaten the likes of James Buster Douglas, Orlin Norris and future Lewis opponent Oliver McCall. Tucker went down in the 3rd and 9th but lasted out the fight and lost a unanimous points decision (UD) to Lewis who next went on to face the popular Frank Bruno, stopping Bruno in the 7th round.

Phil Jackson was the next "victim" to Lennox's hard punching style with a TKO in the 8th round before Lennox went back to The Arena, Wembley to face Oliver Mccall.
Mccall to boxing fans is known as the "Atomic Bull" but perhaps shares a distinct relation to George Chavulo and Wayne Maccullogh as the toughest chins in boxing, however this night wasn't a fight in which he was taking the punishment as it only lasted 2 rounds before he connected with a punch on Lennox's chin which dropped him. Despite the counting getting to 9 Lewis was up on his feet when the fight was stopped in what many deem one of the most contreversial stoppages in world boxing (I say one of as theirs none more so than the Chavez-Taylor stoppage which is still being argued about almost 20 years after the fight). Lewis was the first heavyweight to lose his title whilst still on his feet (via TKO not points).

Rebuilding I:
Lewis had a couple of confidence building fights which included a WBC eliminator against Lionel Butler (which seems odd considering he was 20-10 and only really had James "Bonecrusher" Smith on his record), this finished in the 5th via TKO. Justin Fortune fared less well (and had an even worse record) lasting into the 4th round.

World Champion II:
Next came the hard hitting and star of Rocky 5 (In which he played "Tommy Gunn") Tommy "The Duke" Morrisson, who was then the holder of the lightly regarded IBC title. Tommy lasted to the 6th, before the real title chasing started and a potential banana skin of a fight Vs Ray Mercer. The fight against Mercer was arguably the toughest of Lewis' career winning it on the judges cards by an MD (Marjority Decision), the judges cards were:
judge: George Colon 96-94
judge: Luis Rivera 96-95
judge: Melvina Lathan 95-95

Then came the rematch with the "Atomic Bull" for the WBC title, in one of the weirdest fights of all time Mccall broke down in tears during the 3rd round. Spending 2 rounds crying and not throwing anything, basically eating Lewis's punches without even blinking or turning away, and no intention of blocking anything thrown at him. The fight was stopped in the 5th (perhaps a little bit two later) and Lewis regained the WBC title, with the official result being TKO 5.

After a few fights against some of the names of the division such as Henry Akinwande, Andrew Golota and Shannon Briggs (and a guy's name I can never spell so I'm not going to attmept it) he got a fight with Evander Holyfield.

The Holyfield fights:
13th March, 1999 Madison Square Garden, New York, USA the scene was set for a unification fight between the WBC champion (Lewis) and the WBA and IBF title holder Evander Holyfield, the former undisputed Cruiserweight champion. The fight ended up a controversial draw with 1 referee scoring it for each fighter and 1 declaring it evens on the cards.
Exactly 8 months later the rematch was fought in the Thomas & Mack Center, Las Vegas, Nevada, United States, their was also an added incentive for the winner, the IBO title which had been vacated was also on the line in the fight. The fight by many was regarded as being closer than the previous fight but Lewis got a UD to become a unified and undisputed world champion.

He defended against a few named fights such as the KO Machine David Tua, Michael Grant and Francis Botha before facing Hasim Rahman.

Another upset:
Unexpectedly Rahman connected with Lewis' jaw in the 5th and for the first time in Lewis career he was legitamately out for the count, in a fight declared the 2001 Ring upset of the year Rahman had become the undisputed champion of the world...

Champion III:
...However his reign only lasted about 7 months, in the rematch Lewis landed a beautiful combination in the 4th gaining revenge and leaving Rahman on the canvas. He equalled a record only previously done by the The Greatest (Ali) and "The real deal" (Holyfield) by regaining the title 3 times. And his next fight was against the "Baddest man on the planet" the one they called "Iron Mike", who was a very faded version of his 80's demeanor and the one who tore through the 80's heavyweight scene. Tyson ate Lewis punches all day and all night before the fight was stopped in the 8th.
After the fight Lewis gave up the IBF title and faced the Ukrainian Vitali Klitschko, Klitschko had been a late replacement, but was meant to be on the same card (that I seem to remember reading Lewis was promoting himself). The fight that Klitschko was meant to have was to be an eliminator for the title, so the two parties basically agreed that they might as well miss out on the eliminator part of it and just face off.
The early rounds were dominated by Klitschko's hard accurate punches and Lewis looking terrible and off the pace. By some flukey chance (and another contraversial part of Lewis' career) Klitschko's face was busted wide open, whether this was caused legitamately by a punch, or by the strapping on the glove is a somewhat argued moment in Lewis' career, but shouldn't be seen as anything but a moot point.

Retirement:
Realising he was most certainly on the slide, Lewis left the ring and currently works for HBO as a sports caster to help with their boxing shows. Oddly he seems to slip into Jamaican mode whilst doing these telecasts, but if he dropped this then he'd be pretty damn good. He calls the fights fairly and apart from Richie Woodhall is probably the best for honesty that I've heard.

Summary: A view at Lennox Lewis' boxing career

Martin · Posted: November 16 2007, 10:33 AM Post subject:

Didn't Lewis KO Ruddock in the 2nd? :?

iamasadlittleboy · Joined: 06 Oct 2006 Posts: 4728

your right >_< typo >_<

Martin · Posted: November 18 2007, 23:52 PM Post subject:

I'll give you my honest opinion on your piece imasadlittleboy.

1st, I liked it, mind, Lennox Lewis is my favourite fighter and I enjoy reading all articles on him. I quite enjoyed the different angle you approached it from making it seem much more 'in the pub chatting' rather than official article. That's not a bad thing and can sometimes make it more fun/interesting to read because it's different. My only picks at it are the;

Quote: (Technical Knockout-often used as a term for when a fighter has beaten the count but can't continue)

&

Oh and I almost forgot about the most obvious difference, the helmets worn in the am. game aren't even considered for the professionals except in sparring.

I thought some of these inserts ^ were unnecessary, especially considering you're placing the article on a boxing website. Unless you wrote the article mainly for someone/people that don't know the first thing about boxing? 'i.e. A college piece written for a lecturer or a piece written about Lewis for a non-boxing magazine or paper?

I hope you see this as constructive criticism :)

WelshDevilRob · Joined: 29 Jan 2006 Posts: 13405 Location: Cardiff, Wales

Very good read and I always like reading about Lennox Lewis (my favourite fighter).
The only thing that could be added is regarding some of his opponents like Golota, Tua and Grant who many tipped to beat Lennox Lewis.

Great summary and just shows what a great career Lennox had.