THE PROBLEM with too many heavyweights of the modern era is that they lacked stability, serenity and intelligence. They could not control their demons. They lacked maturity and emotional discipline. Just look at the careers of Mike Tyson, Buster Douglas, Gerry Cooney, Tim Witherspoon, Trevor Berbick, Michael Moorer, Michael Grant, Shannon Briggs, Greg Page, Michael Dokes, Leon Spinks, Andrew Golota, Riddick Bowe, Mitch Green and Tony Tubbs.
They were all underachievers; their potential was never fully achieved because of personal problems and psychic fractures. So I’ve admired Lennox Lewis because he gets the most out of his God-given skills. And he is a grown-up, an adult who can command his emotions. He does not have a rap sheet. He does not contribute to the tabloid spectacles that make boxing look like more a circus than a sport. He adds dignity and class to a sport that has been losing popularity and credibility since Ali’s retirement.
It said more about America than about Lennox Lewis that the crowd in Memphis last June seemed to contain more Mike Tyson fans than Lennox Lewis fans. Lewis dominated the fight with a contained precision performance. But when the fighters came to the ring, the rapist got the louder cheers from the high-roller, celebrity-filled unsophisticated and nationalistic crowd. They didn’t even appreciate Lewis’s witty chosen music to accompany his walk to the ring-Bob Marley’s “Crazy Baldheads.” Tyson was bald and possibly crazy, and Lewis shared Jamaican roots and dreadlocks with the reggae star who wrote “Redemption Song,” which Lewis got that night.
What follows are five reasons to appreciate Lennox Lewis as a fighter, and a man, while he is still active, regardless of what happens Saturday in his title defense against Vitali Klitschko, the 6-foot-8 Ukrainian. I offer them without sentiment, romanticism or exaggerating Lewis’s standing in history.
He is not, after all, in the elite pantheon of the greatest “pound for pound” heavyweights-Ali, Joe Louis, Jack Johnson and Rocky Marciano. But I do place him squarely in the second tier of immortals-Gene Tunney, Joe Frazier, George Foreman, Larry Holmes, Ezzard Charles, Evander Holyfield and Jack Dempsey. (I rate Dempsey lower than others do because he drew the color line and never defended his title against a black fighter like Harry Wills or Sam Langford, who Dempsey ducked even though Langford was past his prime, much smaller and blind in one eye.)
Lewis has dominated the 1993-2003 era by beating Tyson, Holyfield, Bowe as an amateur and then the only two fighters who ever defeated him-Hasim Rahman and Oliver McCall. If Lewis were a president, I would rate him with Theodore Roosevelt and JFK, just below Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and FDR.
So here’s why we should appreciate the sunset of Lennox Lewis.
- He is a complete prize fighter. He has an exquisite left jab, landing 109 out of 205 jabs-an unusually high percentage-during his eight-round deconstruction of Tyson. He has a classic right-hand punch. He has a spectacular uppercut that almost decapitated Michael Grant, who emotionally hasn’t gotten up yet. He has good balance and swift movement. He has become an excellent finisher, a patient hunter. He has supreme confidence in himself.
And he is a chess player who can think, adjust and improvise during a fight. He made shrewd tactical adjustments during his fights with Holyfield and Rahman. He can think on his feet. He is mentally tough.
Lewis also has a dollop of fear, which makes him better, not worse. This bit of apprehension makes a fighter train, prepare and analyze. It makes him careful rather than reckless. Some great fighters were just fearless and loved to fight, like Joe Frazier, Henry Armstrong and Carmen Basilio. But others had that trace of concern and used it to their advantage, like Ray Robinson, Roy Jones Jr., and Willie Pep. They did not want to get hit. They disciplined their minds so they looked fearless and invincibly confident. But Robinson didn’t even enjoy boxing after he killed Jimmy Doyle in a 1948 match. Boxing was just “a job” to its Shakespeare.
Lewis needs this edgy sliver of caution because he does have one vulnerability: his beard, as they say in the gym. He has twice been knocked out with a single punch. He may have taken a few extra rounds to dispose of Tyson out of this tactical apprehension. This caused his esteemed and exasperated trainer, Emmanual Steward, to famously yell at him between rounds, “You got a dead man in front of you! Get this motherf-ker outta here!”
But it is also possible that Lewis (who does have a streak of street meanness in him) just wanted to punish Tyson for biting him at the press-conference mayhem and saying he wanted to eat Lewis’s children and “smear his brains all over the ring.” Also, Tyson ducked Lewis, giving up a belt rather than fighting him-just as Riddick Bowe did, when he threw his belt in a trash bin.
- Lewis is a gentleman and a professional. He insists on his zone of privacy, but he is always polite and helpful to fans and reporters.
Some fans seemed to resent his elegant cockney accent and reserved manner, but that is no reason to underestimate him as a champion. In his era of spoiled, surly athletes, fans have defined deviancy down to zero. After a decade of Albert Belle, Dennis Rodman and Mike Tyson, Lewis might seem like a banker or accountant. But the fault is our tabloid culture and vulgar expectations rather than Lewis himself.
It is useful to remember how guarded and polite Joe Louis was. And Ray Robinson. And Rocky Marciano. And Tony Zale. Marvin Hagler and Tommy Hearns have dignity and class. Archie Moore was a prince-with a personality. Foreman started out as Liston, and has ended up as Ali. There have always been wild beserkers in boxing: John L. Sullivan, Dempsey, LaMotta, Greb, Ketchell, Roberto Duran. Sonny Liston was not such a nice guy. Neither was Rubin Carter. Zab Judah and Floyd Mayweather seem intoxicated with vanity.
Lennox Lewis is decent, likeable, and honorable. We should be glad for this, not penalize him, or demean him, for his good manners and thoughtful temperament.
- He avenged his two losses. We should recognize what an accomplishment it was for Lewis to come back and stop the two fighters who stopped him-Rahman and McCall. This revealed character, adaptability and resilience.
Many first-rate fighters have failed to recover from their first defeats, especially if they were decisive knockouts. Prince Naseem has not recovered from his loss to Marco Antonio Barrera. Tito Trinidad has not come back from the beating Bernard Hopkins administered to him. Tyson never was the same fighter after Buster Douglas knocked him out in Tokyo in 1990. It took Foreman 10 years to recover from his loss to Ali in Zaire.
Only the best of the best avenge defeats: Louis over Schmelling, Robinson over LaMotta, Ali over Frazier, Leonard over Duran. Lewis was able to rise from his two setbacks, rebuild his self-esteem and become an avenging angel. Anybody can get knocked down in the ring or in life. I measure them by what they do after they get up.
- We should be grateful to Lewis for vanquishing Tyson last June. If Tyson had won, we would have been stuck with an unstable rapist and ear-biting cannibal as our heavyweight champion and role model for the hip-hop generation. A brutish, self-destructive manic-depressive would have been encamped even more prominently on our television screens and front pages. Lewis beat up the playground bully and chased him out of the neighborhood.
“Boxing has a bad name, and Tyson is the reason,” Lewis said before the fight. His diagnosis and remedy were both accurate.
- At 37, Lewis is not going to be around much longer. His match this Saturday with Vitali Klitschko could be his next to last. We are not going to see much more of him. And there are only duller and less gifted heavyweights on the horizon.
David Tua seems to have the fighter’s equivalent of a writer’s block-he just doesn’t throw enough punches. Chris Byrd is a wonderful defensive artist, but he is about as exciting as paint drying. Wladimer Klitschko, Vitali’s brother, was knocked out by the 37-year-old Corrie Sanders. Michael Grant is done. Tyson is a sideshow who doesn’t seem eager to fight anyone who can move or is not afflicted with terror. The division has no bench. Lewis may have to fight Roy Jones–a genius, but 50 pounds smaller-if he wins on Saturday.
So let’s appreciate the slow sunset of Lennox Lewis. It is more dazzling than everyone else’s high noon.
